Markers...

Sometimes, I wish winter had the same kind of markers as spring and fall... 

Something meaningful and visible to measure its progress...the one season which seems to start early and never ends soon enough.

You can easily mark the progression of spring with the broad hillsides starting to blush with a tint of red...

The bulging of buds ready to burst, an early tease of the green leaves to come...

A visible marker to start warming hearts still yet frozen...

I start looking for that red blush in November...

J thinks I might be a bit premature...

And then again, she also thinks I might be a bit immature...

Two words which rhyme, with vastly different meanings...

And love her as I do...and try as I might...

I don't seem able to change my actions...(well, maybe a few, since I now wait till January before I announce seeing the first red of spring in the trees, but don't let her know!) 

And once it starts, it's the roadside bushes which show first, bright and fresh...the tiniest spots of green... 

And once that fresh yellow-green of early spring shows...

It becomes a favorite time...full of promise...

With more and more leaf tips emerging, ever increasing specks of bright color, as if Monet dot painted the landscape.

For the trees, it's the Willows, the first brave enough to show their leaves early in the spring, another dependable marker...

Then a crescendo of spring as the rest of the trees and plants and flowers seemingly explode with bursts of color...

Each are visible markers...announcing the progress of spring in full motion, ushering in awareness of the summer to follow...

And fall is similar with its own set of visible markers...

The first scattered oranges painting the tips of a few scattered branches...initial drops of vivid color on a very green canvas...

Then the early adopters...overnight, the brilliance of the Red Sumac everywhere...

Cascading into the firey oranges, reds and yellows of the Maples...

Then a maturing...with the golds, sienna and rusts of mid-fall.

With the Oak and Poplar...stealing the stage in late fall. 

Look closely and you can discern the day by day progression...the measured markers of fall...

On Windy Hill, it is nearing the Blue Moon of October, and the hills are showing off their late season patchwork, only a few yellows from the Poplar remain on an otherwise leaf barren landscape...

And the mornings in late fall start foggy on Windy Hill, another marker...as the lake grudgingly hands over its hoard of summer heat...

With the mist finally clearing as the sun rises to warm the shortening day.

And the deer seem to graze our field longer on those foggy mornings...

I find the dance, the flowing give and take between the sun and the fog to be peaceful...

            ...calming...

            ...almost comforting. 

This past Thursday, perhaps the last venture with rod in hand...might have been my final marker - my homage to the passing of fall...

Yet, Cowanesque was warmer than I would have thought this late in the season...60 degrees...

Maybe the reason for a few bright leaves still remaining at the water's edge...

It's a bit sad in a sense...

The once vibrant hills, with a magnificent thick coat of many colors...grown old and feeble...

Yet still wearing that old mantle...now threadbare and worn...with but a patch or two of yellow remaining...

Seemingly insufficient to protect from the cold probing winds of November.

And winter IS coming to Windy Hill...

Endless and interminable...

Yet, perhaps that is something to investigate...we can call it another adventure? 

I wonder if winter may too have markers which measure its progress?!!

But for now...

Just for the moment...

I treasure those last leaves of late fall...

Still holding tight...

I've always considered never-give-up tenacity to be a quality...

Let the adventure continue...