It had been seven months since Nina, Susan, and I had taken a walk down by the creek! Mostly because of the unrelenting heat and humidity that descended upon us before summer even began. And avoiding ticks was part of it, too. It was very nice visiting friends outside for a change.
I’ve learned to wait until November for the leaves to start changing their hues. On this day there was still plenty of green left on the trees, but with splotches of fall color here and there.
Not sure how the year-long drought has been affecting the leaves, but the water level in Bolin Creek is very low. Time will tell how long this drought will last. For now, the leaves already fallen looked so pretty floating on the water.
exposed rocks normally covered with rushing creek water
maple leaves
beech leaves
But each leaf too has a hue all its own: one of gold, of blood-red, of the slumbering clouds and the strident sun, purple, violet, lilac, we find it all there. And side by side, hand in hand go the quick, the bright, with the old and sere, just as in our world people go side by side, hand in hand, those who are still young and hopeful and those who are weary and sinking earthwards. ~ Sigbjørn Obstfelder (Seasons)
sourwood leaves
trail winding through Bolin Forest
sweetgum leaf
To love life, really, must mean caring not only for the garden plot but also the wilderness beyond the fence, beauty and mystery for their own sake, because of how meager a world would be without them. ~ Barbara Kingsolver (High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never)
As well, you saw this morning on the hill Her horse is in the stable now, the men are at the mill She thanks you for the apples by her gate And hopes that when the moon is full you’ll join her once again to celebrate For she knows that the harvest has begun The autumn feast rewards our time when All is well and done With the blessing of the sun ~ Dar Williams ♫ (All is Come Undone) ♫
Survival often depends on a specific focus: a relationship, a belief, or a hope balanced on the edge of possibility. Or something more ephemeral: the way the sun passes through the hard, seemingly impenetrable glass of a window and warms the blanket, or how the wind, invisible but for its wake, is so loud one can hear it through the insulated walls of a house. ~ Elisabeth Tova Bailey (The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating)
“Shelter along the Appalachian Trail” by Carol M. Highsmith
The forest behind my house is already becoming something new, I notice, as I walk trails that used to be shady. With so many fallen giants, the floor now lies under open sky. I count sprouting acorns by the dozens, arching their necks and reaching for a new bonanza of sunlight. I have so many hopes for this place I love. Mostly that we’ll rise like these seedlings from our scoured landscape, blessed with the kindness we’ve shared with our neighbors and the will to extend our care to those who follow behind us on these paths. ~ Barbara Kingsolver (Southern Living, May 2025, “The Heart of Appalachia”)
On September 27 last year Hurricane Helene tore through Appalachia, affecting the community in Virginia where author Barbara Kingsolver lives. It also devastated 29 of North Carolina’s 100 counties, which are part of the same geographic region. (The county where we live is in the Piedmont region.) For some reason I never mentioned this disaster on this blog last year, probably because I couldn’t process what I was learning about it in real time.
Our grandchildren had no school that day so we had planned to take them to the Carolina Tiger Rescue. The day before, the weather forecasters warned of torrential rain for our area but the tour is by reservation only and the website said it would happen rain or shine. So we were prepared and bought rain ponchos for the four of us. But that morning the Rescue cancelled the tour and we stayed home. I’m glad we didn’t risk getting caught in a flash flood on the roads. It rained a lot and we had two tornado warnings during the day, which sent us to hunker down in the bathroom, but thankfully we weren’t hit. The disruption to our lives was nothing compared to what was happening to our neighbors only a few hours away.
A year earlier in October, we had stayed for a weekend getaway in the beautiful town of Black Mountain. We had a wonderful time walking through the town, visiting Mount Mitchell, hiking the Balsam Nature Trail in the state park, and driving along the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway. Little did we know Black Mountain would experience catastrophic flooding from the storm. Roads and bridges were damaged or washed away. The pictures we saw on the news were shocking and sobering. But since then the stories being shared of kind people helping one another have been heartwarming. I hope we can plan another visit some day.
However, the severely limited federal response under the current administration has been disturbing. According to our governor:
In addition to the $13.5 billion that I am requesting of Congress in new appropriations, North Carolina has yet to receive billions of dollars that Congress worked together on a bipartisan basis to appropriate last December. Just as I asked in February, I am urging federal agencies to take action to unlock those funds so we can put them to work as soon as possible where they are desperately needed.
We are grateful for every dollar that brings us a step closer to recovery, yet current federal financial support is not enough. In total, federal support amounts to approximately 9% of the total damage western North Carolina suffered. Many of the largest, most devastating storms, like Katrina, Maria, and Sandy, saw upwards of 70% of damage covered by federal funding, and from available historical data, the federal government has typically covered between 40 and 50 percent of costs caused by major hurricanes. The people of North Carolina deserve a fair shake, just like the residents of other states and territories.
~ Gov. Josh Stein (Hurricane Helene Recovery, September 15, 2025, Federal Funding Request)
“Woodland Stream in a Winter Landscape” by John Henry Twachtman
I cannot tell you how the light comes. What I know is that it is more ancient than imagining. That it travels across an astounding expanse to reach us. That it loves searching out what is hidden what is lost what is forgotten or in peril or in pain. That it has a fondness for the body for finding its way toward flesh for tracing the edges of form for shining forth through the eye, the hand, the heart. I cannot tell you how the light comes, but that it does. That it will. That it works its way into the deepest dark that enfolds you, though it may seem long ages in coming or arrive in a shape you did not foresee. And so may we this day turn ourselves toward it. May we lift our faces to let it find us. May we bend our bodies to follow the arc it makes. May we open and open more and open still to the blessed light that comes. ~ Jan Richardson (How the Light Comes)
At the Spring Equinox, nature is stretching awake and we, too, surface from our winter stillness, driven on by the growing light and warmth of the sun. Alban Eilir is the dawn of the year. It brings with it a sense of hope and the fresh possibilities of a new day. We see everywhere the vibrant spirit of the Earth, whose irrepressible life bursts forth in the opening of buds, the surfacing of shoots, and the golden blossoming of primrose, daffodil, broom and forsythia. All life must rise up from the dark soil and break out of the safety of womb and egg. ~ Maria Ede-Weaving (The Essential Book of Druidry: Connect with the Spirit of Nature)
“Chestnut Trees, Louveciennes, Winter” by Camille Pissarro
This is the season of the long night and the leafless tree. The cold seeps into our bones and life sleeps beneath the soil. ….. We know that the worst of the winter is yet to come, and we must endure this, but the solstice sun is reborn and, with it, our hopes for growing light and warmth. In the depths of winter, summer plants its seed and the dark stillness explodes with starlight. ~ Maria Ede-Weaving (The Essential Book of Druidry: Connect with the Spirit of Nature)
On this, the shortest day of all the 365, I wander over the covered paths of the garden hillside. I wade through the drifts along the swamp edge. I walk over the snow-covered ice among the catttails. The wind is gone. The day is still. The world is decorated with unmarred snow. This is winter with winter beauty everywhere. Autumn is finally, officially, gone. Like the evening of the day, the fall has been a time of ceaseless alteration. Cold, in the autumn, is overcoming the heat just as darkness, in the evening, is overcoming the light. All around, in recent months, there have been changes in a thousand forms. The days of easy warmth were passing, then past. Birds departed. Threadbare trees lost their final leaves. Nuts fell from the branches. Pumpkins and corn turned yellow in the fields. For animals and men alike, this was the time of harvest. The phantom summer, Indian summer, came and went. The chorus of the insects died away in nightly frosts. Goldenrod tarnished; grass clumps faded from green to yellow. Milkweed pods gaped open and their winged seeds took flight. The windrows of fallen leaves withered, lost their color, merged into one universal brown. Now they are buried beneath the new and seasonal beauty of the snow. Autumn, the evening of the year, is over; winter, the night of the year, has come. ~ Edwin Way Teale (Circle of the Seasons: The Journal of a Naturalist’s Year)
