Joys of Autumn

We in Boulder did end up getting our first snowfall of the season last weekend.  It happened Sunday night.  It was very light and the ground is still so warm that it only stuck in the trees and on the mountains.  It was completely gone by mid morning but it sure made the work commute nice what with the mountains being dusted.

Since then we've had picture perfect fall weather.

Gerard and I started the weekend Saturday morning with a raid on the the farmer's market there are only two left this season), ran into some friends, loaded up for the week and on items to be canned, and then headed up the Peak to Peak Highway to Rocky Mountain National Park for our annual aspen and elk rut viewing.  We were a little late this year and missed peak season.  The elk weren't putting on much of a show so we headed to the shops in Estes Park.  We scored much better there.  We bought an amazing bedroom set all hand made from old barn wood by a craftsman in Wyoming.  I sold what little bedroom furniture I had when I moved to Colorado almost 2 years ago, so I was ready to get the mattress off the floor and my clothes in a real chest of drawers.  

This morning we got up early and tended our garden.  It was the beginning of the fall clean up.  We harvested most of what's left in the garden: purple potatoes, carrots and a whole lot of tomatillos.  That's me plucking tomatillos and pulling up spent plants.

I spent the afternoon canning the 25 pounds of tomatoes from yesterday's farmer's market and baking four loaves of bread.  This was a prelude to cooking dinner and preparing lunches for tomorrow.  It still strikes me as odd to think of this as "fun," but it is.  As many good times as I've had over the years partying, I can't say any of it ever felt as rewarding as my free time does now.  Not that I regret the past.  I don't.  I think I just got burnt out on urbania.  It started to feel so empty and pointless and unsustainable to me.  I guess it felt more like a distraction than my actual life.  I don't at all regret the past, but I wouldn't trade the present for anything.  There's nothing quite like direct provider of your own food, from seed to table, from season to season, and in resuming some role, even if only at the margins, in the cycle of life as nature designed it.  

As a special treat to end the weekend, just before sunset I spotted a hornet nest hidden away in a tree by the river.  Everywhere I am surrounded by the wonders of nature, big and small.