Gold Leaf

Day 18: If Washington is girt with greens in spring with shades so numerous that thousands have no names, so too is the state gilt with golds in autumn. Warm and cool, dappled with rose and russet, they wait to be studded with silver raindrops to show their greatest glory. The hostas have met with first frost, changing almost overnight, but no less beautiful in their imminent collapse. And if autumn chills my feet, it also warms my heart, knowing that the Earth and Nature are ready for a bedtime story. It is time to rest, renew, reset, there to dream of warmer days and longer light.

The Turning of the Year

Day 344: It is the turning of the year. Seemingly overnight, the vine maples have gone from quietly suggesting colour to wearing it with flamboyance, hushing the voices of our thousand shades of green with their bold fashion statement. To my way of thinking, autumn in the Pacific Northwest eclipses that of the East where colour is everywhere. Our reds and golds are polka-dots on a fabric of evergreen, shock value in their propensity for showing off. "You think you're something, Doug-fir? Here. Hold my beer!" While the remainder of the deciduous crowd sits on the sidelines in shades of dingy gold and brown, vine maples do their stuff to the awe of the audience. Their only competition for Best of Show is the bright yellow of the tamaracks, but they're in another bar, over the mountains and down the other side. This, I predict, will be an Orange Year. Orange Years are the standard, and delight western Washington leaf-peepers. Red Years are to be treasured, few and far between, coming only when some mysterious combination of temperature and humidity allows. Brown Years, the sad and sorry years, are fairly rare, when the vine maples close up shop early, as if to say, "That's it. Done with this. I'm outta here. 'Bye!" 

Climbing Hydrangea

Day 14: When someone says they have a hydrangea in their garden, people usually think of a bushy plant with ball-shaped flower clusters, either pink or blue depending on species and soil pH. Hydrangea petiolaris ssp. anomala is an exception. As is suggested by its common name "Japanese Climbing Hydrangea," it grows up walls, rock faces, trellises or any other surface which can be gripped by its aerial rootlets (and trust me on this, it can grab onto surfaces you'd probably consider smooth). Its flowers are generally white and sparse, but what it lacks in floriferousness, it makes up for with autumn colour. As nights become cooler and dip near freezing, the foliage turns a rich golden-yellow, then shifts into a pleasant warm russet. The older stems/stalks are rather fragile, and mine had an unfortunate encounter with a riding lawnmower two years ago, but is now once again the dominant feature in my view from the kitchen window.

Patchwork

Day 360: The high country is clad in motley, performing its final botanical dance of the season with wild abandon. This, not the masses of wildflowers so loved by visitors, is the display which calls to my heart. In these colours, memories of frost outside my tent door shimmer, wraiths of mist rise from meandering springs in the golden first light of morning, and the crackle of grass beneath my boots sends hundreds of grasshoppers leaping from concealment as I climb a ridge still shadowed from the sunrise. A distant summit begs a visit, and I will climb above the last heather to its crest, there to look out on a panorama of huckleberry-red and willow-gold. Spiderwebs and raptors stitch the air, riding an invisible staircase of updrafts. But even now, the spirit of the high backcountry is donning her nightgown and preparing for a long winter's sleep beneath this patchwork. Together, we shall dream of sunlight and birds and solitude, and the return of Spring.

Autumn Wow

Day 345: A sure sign of Autumn's incursion, the vine maples are beginning to redden, and one of the best local displays is guaranteed to catch the eye of any hiker on the Park's Westside Road. At the base of Mount Wow's rugged slopes between Dry Creek and Fish Creek, the talus fields are covered with this native shrub. If you're thinking you'd say "Wow!" if you were standing here looking almost straight up, you'd be right in doing so, but wrong if you thought that was how the 5921' peak got its name. As the story goes, "wow" is a transliteration of a word from an indigenous language meaning "mountain goat," and indeed, the goats can often be seen precariously perched on the narrow ledges above the road. But there's one old goat who never made the summit of the massif, and probably never will. That's not to say I didn't make the attempt a few times, but never found a route which was not obstructed by dense vegetation or insurmountable cliffs. Still, were you standing here beside me, you might hear me say, "Wow!" I might be referring to the scarps above, or it might just mean I've spotted a sure-footed goat who has boldly gone where no Crow has gone before.

Fall Colour, PNW Style

Day 5: While the Pacific Northwest can't compete with the showy colours autumn brings to the eastern part of the US, we do have our specialties, one of which is Vine Maple (Acer circinatum). This species of small-leaved maple is rather variable in its response to climate conditions, and its displays appear to be affected by some magical formula which includes temperature, water availability, number of cloudy days and perhaps whether or not the full moon occurred on a Tuesday in July. Whatever it is, I have not been able to deduce the complex sequence of events which sometimes results in a "Red Year" as opposed to a brown one. Red Years can be spectacular. The present season is less than optimum, although this view, directly behind my mailbox, lights up even the darkest days of grey October gloom.

Pigments

Day 358: Every year, at least one person asks me why leaves change colour in the fall. Although there's a bit more to it, the basics are easy to understand. During the months of spring and summer, warm temperatures and length of daylight encourage the production of chlorophyll, the chemical substance which allows plants to convert carbon dioxide into starches and sugars. As nights grow cooler and daylight diminishes in autumn, the cells at the juncture of leaf and stem begin to thicken, restricting the uptake of carbohydrates. This process is called "abscission," i.e., "cutting off," and will eventually cause the leaves to fall. With the supply of carbohydrates limited, the chlorophyll begins to break down, allowing other pigments present in the leaf to become dominant visually. Different plants contain various levels of the different pigments, so those which have high concentrations of xanthophyll appear yellow, those with carotene appear orange, and those containing anthocyanins turn various shades of red. Other factors such as drought or an early frost may affect the colours as well.

Rainbow In The Garden

Day 8: Time for a confession, here...yes, I arranged this shot, but when I saw the brilliant colours of the dogwood leaf in proximity to the Lithodora, I couldn't resist the opportunity to capture a rainbow.

Most of the leaves are still hanging on our deciduous trees despite some rather windy conditions of late, the exception being the big-leaf maples which are starting to look weary of carrying their gold. Nearly all of the vine maples (a species with much smaller leaves) took a miss on turning red and went straight from an unenthusiastic yellow to a shopworn brown. The dogwood (a "red" cultivar in my yard) is green but dull and without its summer luster, though a few leaves like this one seem to insist that autumn is for celebrating. I'm sure it will convince its cousins before too long!

Heading Into Autumn

Day 1: 365 Caws began its run on October 14, 2010 with a one-year "mission statement" in response to a challenge from photographer friends who were engaging in various "365" projects of their own. Little did I expect that it would continue beyond that year! Today, 365 Caws enters its SEVENTH year of publication. If you're ever bored and need something to read, why not give the early years a look?

Heading into Autumn, the first storm of the season was predicted to hit last night, and while my wind chimes rang steadily for an hour or two, no truly strong gusts disturbed the night. However, almost two inches of rain fell in 24 hours, turning my driveway into muddy soup and pounding the last of the tomatoes into acceptance of their unavoidable fate. The deciduous trees are still hanging onto their slowly colouring leaves, most still green or red according to species, although the big-leaf maples in my neighbour's yard are starting to look tatty and worn. The pussywillow against the garage has shed the burden from its upper half into the recently-cleaned gutter, a complication induced by pure laziness on my part, not wanting to climb back up the ladder to remove the fallen foliage from the roof.

Still, I'm reluctant to take the 'yak rack off the car. I'd like to get in one more paddle on Lake St. Clair to check for more Sundew hibernacula, but that may resolve into a springtime project instead. The high country is certainly going to be closed to me by snow; as much as I love snowshoeing, I don't like driving on the stuff to get to the starting point. My lovely lichens will perk up now that they've had a good soaking, so my readers should expect more posts regarding the taxon I describe as "the wildflowers of winter."

A second, stronger storm is expected tomorrow night, possibly "historic" in nature if the forecasts are accurate. I'm hoping not!

Fall Colour

Day 357: The "drizmal" season has arrived, and already I'm longing for the backcountry, oppressed by rain and grey skies. It was just a week ago that I was stepping out among the brilliant colours of autumn, hiking in shirt sleeves to delight in the crispness of a September morning. The grey had not yet turned gray, a distinction in spelling which I employ to differentiate soft, comforting hues from those of gloom and foreboding so persistent in our Pacific Northwestern winters. An absence of sunlight does not bother me; born-and-bred Washingtonians regard the sun's shine as intrusive and painful. We revel in our overcast, despite the fact that our fellow photographers from elsewhere in the country invariably accuse us of having "blown out the sky," not understanding that white or grey are normal and blue is a rare exception. Neither do short days bother me to any great extent, but being penned indoors by cold, soaking rain pushes strongly against my tolerance for inclement weather. It came too fast, this shift to the dreariness of October, as if someone threw the switch and locked the doors behind Summer.