Drenched Fall Ramble
We've had two days of fairly uninterrupted rain. Can't complain since that followed on four days of mild weather and bright sunshine. It's autumn, after all, and the wet weather at this time of year is highly critical for the health of all growing things come next spring, especially if we don't receive a good snowfall pack throughout the winter.
We were shut out of our ravine walk yesterday because of the intensity of the rain, so Button and Riley felt a little stir-crazy and were anxious to begin our walk. It's cold today, though, heavily overcast, so Riley needs his smallest jacket, along with his halter. Both he and Button have new collars, thicker, brighter; we've had enough of losing old collars and critical tags.
We're glad to enter the ravine, glad too that we're wearing raincoats, since by the look of it the rain hasn't quite finished for the day. It's sopping wet; heavy overnight rain set the stage for droplets to slop off the leaf mass still on trees onto us and the dogs as they snuffle about the underbrush.
There's a lovely fragrance that we always associate somehow with Poplars. At least that would be something good about poplars, those weeds of the forest whose leaves, once fallen, swiftly turn an unappealing shade of dark grey, then black. Good thing there are so many other deciduous in our little forest whose cast-off leaves celebrate a kalaidescope of fall colour.
Overall, there's an essence of pleasant acridity as we slope through the gathered leaves; crunches and crinkles as we proceed. Other than those areas on the trail where pines predominate - and then there's a homogeneous dark honey colour of trail-scattered needles, cushioney underfoot and pleasant to the eye.
The creek is high and running hurriedly down to the Ottawa River, as a result of all those days and nights of uninterrupted rain. We hear it splashing and coursing over fallen logs and the piles of clay chunks which congregate close to the banks of the creek where they have fallen from those same banks.
Black and grey squirrels are busy today, scurrying past the trail, up the wet dark tree trunks in their winter-storage frenzy. Their presence is a distraction, a challenge to Button and Riley, and ultimately a dire frustration since they've never quite succeeded in confronting a squirrel despite their determined runs.
We pass a large copse of maples whose leaves every year turn brilliant yellow presenting us with a concert of shining light in an other-wordly brightness set within the otherwise gloomily dark atmosphere. Much further along the trail, and into another drop in the ravine there is a large grouping of beech whose leaves also turn beautifully yellow, but of a lighter hue.
Rain begins to drip upon us sporadically, gently, and soon picks up momentum. Never quite becoming a serious issue, since we're adequately garbed, and there's still enough of a leaf canopy to keep us reasonably dry. The rain follows the course of our ramble for a little while, then slowly, grudgingly, gives up.
We come across large bright white splinters of heartwood, scattered heavily over the trail beside the corpse of an old still-standing yellow birch. Evidence that a Pileated woodpecker has been there in the last little while, energetically pursuing that which is of most interest to it - a beetle-fest.
As we photograph those stretches of the trail which promise to render the most colour, absent really red maples (and most of the scarlet sumach fronds have by now frizzled brown and dropped off) the wind picks up, howling through the trees, sending great drifts of leaves spiralling around us.
Beside the trail, once-green ferns have become dry ghosts of their former presence; they're brown, the fronds shrivelled, submissive to the onslaught of cold; others will remain fresh and green throughout the winter; peeping at us through the snowpack in January and February.
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, October 12, 2006
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