Old rock, "new" rock

My apologies for the lack of posts.  I’ve been harboring a cold and have done little except wrap myself in a blanket and drink gallons of hot tea.  I am over the worst of it now and so am beginning to venture out again, if not venturing very far just yet. 

 An advantage of not being able to venture too far is that I am looking more closely again at the forest around my cabin.  Today, the boulders that line the lane and my own front forest caught my attention.  In summer the rocks are nearly hidden by annual growth, and it’s only in the leafless seasons that I can see them well.

The weathered and cracked boulders are the most typical of the rocks here.  These are desk-sized rocks that have been exposed to the elements for who knows how many years.  Exposure to ice and rain are doing their best to break them into the smaller rocks that are even more numerous all around on the forest floor.  These little rocks were former boulders, still working their way down in size into ever smaller rocks. The boulders are home to moss and lichens, too.  Sometimes a small fern, usually a Christmas fern, manages to find enough of a foothold to grow in one of the cracks.

And then I have what I call the “new” rocks.  They are not new in the sense of overall age. Likely, they are as old as any of the other rocks around the mountain.  But they are newly exposed to the elements and so are not yet cracked and worn or split into small pieces. 

These rocks were exposed less than 50 years ago, when the lane up the mountain was first built.  My lane is not the first road up the mountain, and it may have even been created from an older, narrower road that ended at a sadly gone log cabin. (I was fortunate enough to see that abandoned cabin in the first years I lived here, before it was damaged by a large tree and then vandalized by late night partyers.) Today, these newly exposed rocks line the lane.  They are smooth and bright, usually square-ish.  Weather has not yet taken its toll on them and won’t for who knows how many more years.  But now that they are exposed to sunlight and rain, that slow destruction will begin.  None of us will see that, of course, and perhaps humans won’t even be around the earth anymore when that happens.  But it will happen.  Time is patient.

Embracing the dreariness

I am enjoying a dreary November day.  It is a bit foggy and overcast, so the day is dark.  The air is still and the trees are bare.  It’s chilly.  I had a fire in the fireplace this morning and may need one again before long.  For now, I am wrapped comfortably in a wool sweater, my hands warmed by a cup of hot chocolate.  This is how November should be.  At least it’s what I think of when I think of November. 

Novembers should be chilly and raw, not sunny and bright like an October afternoon.  So in an odd way, the dreariness makes me happy. Today feels like a normal November day, dreariness and all.

Dark and dreary

It was so dark and dreary this morning that I was late getting up.  I kept waiting for some semblance of daylight to appear, and it never did.  A black cloud hung heavily over the mountain, so even at 7 a.m. I needed a headlamp for a little while, and Doodle the rooster didn’t crow until almost 7:30 a.m.

The rain, while not heavy, was cold and the breeze blew little slivers of it onto my face, stinging it.  Even the Shelties were happy to turn around and head back to the cabin this morning and that has to be a first!  Birds were hunkered down in whatever shelter they could find, but a great horned owl was still calling just before 8 a.m. 

By afternoon, the day improved, and the sky soon filled with turkey vultures and a pair of red-tailed hawks.  The little birds came out of hiding too.  It is, after all, November and this is how November is supposed to be.  Or even colder, though it’s still sort of early enough in the month to let that pass for now.  Here on my mountain, November is a transition month.  It can be a leaf-less repeat of October, or it can be winter.  So far, this November is milder than average, but with the coldest part of the month still ahead, it’s too soon to complain about just how mild it’s going to be.

Instead, on this chilly and blustery morning, the dogs got a bit of a walk.  When we returned to the cabin, we had a fire in the fireplace, and I had a cup of hot chocolate, and that was enough to scare away the chill. 

Early morning frost

Roundtop has had both frosts and freezes this fall, but this morning was the first hard frost where I could get a photo.  Even though the temperature was a chilly 27 for a few minutes this morning, as soon as the sun rose above the horizon, the warmup began.  Now, just 3 hours after the early morning frost, the temperature is already up to 50, and the frost is long gone. The photos are all that is left.

I like the shadow of the rising sun’s rays on the oak leaf.  You just know that frost will be gone momentarily.  The photo captures the coming warmth of the day in the sun shadows while still showing the result of a cool night. Most of the leaves are down now.  The few that are left are no longer even bronze but are more like a deep copper.  The color is not much different than the color of the bark of the trees, so the forest is nearly monochromatic today.  Even so, I find this a pretty time of year. The long vistas are back.  I can see the mountain to the west, the pond to the north.  I can even monitor the chickens’ whereabouts instead of just hearing their scratching.

I can see the sky again, and monitor the coming rain without having to leave the cabin to find a patch of open sky.  Already the air has a chill, nearly raw feel to it.  I was forced to clear as many leaves off the decks that I can, to avoid a sodden mess when the rain comes.  Likely, my work will only be partly successful, as more leaves are already coming down.  I hope the most of them are removed, but one good wind gust before the rain will be enough to negate my work. 

November's forest light

The first few days of November have been atypically warm, more like mid-October than the blustery weather that is more expected.  I find it hard to complain much about 70 degree weather and gorgeous late fall light.  The fall colors that remain have faded from brilliant yellows and reds into shades of bronze, but the mountains are still beautiful.

The leaves of summer now litter the forest floor, and it is impossible to walk quietly.  The leaves, as yet undampened, are as crunchy as crumpled paper and as light and airy as snowflakes.  The Shelties are belly-deep in leaves, and they are above ankle deep for me.  So it is difficult on this rare November day to grouse about temperatures so far above normal.  Instead, I simply enjoy the afternoon, marveling in the golden shades of light.

So many leaves are off the trees now that for the first time, I can see the mountain to the west of me, though it is not yet as clear a view as I will have when all the leaves are down.  I can see partway down the mountain, now, and the porchlight from across the valley bobs in and out of view at night with every slight breeze.

The sweet little fawns of summer have no clue about the winter ahead or the fall hunting seasons.  They stand still as I drive by, Baby Dog hanging out a rear window staring at them.  But she doesn’t bark and the now spotless fawns don’t flee.  A few birds of summer remain or perhaps they are birds that nested much further north than here that have now reached this area in their flight south.  A palm warbler, about the same color as its surroundings, pops up among a host of goldfinch, juncos and song sparrows.  We stare at each other for a second or two and then it is off.  I hope the warm weather is an aid to its southbound journey and that its travels are safe. 

Leaves falling down

This is the week of leaves falling down at Roundtop.  Leaves are everywhere, floating down like rain and crunchy underfoot.  So far no rain has dampened them or turned them into a sodden mess, the first step of decaying into new forest soil.

For the first time since May I can see the outline of Nell’s Hill to the west.  I can not yet see the porch light of my nearest western neighbor, who lives a mile or so down the mountain, across the narrow valley, across Beaver Creek, over the swampy area and starting up the next mountain.  When I can see those lights, I’ll know winter is approaching and that all the leaves are down.

So far this season, I have seen little signs of waterfowl migration.  I would have expected that to have started by now, but not even migrating geese have been spotted.  The local geese honk and fly over on their nightly rounds, pretending or perhaps thinking about migrating.  The instincts are there for them, even if they don’t head south.  A quick trip to Pinchot Lake this weekend saw it empty of any waterfowl, except for seven geese.  Those were certainly local birds, too.  Migration is late, perhaps a result of the warmer weather this week.

So this past weekend was a very nice one for the time of year, a tad warmer than it’s been and with no rain.  The photos with today’s post were all taken this weekend.  You can see that the brilliant falls colors are gone.  The leaves are not yet faded into all browns, but the drama of the season is past. It was a good time for enjoying the weather.  Not many more days this year can I expect the weather to be so balmy or so conducive to outdoor work.  I’ll take these lovely fall days however I find them.