Category: Reflections

This certainly is the season of peak bleakness here. It’s dark when I get up. Dark before supper. The leaves have all fallen, leaving a forest of standing skeletons. The sun rarely breaks through the clouds these days.

But what about the owls who come out at night? Is this the happiest time of the year for them? So many more hours of hunting for them. At the end of June are they despondent at the long days, wondering if darkness will ever return? Do they have rituals they perform to their gods to bring back the night? Maybe that is what all their hooting is about in the summertime.

All the rain and wet is no problem for the ducks. This is a happy time of the year for them too. Though when it comes to ducks on a pond, when are they not happy? I’ve noticed that ducks are somewhat nocturnal. They must have good night vision. They are often active at night.

In fourteen days, on Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 7:59 am Pacific Standard Time, 6:59 am Pacific Day Light Savings Time, right about when I am having my morning coffee, it all changes and the light begins to return.

In ancient times, many wondered if spring would return. People danced, they prayed, they burnt offerings, hoping that the gods would take away the darkness. We don’t worry about those things anymore. We can count down to the millisecond when the earth passes that spot in its orbit around the sun where the days in the northern hemisphere start to lengthen. It will happen no matter what we do, gods or no gods. There is nothing for us to do but relax and enjoy that millisecond.

Every so often a sunset comes along that makes you stop what you are doing. This evening was such a sunset.

The clouds over the Chuckanuts were on fire when I went to the Post Office this evening.

I pulled off the road three times to take it all in. And by the time I arrived at the Post Office the show was over. The sun dipped behind the horizon and extinguished the fires in the clouds.

The cottonwoods have turned. As colorful as they are, standing tall against the sky, they aren’t an honest depiction of what this season is like. To convey this season, I should post pictures of near total darkness. It’s dark in the morning. It’s dark by late afternoon. It’s dark most days with heavy clouds obscuring the mountains and the sun.

One last Dahlia adds some brightness. Each day is darker than the day before, but in just five and a half weeks the days will start to lengthen. We humans can’t help but have at least one toe in the future. The swans are back, foraging in the fields. They just arrived, but are some of them already planning their trips back north? Are some counting the days until they can go home?

Snow is back on the foothills. On cloudy days, it’s impossible to see how low or how high up the hills the snow is. But when the clouds part, it’s easy to picture foxes playing in fresh snow high up on the foothills.

If you’re not satisfied with enough, you’ll never be satisfied with more. There are a number of variations of this saying by Epicurus. The insight is as meaningful now as when Epicurus said it thousands of years ago.

One potato satisfies me, so when I bring in a basket of potatoes from the garden, I have no problems being equally satisfied. And there is a fat leak as well.

The first frost of the season happened this morning. Each fall, the first frost of the season is as delightful as all the first frosts of years past. They are a sharp reminder that winter is coming. Touch the frosty grass and your fingers sting from the cold. First frost mornings are transformative.

So how many pies can I make out of these pumpkins? Few garden plants are as exuberant as pumpkins. World domination is on their minds as they spread their vines and huge leaves. Seemingly out of nowhere, bright yellow, huge pumpkins appear under their thick leaves.

Yesterday, I noticed that the forest floor had an abundance of mushrooms. Not surprising considering the moist, cool weather we’ve had lately. But as I looked at the variety of mushrooms sprouting everywhere, I had to check under the cedar trees where two falls ago, I found a bounty of shaggy parasol mushrooms. Last year there were none.

But this year, they are back. Lots of them. For a week or two, we’ll feast on them. I may even try drying some. I read that if you dry them and let them age, they taste even better.

September is grape season here, so the chickens are grateful. One variety of grapes has small grapes with big seeds. There are other grapes with larger grapes and no seeds, so these seeded grapes are mostly for the chickens. Toss a basket of grapes and the chickens come running to feast on them.

The clouds this time of year are entertaining. Each day different types of clouds float by. These wispy ones from last week were captivating.

The mornings are brisk these days. Brisk enough to begin coloring the maple tree.

Early this morning, while the dew was still heavy, I found a bumble bee waking up on an artichoke flower, its wings wet with dew. When I find bees who’ve spent the night on a flower, I wonder if they arrived too late to go home the night before, or are they worn out and on their death beds, too worn out to make it home? I guess if I were a bee, I might prefer to rest my weary body on a comforting flower instead of struggling to make it back to the nest.

There’s a sadness to their short lives. I’m sure they don’t feel sad. Buzzing from flower to flower all day long is their joy.

A small spider has made a home on the same artichoke flower. It’s as colorful and dazzling a world as any tropical coral reef, only it’s just a few steps from the front door. It’d be fun living in a home made of soft, blue-purple rods that tower above you and through which you slither through.

Our smokey skies did not linger long. For three days smoke choked the skies until fresh air from the Pacific pushed it away. We are back to August blue skies and filling our lungs with sweet air.

The sun is not like a friend who drops by and lingers, laughing and conversing without any regard for time. The sun is madly punctually, down to the nano second. Though, really, it’s the spinning earth that is refusing to give us any additional summer. It is going to stay on time, spinning around the sun, no matter what.

Summer is slipping away, bit by bit. Already the mornings feel more fall like that summery. This morning it is 47ºF – 8ºC. We’ve had a few very autumny rains, cool and refreshing. It’s no longer light at four in the morning. Dusk falls earlier each day.

It’s time to savor summer’s sweet fruits. Blackberries are coming on strong. Soon the grapes will be ripe, followed by the apples. Then summer will be gone for good.

The one thing good about the sun being so punctual is that we know when the sun will rise and set a thousand years from now. You can’t say that about any friend.

Smoke flowed over the Cascades and into our lovely valley yesterday. This morning we woke up to dreaded Martian skies. Orange skies in August and September are becoming an unwelcome pattern. The forecast is for winds from the west to move the smoke back over the mountains again by the end of the weekend.

Pumpkin and squash flowers have plenty of room for multiple bees. Every flower has their own strategy to attract pollinators. Pumpkins must provide an all-you-can-eat buffet, as the bees spend a long time in each flower.

Like an alien spaceship, vine maple seeds appear to be poised, ready for takeoff. The right amount of air will provide the lift needed for their propellors to spin and take flight. Somewhere in the woods, there must be a little spider that knows when to climb onto these vine maple seeds to experience an exhilarating ride.

On Sunday the morning clouds were magical, feathery shapes. You wonder what it would feel like if these clouds would brush against you. They appear softer than silk. Yet, they are mostly ice crystals, so the sensation may be startling.

On days like these, you want to drop everything, lie down on the grass, and watch the clouds all day. Employers let workers take off sick days and personal days. Maybe they should add Cloud Days for those days when the clouds are special.

Over the last few decades, Japan has added a number of national holidays to encourage workers to take more time off and to give the tourist industry a boost. Instead of conjuring up holidays commemorating historical figures, in 1996 came Ocean Day in July, in 2005 came Green Day at the end of April, and in 2016 came Mountain Day celebrated in August. The good thing about celebrating the ocean, forests and plants, and mountains, is that no one is going to accuse any of those things as having misbehaved.

Cloud Day certainly is a prime candidate for a national holiday. Life on earth would not be possible as we know it without clouds. Celebrate the things that make life possible.

Other candidates for national holidays would be River Day, Bird Day, Fish Day, Flower Day, Star Day, Rock Day, Sun Day, Moon Day, and Shooting Star Day.

By late afternoon, the clouds morphed into shimmering scales. And at dusk all that remained of the clouds were thin strands flowing like streams to the north east. All in all a very rich Cloud Day.

Most of my life I’ve been lucky to live in places where clouds entertain nearly every day of the year. I’ve spent some years in places where days and days go by without a single cloud in the sky. My heart goes out to those who must endure cloudless days on end.