Number 21

At last I have been able to add to the Eppimg Road series with a painting of the fields as they look at the end of Fall. The leaves have all dropped from the trees and the red of the plants has either disappeared or turned a much more subdued burgundy. The grasses are straw-colored, the evergreens almost black. It's a subtle palette that is no less beautiful than the other seasons, only less obvious. Most of the late Fall days this year have been cloudy, with rain or threatening rain. For practical reasons this has been good for my artistic endeavor. My sticks of blue pastels have been ground to nubs and I would be hard pressed to produce another blue sky before I get to Banor to buy a new supply.

The snow we had has melted and left us back in springlike weather so warm that no jackets were needed today. A few days ago the chickens' water froze, and today they are outside flapping their wings is the balmy breeze. It's hard to know what to expect, so we expect nothing. With El Nino and Global warming both claiming responsibility for strange changes in the weather, we decide what we want to think about it. It's almost laughable to think that we could perceive anything very significant in our own lifetime, considering the earth is billions of years old and gone through changes over time that makes even human life on the planet less than a blink. Yet we see things vary within this short time with our human eyes and make something of it. Why shouldn't we?