fall walks

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Fall came in and shoved all the summer pastels to the back of the closet bringing out the golds, the ambers, the deep rust colours. It’s as if Fall knows that gold tone eyeshadow makes blue eyes pop and is using the nearly iridescent gold leaves to show off the dazzling blue sky.

It’s unusually beautiful this year; drier than usual and no storms so far, so the leaves are staying as crisp as the fresh air. Makes for stunning walks and a yard carpeted with gold.

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Mr. Bear was out doing his fall fattening up and climbed over the fence onto my sundeck to chew a hole in the garbage can feasting on remnants of rotisserie chicken. Can’t really blame him for that – I’ve had much the same inclination to chew through a pizza box after catching a whiff of hot bubbling cheese on pepperoni pizza. Still, I don’t want to run into him again so the garbage cans are secured in the pump house for now.

The sound of a chainsaw singing its way through dry pine and the smell of wood smoke drifting by like the faint contrails of a jet off to somewhere….feels like picking the last of the crab apples to make beautiful clear jelly.

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As we rounded the corner on the homeward stretch of our walk, we ran into Young Buck. He said “Hey, how are you?” in quiet deer talk.  He said ” haven’t been around your place since I ate your spring tulips, but I’m out looking for a bedding down place under your trees for winter.  I always liked your yard”.  He and Jasmine stood for a minute looking at each other and I told him to go back into the forest until hunting season is over and he bounded away in disappearing in the trees.

I love fall in the north.

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i’ll give you a daisy a day, dear

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Our walks give us a changing mural as plants step forward to flourish in their short moments in the summer sun.  We always look forward to the daisies dancing in the sunshine along side the fireweed and purple clover.  They are the smiles of the group.

Such is our delight in wandering in the untamed “country” as opposed to the city.  Sure they have beautiful flower beds carefully tended by city workers, but we prefer our hikes where we discover wild raspberries and the pretty golden fox that flirted with us today.

I’m reminded of my friend who appreciates the “wild” and lives nestled in some hundreds of acres of wilderness that he explores with sled dogs in the winter and llamas in the summer. On a visit to a gated retirement city where snowbirds from Canada flock to in the winter, he told me the community was so manicured that he was pretty sure the few wild rabbits around there were bathed and fluffed up to be picture perfect and not really so wild.

Delighting in the exotic-to-us fresh oranges picked from the tree, he verified that there is indeed a tipping point in how many fresh oranges a person should devour in the novelty of the moment.  Much like me with fresh pineapple in Maui.  That tipping point.

But back to our daisies. Summer in the north of Canada is magical. Not manicured. Not managed.  With a growing season measured in weeks and daylight staying around until well past bedtime urging plants to show their stuff, it’s just magic.

Nope, no oranges to pick here, but enough daisies to “give you a daisy a day, dear and love you until the rivers run still and the four winds we know blow away”.

A Daisy a Day  – song by Ernest Tubb