Putting the Garden to Bed

Text by Greg
Photos by Trina and Greg

The autumn of the high country has slipped down the slope to find us in the garden. We've been harvesting bright tomatoes and the last of the outdoor herbs. We've gathered the last peppers, greens, eggplant, grapes and apples. Soon the nights will freeze hard, and soon after we'll bring in the last of the root crops.

The hardy greens have been banked with compost and leaf mulch where they may keep feeding us into the early cold weather. But the summer plants have been pulled out and Trina has cleaned out her water gardens -- the water lilies prepared to go dormant in the cold.

There is still work to do. But for the most part, the garden is finished for the season. Tucked away. Put to bed.

Inside the warm house, in jars, in the freezer, as sauces, as pickles, the garden bounty remains to remind us of the warmth of summer in each precious bite.

High Fall

Words and photos by Greg

The sun is swinging further southward through the sky each day. Morning and evening are marching toward each other, shortening the daylight hours by minutes from one day to the next. The season is sifting downward from above. High peaks have worn -- and shrugged off -- their first winter white. The shoulder mountains are warning of the change in blazing colors of caution as leaves flash and fall, showering the trails with golden payment on the path toward winter.

It is a fleeting season, and some years, more fleeting than others. To stand in one place and watch it pass makes it seem to pass more quickly. So we keep ourselves in motion. We install ourselves in a transitory moment with the hope that our speed will somehow draw out more of what we seek: to linger in a moment while moving through it.

A paradox, of sorts. Yet in this instance it may be possible. These autumn colors, high on the mountain slopes, are spilling downward. Tumbling along creek beds and pouring toward the valleys below. Color will spill from the aspen trees, through the slopes of oak brush, downward to willows and meadows, then pour along the cottonwood edges of rivers that carve themselves into desert canyons.

It is a season in motion, from high to low. Right now we revel in the high fall of aspen trees and pointed pines. But if we're clever, we'll be able to follow the moment, follow the motion, and linger in the colors of fall as they move forward into the weeks ahead.

Not Long Before the Fall

Photos by Greg

Summer has slipped away into cool mornings and crisp days. Colorful leaves are blowing through the gutters of town and the mountains glow with yellow. These photos, however, glance backward to late summer in a vain attempt to catch up.