Shades of Autumn (photo heavy again!)

This has been an autumn of incomparable beauty in these parts!

Do I say that every year?

I believe I do and, yet, this year seems special. It might be because I have taken more than the normal number of opportunities to get out and enjoy this fall. I’ve taken multiple leaf-peeping drives with my mom, made that trip to the Wild Center with Don, and had a bracing walk in the woods with a friend.

I’ve sought out autumn color, in panoramic views.

And up close.

In the mountains.

Incomparable views

And by the lake.

Bright.

And subtler.

In my own yard.

The best thing about autumn here, maybe, is that it shows up everywhere. Even on the ugliest commercial highway, I’ll see one glorious tree. Or in a muddy patch, one bright leaf. At every turn of the road, is a new reason to gasp out loud and stop and admire.

This year I’ve made a point to drive rural roads where there’s so little traffic I can hit the brakes, put the car in reverse, and go back to take a good look at a view I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye.

And try to capture it in a photo, or ten, to share with you.

And still, I never, ever, feel like the photos do justice to the scenes. The colors don’t sparkle, the leaves don’t shimmer in the crisp breeze, and photos can’t convey the glory of it all.

And yet every year I try.

So here you have Autumn 2019. It was all an autumn should be.

The big rains and wind came a couple days ago and took most of the leaves down.

And we are reminded again of the evanescence of beauty, the moment that passes too quickly, that “nothing gold can stay.”  We must appreciate the gold, and the good, while we can.

Adirondack Extravaganza: The Wild Center (photo heavy!)

Nothing lights a fire under a lapsed blogger like a blog-worthy outing!

And we took a quintessential autumn outing this week—to the Wild Center of the Adirondacks.

I’ve written elsewhere about this region of upstate New York I call home. The Adirondack Park is “the biggest natural park in the lower 48 states. It can hold Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Glacier, and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks inside its borders.” 

About 20 years ago, the idea surfaced to build a natural history museum in the ADK Park.

Does that sound boring? It is anything but!

From that initial germ of an idea came the Wild Center, an amazing outdoor/indoor set of experiences that explains, informs, and celebrates the environment in these mountains.

Making the trip in autumn gave us the bonus of a glorious drive.

The Center is in the town of Tupper Lake, about 1.5 hours by car from our house.

The otter logo

And a view from across the lake

I could relay all kinds of facts and figures but the website does that better.

I’ll just show you some photos.

Planet Adirondack, a huge globe in a darkened hall, allows visitors to see storms across the earth in real time.

The animal inhabitants of the region, some living, some still informative in their preserved states.

Art of the indigenous peoples of the region and a place to make your own art

And a display to warm the heart of a weaver.

The Wild Center opened in 2006 but just a few years ago they added the Wild Walk. And what a wild and wonderful walk it is!

The attention to deal is amazing

Lots of information

. . . and inventive ways to bring it alive

A small vignette along the way

The seat of the swing says “Soar from tree to tree”

Every inch of concrete walkway is imprinted with twigs and pine needles

Some birds stay all winter

And some birds go

The Wild Walk rises gradually from the forest floor to the level of the treetops.

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And if . . .

a serene walk is more . . .

your speed, . . .

they have that, too.

I can’t imagine a better place to teach about and honor the wonders of this region. And, even better, it’s all accessible to people of all generations and abilities!

We have many reasons to return:

• to see the otters playing in their waterfall. They were shy the day we were there;
• to see the place without marauding hordes of 12-year-olds. We arrived just as many buses unloaded kids on field trips;
• to get a photo of me on the spider web! I really, really wanted that photo  . . . but not with hordes of 12-year-olds;
• and to absorb more of the vast amount of information and experiences offered.

The lovely news is that we were given free passes to return! When we were leaving, I asked at the main desk for a phone number so, next time, we can call ahead to ask about the school trips (and avoid them!) The admissions manager overheard me and gave us passes to come back, as well as that phone number.

If you were visiting me and wanted to understand this part of our world, I would take you to The Wild Center.

And I would show you a moose:

Autumn Respite

It seems the internet and airwaves are awash with bad/crazy/scary news. I care about it all and am paying attention and cannot wait until next Tuesday, when I will be pressing my nose up against the window at my local polling place, eager to vote.

And yet . . . one needs a break. One needs a reminder that our world isn’t only bad/crazy/scary. You, my blog friends, offer many and excellent reminders of that. And I want to contribute my own, from my lovely part of the world.

Autumn has been awesome this year. It’s always my favorite time of year, here in upstate New York, in the Adirondack Mountains, near Lake Champlain. But this year the color of the trees, in addition to being bright, has persisted longer than usual or so it seems to me. A few trees fade and more have taken their place.

I can’t give you the freshening breeze that makes the leaves dance and sparkle. I can’t give you the tang of woodsmoke or the crunch of dry leaves beneath your feet. I can’t give you the snap of an Autumn Crisp apple or the sound of the snow geese as they make their raucous way south.

But I can give you the sights of autumn. Many, many sights of autumn. You can click on them as you choose . . . I just know I feel better having been out there, in our pretty world.

 

Such gem-like kernels

Tree in transition

These vines turn red

Cemeteries in autumn

Maple gives us red

Love these!

Indian corn

Even the government building looks good!

An early bit of color against the green

I love a good cemetery

Don’t you?

I call this “curb appeal” for that home!

Those vines again!

One bright red maple!

Panorama with horses

I take this photo every year

My cute mom and cute pumpkins

The mountains glow with color

Historic building and great tree

What would you call this color?

Tree is partly dead, partly brilliantly alive

And folks are still sailing

Are you sick of photos yet?

We found this flag on a deserted beach

A bucolic North Country scene

A highpoint of the season

Jamaicans come every year, to pick

Different stages of color

With tree-size driftwood

 

The North Country’s Revenge

Every spring, I desire revenge.

Spring comes to the entire rest of the northern hemisphere before it gets to us, you see.

For months, from February on, I look at your photos of snowdrops, of crocus, of hellebores and daffodils.

I see tiny buds sprouting on your trees and read your descriptions of warm, sweet-smelling breezes. All while my world and any promise of spring are still covered in drifts of snow. I get a little bitter, looking at your spring.

And, by the time spring arrives to me and my snowdrops and daffodils show their pretty faces, people are tired of looking at snowdrops and daffodils and have moved on from the rapture of spring.

It’s not just me—Facebook users and bloggers all over the Northeast know my pain.

But, this is the time of year we get our revenge!

Because we have autumn in the North Country of upstate New York, in the Adirondacks, and all over New England.

We have glorious, perfect autumn here. It comes early and seems to last and last.

We have apples. We have pumpkins. We have mountains and lakes and a sky that is Adirondack blue. Click on the thumbnail photos and drink it in!

 

Or at least the sky is Adirondack blue when it isn’t some moody and evocative shade of autumn.

We have oaks and poplars, and birches and beeches, and ash trees, and their leaves all turn fabulous colors.

But, more important, we have maple trees.

We have maples that turn flaming red and orange. They aren’t satisfied with giving us the gift of sap for maple syrup in the spring. Every fall, the maple trees up the ante on themselves, and they give us glory.

This photo is not the most spectacular but it shows exactly what this part of the world looks like right now. All the ingredients—the colorful foothills of the Adirondacks, the remnants of corn that has been stored as ensilage for cows, the bright trees against an Adirondack blue sky, and the ladder reaching into an apple tree, providing access to that perfect autumn fruit.

So, in the spring, when you are parading your colors and beauty, I’ll be enjoying them. But, I’ll also be sighing and waiting for mine, in October.

Revenge is sweet.

I wish I could say I took this photo but it’s by Brendan Wiltse. https://www.facebook.com/brendan.wiltse.photography/