Ram On: Fog, Fall, First Snow and First Fire in the Fireplace

10/11/12.  

Maple at Dry Creek, 10/11/12

It's a wet, foggy morning at Dry Creek after the first fall storm.  Sunlight peeks around the edges of the solid clouds that move along the mountain tops.  Amber and gold are everywhere--on the ash tree in the front yard of the trailer to the aspen with stark whit trunks beside the old pig shed.  I take the camera and cross the front yard, walk towards the canyon edge.  Fog hangs down in the golden bowl of cottonwood along Chalk Creek, the hills and ridges behind alive with color, rising up to freshly capped peaks, the first snow of the season.

Fog in the main (Chalk Creek)  canyon beyond my trailhead sign for Dry Creek Canyon

First snow of the 2012-2013 season.

Back inside, I wash dishes and watch wild turkey migrate slowly across the field, harvesting rye and cheat grass as they go.

Now I sit in the living room, watch the flames in the fireplace reflected in the front window lick the leaves of an oak outside the window--a sight so startling, I jump:  a Moses and the burning bush experience.

Paul McCartney's "Three Legs" from Ram plays on the stereo.  I glance up and Wow, grab the camera!  Light has spewed forth and the sodium softness of foggy dawn has caught fire like a redemptive sailor come home after a life of sin to settle down in his quaint New England town and spread his glorious smile all around.  "Have you seen that Bill Evans lately--What has gotten into him?"

Our giant ash.

Another bank of fog has moved in (along with clouds higher overhead):  subtle, cold, quiet--not fully visible, but blotting out detail and muting light.  If life were a movie, there would be a soft sad instrumental piece here, maybe long, low, strokes on a violin almost placed randomly.  Or perhaps McCartney's "Ram On."

But, in real life the stereo plays "Cross-Tie Walker" by Credence Clearwater Revival.  And that works too.

It's time to make bacon and waffles before the boys and I go out to work on the chicken coup.