Fall is touching down

Nights are getting dark, stars are coming out, rain alternates with golden sun and sapphire sky. I feel like the colors of the landscape are more vivid in the Fall. Something about the angle of the sun and how the periodic rain showers keep everything from getting dusty. The same visual phenomenon occurs in the Bay Area, as well, only there it's a few months later.

It was foggy Saturday morning when we went for a walk along one of the many Ester Dome trails:











On the way home, I stopped by Ann's Greenhouses to buy some Winter squash for storage, and to photograph her giant pumpkin. Sadly, she told me that this year, it had died. :( Here is a snapshot I took of one of her prior year's. But she had artichokes! Artichokes in Fairbanks! Whoda thunk?



Another rainbow. This time of year is truly magical. For the rest of my life, I'll probably always associate rainbows with fractal broccoli.



Cranberries are ripe. I've been told that they are sweeter after the first frost. That makes sense to me, like how frozen grapes can yield sweet dessert wines. But I always add so much sugar to cranberries that I can't tell the difference. Cranberries are always tart; I can't see how waiting a few weeks will make a difference!



Picking cranberries is not as pleasant a task as picking blueberries. For one thing, they are ready later in the year, when the weather is not as pleasant to be out and about. Secondly, my friends and I all have our own cranberries growing in abundance in our own yards, so we tend to pick our own instead of gathering together and picking together while swapping stories and having picnics. And thirdly, while blueberries grow on bushes on dry, sunny slopes, cranberries grow in Nasty-wasty bogs. (That's a scientific term: N. wasty.) So I'm down at the bottom of my property (my cabin sits on the one sunny knoll), in rubber boots and talking and singing to the dogs because the woods are tall and spooky down there (black spruces hung with mistletoe and other creepy mosses), and I don't want to take any meese by surprise. The upside is that it's quick work. Cranberries are sturdy, and you can rip them off by the handful and throw them into your bucket. After just 45 minutes of picking, and after belting out several moving renditions of various Tahitian fishing songs I learned as a child, I had a quart and half of berries.



Unlike blueberries, they all need to be rinsed and allowed to dry before freezing. They grow so low to the ground that they have lots of twigs and leaves (and possibly cobwebs and traces of moose pee) in them.

From our morning walk today: