It is only the 7th of October!


It is that time of year when all the cattle moves down to where they were dumped off last spring. We are a summer pasturing area. And most privately owned fields are connected by opened gates to public grazing lands. In the middle of summer all the cows and their calves are at the top of the mountains. And then by some signal only they know they start to head down.


About the same time, and maybe to the same obscure signal the birds begin to gather and head through to the south. The snow is a bit unusual for this early in October. The water isn't frozen and as soon as the sun comes up the snow will melt into the ground.


But this morning the snow covered the gold grass and the fog cloaked the mountains altering the familiar landscape of my mountain neighborhood. I wasn't dressed for the cold or the damp nor am I mentally prepared for winter which waits in the wings rather impatiently. I was happy to see the sun.


Comments

  1. LynOctober 8, 2012 at 7:01 AM

    Very dramatic shots, it's nice to see the season flow through your pictures and words.

    ReplyDelete
  2. CatherineOctober 8, 2012 at 7:49 PM

    Beautiful shots....but my goodness it IS too early for snow. (at least mentally that is). here we go again....was only 47 here in NC today. *sigh*

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousOctober 11, 2012 at 11:53 PM

    I couldn't have really asked for a much better blog. You are always at hand to provide excellent information, going straight away to the point for easy understanding of your subscribers. You're really a terrific pro in this arena. Many thanks for remaining there humans like me.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I write for me but I care what my readers think. Please be polite and no scamming.

Popular posts from this blog

Polyethylene Packaging - a Dark Times Journal entry

Image
I was in the fourth grade when our family moved from El Paso, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We moved because I could not breathe the air there. I want to say they cracked petroleum there. But what did I know beyond the sky was sometimes yellow and I could not breathe. Mom was pregnant with Debbie, and Gary and I rode in the backseat separated by a round tank full of Dad's tropical fish. Dad had a job with Sealright, Inc which made paper milk cartons. Sealright was a polyethylene packing subsidiary of Phillips 66. The petroleum company. I was rather proud of myself for learning to say that, and to not laugh when adults would stare at me not knowing what to ask about that. Albuquerque smelled better. Then. Before all the freeways were built and the shape of the valley trapped the exhaust down near the ground in the winter months. We lived in the foothills. I could breathe. I learned that if I could see the air I could not. Still it was better than El Paso though I missed our trip...
Read more

Swimming

Image
For much of my college career my fitness workout was swimming on the B squad of the swim team. I remember it as the days before heated pools and women coaches. I also remember being so exhausted and cold I could only lean against the shower wall and throw up. Not exactly warm fuzzy images but I was in awesome shape. Needless to say it did not leave me with a overpowering desire to swim laps. Point of fact for years my swimming became really informal: Swimming to shore after the canoe tipped over, challenging my sister once a summer to across the lake and back, seeing how long I could back float without moving a muscle, and a scuba course. I also played around with other ways of staying fit: aerobics, bicycling, jogging, skiing and dance classes. All of which seem to be bad for the knees, back or feet. After my ski accident my physical therapist steered me back to the pool. Damn if I was going to swim laps! However, aqua fit was just getting rather seriously taken so I took it. It r...
Read more

The Pruning the Crown of Thorns

Image
Crown of Thorns Before I am a lover of Euphorbias . They are from the deserts of Southern Africa and Madagascar. They have evolved physical characteristics and forms similar to cacti of North and South America and are often incorrectly referred to as cacti. My big Crown of Thorns was one of my first of a growing collection of these succulents from the spurge family of Euphorbiaceae. I picked it up as a 6 inch plant in a New Iberia nursery when my sister and I were touring the northern gulf coast. I believe that was 15 years ago. I made an attempt at limiting its height a few years back to allow it to devote more energy to the new branches and make it a denser plant. That failed. And the height of the plant continued to challenge the window space and soon the long branches were leaning over and leaning against the window. I googled and found the proper way to prune this treasured plant. Still it was very difficult to cut off the four longer branches. Even with a plan. The f...
Read more