Not a frightening thought

The photo archives I was hoping to finish sorting remain unsorted as I cannot currently even keep up with the new influx and Fall is yet only just beginning.

The older I get, the faster days pass and the less I get done, but I do have an excuse, currrently.

Grant has turned his interest to bicycles. He was always keen, but since coming to live here, other things took up his time and his bicycle sat neglected in the garage.

But now it is back in favour and in need of parts, which has involved travelling here and there around the countryside. Second-hand bicycles have been acquired, repaired and re-sold, Grant is very good at this sort of thing. A few years ago it was sewing machines and gym equipment.

Well of course, I do not need to go along on these journeys but particularly at this time of year, I am loath to miss out. So, – an accumulation of photos that I haven’t time to get to.

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This fine day, we’d been to Bennington and took a more scenic route home looking for signs of colour which manifested only in very subtle touches of yellow, not just in the fields but in the trees if you looked closely.

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Though in the right light, it was much more obvious.

The grass really is that colour. I’m sure I don’t remember it being so bright when I was young, but perhaps I paid no attention then, or maybe it’s another effect of old age!

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The sugar maple which marks the end of our road is always among the first to turn and I noticed today many of the leaves are already down, but it will reawaken earlier, in the Spring.

It has only taken me 8 years to notice the pattern!

After all this time, I still see things in Nature as if for the first time, which makes me wonder how much I would have absorbed if I’d lived in the country all my life.

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Next day, we were off again, this time to Schenectady. It was a name I came to know as a little girl from the dial on my father’s radio set. As I heard all those distorted foreign voices and strains of music punctuated with scratching and beeps, I felt the people in all those places must be awfully far away and very strange.

It never occurred to me I would one day live near Schenectady.

People there didn’t appear any stranger than elsewhere. In case you’re wondering.

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It was another splendid day.

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With an interesting sky.

It doesn’t need to be dramatic to catch my attention.

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PlantNet identifies these trees as poplars. Whatever they are, the way they catch the light makes them shimmer like fine silver fabric.

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The only very minor problem with this excursion, apart from the GPS being given a not-quite correct destination (not my doing!) was that it was a Saturday and there was some sort of street art festival which meant that several streets were blocked off. The streets in Schenectady are very narrow and comparatively busy. Us country folk are no longer accustomed to this and the man gets a little tense.

Additionally, the only parking available is on said busy streets – good luck with that! Grant was dropping off his bicycle for some sort of repair that required expertise and luckily there was a wide driveway where we could just fit briefly, behind the two cars already parked.

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Then we set off home.

Happy to be back on empty country roads.

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The splash of red here, I believe, is crab apples.

According to the internet, it is not normal for apple trees to drop their leaves before the fruit is harvested, but I have seen this in many places this year.

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Once, I would have felt exposed in such a wide open space, but no more.

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Often, here, I feel I could reach up and touch the sky, lose myself in it.

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No longer a frightening thought.

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