It's baaaack ...

Time to tune them skis!

Autumn, Full Moon, and Snow! Oh my!

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Oh, yeah! is more like it.

Had to drive out to the airport early this morning, and got to see -- between quick glances at the road -- the clouds lift and the mountain world emerge into the first Autumn dawn light.

Over Hesperus hung the full Harvest Moon, a great glowing cue ball (or maybe that was a flashback to El Rancho last night ...). And beside it stood the dimly lit La Platas, wearing on its peaks a fine but distinct patina of powder ...

Yum!

I didn't have a camera with me (which is probably best, given mydistracted mountain-lusting from behind the wheel anyway). But I was able to get some shots before that mean old sun melted away the season's first snow.

Have a taste.

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Only two things money can't buy ...

... "that's true love and homegrown tomatoes."

So sings the great Guy Clark. And every year at this time, I think he's right.

Why do homegrown tomatoes taste so much better? According to the University of Illinois Extension Service, it may have to do with commercial tomatoes' being picked green so they ship better, but it also can be linked to micro-amounts of volatile chemicals that are sensed not by the tongue, but by the olfactory nerve in the nose. (Read the entire article in the Illinois Times here.)

Whatever the reason, for a couple of weeks every year, I get both love and tomatoes: homegrown tomatoes on bagels and cream cheese. It don't get much better ...

So pull up a ripe one and enjoy this: Not a great recording, but a fine version of Guy Clark performing "Homegrown Tomatoes."

Vibrant colors ...

of the autumn of the year and the spring of life, together.

This is a neighbor's yard, featuring the play equipment I built for my own kids in the mid-1990s. A couple of years ago, I dismantled it and passed over the fence to my neighbor, Sean, who rebuilt, expanded and refurbished it all, giving it a whole new generation of life. Death and rebirth ... death and rebirth. The theme of autumn ...

That time of year ...

... when the summer's rafting-gear tarp and painting drop cloth are pressed into to the service of fall's home-grown tomatoes.

Aspen season

Ed Quillen, columnist for the Denver Post and publisher of the very fun Colorado Central Magazine, has a nice little post on the High Country News Goat Blog. In the post, he gives a great little nutshell natural history of the Aspen, including its tendency to turn yellow in the fall.

Actually, Ed informs, an aspen's leaves are always yellow, or even orange -- they just look green in the summer from the chlorophyll activity. So in the autumn the trees are merely proudly sporting their true colors.

For which we are all most thankful.

Read that and more cool facts about aspen in Quillen's post here.

Autumn in the air ...

Matt pointed it out to me.

"Decaying foliage is the smell of fall in New England," he posited, authoritatively.

Although we'd both spent more than half our lives in the West, we are both indelibly conditioned by our northeastern upbringings. And as such, both share an affection for that falling, ending, last-savoring season that bridges the vibrance of summer and the sterility of winter.

"And roasting chilies is the smell of fall in the Southwest," he sermonized, concluding.

And with the rich smoke rolling over us from the two chilie roasters roaring away, I noted through that savory haze the vague hint of emerging pattern of re-coloring foliage appearing on the oak-covered flanks of Smelter Mountain and Perins Peak, and I bowed to my friend's good observation.