fall

Sometimes the best is in your backyard

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Now that fall is here in its most full splendor I’ve been on the roads looking for fall color.  Last week we were in Wisconsin, and this past weekend we were in western and central Minnesota.  This is a fabulous year for the colors.  The temperatures and moisture have certainly been prime for producing a grand spectrum of rich shades of red, yellow, orange, and gold.  And yet just this morning I made this image in our backyard.  There is a lovely ivy that graces the fence and trellis in our side yard.  I’ve been watching the colors progress this past week and a half.  In some areas the color is all a rich rust or maroon, and in others it’s a yellow or gold.  But as I walked along the fence this morning I spotted this area which had a delightful array of all the colors.  And in the early morning light it was positively glowing!  So I will continue to look for the colors of fall in the parks and roads of Minnesota and Wisconsin, but I will also make sure to stop and admire, appreciate, and photograph what is presented to me in my own backyard.

Chasing fall colors in Wisconsin

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We’ve just returned from a delightful weekend of fall color in northern Wisconsin.  After raining on Friday, the weather was cool and cloudy on Saturday morning and we ventured to Copper Falls State Park outside of Mellen, Wisconsin.  The colors of gold, green, red, orange, and yellow were all visible throughout the woods.  It was a treat to the eyes and to the senses, as there is most certainly a distinct smell of fall in the air also.  Later in the day the sun burned through the clouds and these same  vibrant shades of autumn were splashed against a bright and clear blue sky with warm sunshine.  Although it’s hard to think of summer as being behind us now, the beauty and brightness of fall seems to be our reward before we delve into the white of winter.

There was a programming glitch with my blog entry from last week.  Those of you who normally get an email when I’ve posted a new blog entry were left without notification.  Sorry!  You might want to go directly to my blog to read the entry from last Sunday —  it was all about a very joyous wedding celebration in our family.  Go to http://www.lindastaatsphoto.wordpress.com and scroll down to the entry dated September 26, 2010, “A wedding in the family.”  (Sorry for the mixup!).

Grape harvest, part 2

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Yesterday was part 2 of our 2010 grape harvest experience.  For the past few years we’ve helped some friends who live on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River harvest their acre of grapes.  This is certainly a much larger operation than our one concord grape-vine!   Six of us worked most of the day, stopping only for lunch, and made good progress.  It’s delightful to work amongst beautiful scenery, with good conversation and good laughter.  Certainly makes the harvest much more enjoyable and fun.  We spent the day harvesting frontenac gris, although we were treated to tastes of all the varieties of grapes our friends are growing.  The alpenglow grapes that are pictured here are a beautiful shade of soft yellow/green, that develop a light blush as they ripen.  I can attest to their most wonderfully sweet and juicy flavor.  After the sun had set and we had been in the vineyard all day, we retreated inside to a delightful meal and were able to lift our glasses to toast this year’s harvest with a glass of wine from last year’s harvest.

A hike on the prairie

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This past weekend found us traveling south to Kansas to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with my family.  Looking for a way to enjoy the unseasonably warm and sunny weather, we ventured west from the Kansas City area to Manhattan, Kansas.  After driving into the Flint Hills we came upon the Konza Prairie, a preserve of The Nature Conservancy that is managed as a biological station by Kansas State University.  The late fall colors were golden across the 8600 acres of the prairie.    It was a joy to hike through this area surrounded by a sea of grasses blowing in the wind, as they must have done when the early settlers came through this same land hundreds of years ago.

Harvest and Thanksgiving

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Yesterday I was south of the Cities near the town of New Trier, Minnesota.  This is a beautiful farming area with an abundance of rolling hills.  The harvest has been late this year, hampered by rain and cooler temperatures.  But on this unusually sunny and warm day there was much activity in the fields — something for which many farmers were quite thankful.  As we head into the week of Thanksgiving I’m focusing on the bounty of my life and all those things I have to be thankful for:   a roof over my head and a job, plenty of good food to eat, good health, good friends, good family, and a wonderful freedom we enjoy in this country.  May we all realize the good fortune we have.