Autumn's Song

One autumn day, about 30 years ago we purchased our current property. It was a beautiful day and the aspen trees had decorated the "Naked Lady Trail" as only Mother Nature can do. (The other DrC wrote a piece about the NLT a few days ago..it's fun to read.)

We looked at the dabbled light on the yellow and gold leaves and we were smitten. We loved this little chunk of land in the Rocky Mountains so we bought it. Several years later we built our home in the aspens. 

As the years have flowed, we love this land and marvel at the fact that we are here. As west coasters we had been "trained" to think that fall color only happens on the east coast. There's no "good fall foliage" on the west. We knew that was wrong, because the west coast town we lived in had beautiful fall color, but it was mostly unsung. You need to go to Vermont or New Hampshire or the Smoky Mountains to see good color. When we lived in the Washington DC area, we saw fall color and it was gorgeous. But it's not true...there's good fall color in the Rocky Mountains too. 

Our little piece of fall color is amazing to look at. The mountains are splashed with red and yellow and green leaves. The brightly colored quaking aspens throw arrows of flaming color amid the naturally green conifers. They are brazenly loud. They seem to be proud that they can light up the autumn sky with their brilliance. Aspens only grow at certain places and elevations between 6000 to 12000 feet. They are keystone forests that like particular climates, well drained soils and cold over heat. The Rocky Mountains are their natural home. They are also clones. The trees in a forest are related to one another hence they act as one, so a forest of aspens will change colors about the same time. 

The largest aspen forest is about 100 acres in Utah. It's called "Pando" and right now, Pando is full of color. It stole this picture from Wikipedia, highlighting the brilliant display. 

It's been special to share my life with a forest of these wonderful trees. In the winter they shed their leaves and survive in the cold snowy landscape. Sometime in spring, they wake up together and within 3 days they are filled with tiny "baby-green" leaves. Soon the leaves grow and start to "quake" or shimmer sounding like a gentle creek is running through the land. The tall upright white trunks almost sparkle as an aspen forest is light and airy and always filled with critters. The chirp of the mountain bluebird, the squawk of a hawk, the squeal of squirrels and the gracefulness of the deer are all there, if you look and listen. This time of year, the forest is getting ready to sleep. Some of the critters will go with the falling leaves, others will stay to endure the cold that is coming. Soon the forest will be tall white trunks and the cycle will begin anew.