Welcome to Autumn

Friday, September 21st.

A faint blush in the Eastern sky where autumn makes her first hesitant steps through the  hills and vales of the Lower Similkameen. 

 

Along the creekside waterways the poplar and the alder leaves are golden in the sunshine, where summer still lays claim to the afternoon, tossing her head at the calendar; warming the valley to shirt sleeve and shorts weather and leaving to autumn the alchemy of frosty nights.

 

In the garden once more the Abraham Darby delights

with its tightly packed petals, its perfume still as perfect now,

in its third flush as it was in June, newly blossoming.

 

 

A few feet away a passenger from the Chinese Underground Railway

alights at the new Depot, securely established as a Branch

from the hillside garden!

 

 

 

Yesterday afternoon I visited one of the many fruit stands

that line the highway west of Keremeos

looking for farm fresh eggs.

 

The market was bustling with travelers

and crammed with colourful bins of apples, pumpkins, squash

and nectarines side by each with all the wonderful fall vegetables.

 

Sid brought us two boxes of apples and I will set a large pan full of MacIntosh to simmer

for apple sauce and enjoy the marvelous combination of

apples cooking and cinnamon.

 

'By all these lovely tokens

September days are here

with summer's best of weather

and Autumn's best of cheer'.

Morning Road Trip

Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

Up early and on the road to Penticton to keep an 8.30 driving exam appointment.  The sky was the deepest blue and the sun was brilliant, - still low over the hills and shining directly into one's eyes,  which made things difficult for Charles, who was the one being examined, esecially as his eyes are very sensitive.

I find that one of the drawbacks to growing old is the enthusiasm the licensing people have for getting the elderly off the road and into a taxi or on to a bus, if your rural area happens to have such amenities.

The other is the sly way young whipper snapper clergy have of encouraging the elderly out of the traditional church to make way for The Emerging Church (secular...) - 'clearing the decks', the Archbishop called it.....

But I digress from our Road Trip.

We didn't linger in Penticton and on the way home I opened the window and snapped pictures as we flew along.  For the 632nd time I missed the lightning fast view we have of  Marron Lake and
the Kaleden Dam, through the trees and hundreds of feet below the road edge.

Charles, sweet man that he is, turned in a few yards up the highway, on to the Marron Valley road, which runs midway across the hills, through the Indian Reserve, coming out at Kusler's Ranch and joining the Green Mountain road through Allen Grove.  We never did get a view of the Lake and Creek, but what a beautiful drive we had.

The fall colours are not yet flamboyant, but rather soft and subtle and gently blended.  Here and there a clump of Rabbit Brush is a radiant yellow globe, crying to be taken home and turned into dye for sheep's wool, carded and spun and woven into a warm incandescent blanket.

 

 

 

We came home and had a nice afternoon nap.