I was almost afraid we'd miss Fall's beauty this year. It rained and rained. Then rained some more. Then rained again. Then finally--just a touch past the peak of fall's beauty--the sun came out, and it was still stunning. The leaves looked like gold.
And from our low hills we had views across the valleys. This is not the mountains of the Southerly parts of the state, but lovely rolling hills.
Even walks around the neighborhood are quite stunning.
But fall comes to an end very quickly. The perennials have all gone to seed.
This is fireweed fuzz--beauty in the bank for next year.
I was feeling very melancholy at the thought of moving far from these trails, and I'm sure grateful we still live in the 'hood.
Oct 4th is St. Francis' feast day, so we had the Blessing of the Animals at St. Jude's Episcopal Church in North Pole. The girls are so good. Raven is notably better at sitting still for an hour since last year.
After that, since we are in North Pole, we go for a lovelly walk at Chena Lakes!
A stunner of a day!
The Chena is on the high side, but not flood stage.
Last weekend, we decided to try walking the lower trails behind our old cabin, and they were frozen solid. Yay! Before I moved to Alaska, I had never heard of "winter only" trails. In California, we have "summer only" trails--high mountain passes that get snowed in in wintertime. But in Fairbanks we have swampy trails that are impassable until they freeze.
I wondered if the girls would bolt up the spur to the old cabin, but they didn't. Dogs are not sentimental, I guess.
Rosie Creek was easily passable, even though there was a trickle of water still.
These puddles being frozen solid is nice.
Raven investigates Rosie Creek.
And then we got our first sticking snow. Hello winter, here we come!
