Fenced in by Winter

Enough with the cold.
The snow.
The wind chill.

Enough!

So I added a little colour.
It’s warmer already.

Imagine

What if red was blue? Or green was yellow? How do such changes affect our sense of the world?

Playing with colour — as I’ve done with these sow thistle flowers gone to seed — shows me the familiar in unforeseen ways. I start to pay more attention. And I soon realize I don’t know as much as I thought I did.  🙂

---

Sow thistle   Sonchus arvensis

Fallen Timber

This creek ripples over rounded rock
Slips softly through reflections
Of tall spruce
Spilling green into
The disappearing days of autumn

 

The Artist

Autumn puts brush to palette
Blends rich colours on the board
Then lightly, deftly
Paints the forest floor.

Falling into Autumn

When autumn arrives in Alberta it doesn’t come with the glamour and flare of eastern Canada where colour spreads like wild fire across the landscape. Yes, aspens turn gold here and bring their share of ooo’s and ahhh’s with blue skies and dark spruce as a backdrop. And cities — with ever-increasing exotic plants and trees — have their share of colour.

I prefer the quiet corners and little seen spots where autumn colour, when I find it, brings a feeling of delight and joy, a special corner of the world.

Right now in our woods bunchberry is painting the understory with reds and purples. There’s dried grass. And fading leaves of lungworts, roses, fleabanes and strawberries.

It’s all a beautiful toss-up of colours and textures, a see-you-next-season greeting card just waiting to be discovered.

 

 

To See or Not to See

Would you recognize a raspberry leaf?

I was sure I would — I’ve been picking rasps since I was a kid. But what if that leaf was a different colour? What then?

Playing with colour on the computer my familiar raspberry leaf became unrecognizable. I realized I didn’t know this leaf as well as I thought.

Seeing is deceiving. 🙂

---

Raspberry   Rubus spp.

Impression: Spring Melt

A common roadside ditch

Filled with dry grass and rotting leaves
Gravel scrapings
Hoof prints and manure

Now, as winter melts into spring
It is a catch-basin of colour

Claude Monet, I think, might approve.