| from Deanna Travis September 14, 2009 |
You can feel it in the air. A certain crispness as you take a deep breath,
a difference in the feel of the air itself, perhaps added weight. Just the
slightest whiff of wood smoke or burning leaves and your mind registers: fall.
A step or two and the crunch of dry leaves underfoot, register again. Fall.
Montana blue may be a color, but it is fall too; that intense blue which is
only found in a Montana fall sky. The rest of the year the big sky is a Dover
or Chesapeake blue. Start looking around, don’t miss the funnel spiders. My
husband, Trav, says they are here year round, but because of the morning dew
on the webbing they are more visible. Tens, twenty and more webs spread across
the lawn.
On an evening walk, the last cutting of Alfalfa laid in rows drying, waiting
for the bailer to transform them into green bales. A form of hay, they have
a distinctly sweet odor which I’m told animals that eat hay much prefer. My
nose picks the smell up alright and quickly sends signals of objection to
wherever signals go which cause noses to run. My last trip to Montana brought
another discovery, my system objects to Cottonwood. Considering all the different
scent, smells and odors that are different from our home in Washington State,
I guess I should count myself as lucky. I did purchase an over the counter
allergy medicine, and we’ll see how that does.
Down Paradise Valley, indeed most everywhere across the west, the aspens are
starting their annual show as well. Every possible shade of yellow, gold and
versions thereof turn the leaves into dancing sequins. The west doesn’t have
numbers of hardwoods so except in communities where they have been heavily
planted our annual fall show is somewhat limited to the yellow and gold color
scheme. We do have a wonderful tree called Larch. It has needles like an evergreen,
but they are deciduous. When I lived on Flathead Lake some years ago I was
amazed to see the blacktop roads covered in gold ‘pine needles. Well it wasn’t
pine needles, it was the larch needles. Miles of blacktop, like a black ribbon
sprinkled with gold, winding across the countryside.
Like many others, I believed most of my life the fall color depended on frost.
It just isn’t so. It really is an interaction between individual trees and
sunlight, soil conditions, pigments, hormones, length of day, genetics, rainfall
and more. Jack Frost was more fun. So how does one explain the marvelous
patterns on windows after a hard frost? Maybe that one really is Jack Frost.
There are still a lot of people visiting the area here in Livingston Montana.
We drove by the main ‘hot’ restaurant in Livingston on the way back from church
Sunday evening and the parking lot was full. And yes, a couple of drift-boats
were among the assembled mulitude. I don’t know how much tourist fishing contributes
to the Montana economy, but I was surprised to see the governor on TV recently
talking about the fact that Montana is not in a recession/depression, the
state has a healthy surplus and is doing just fine thank you. Really nice
to see, but I wonder how they did that?
While I’m on a local note, there hasn’t been a serious rainfall here in a
while, and the Yellowstone River is very clear. I was surprised I could see
so far into the water. Trav’s nephew, Tom Travis who is currently contributing
material to FAOL, said the river is really fishing very well. My husband
calls the Yellowstone River the Yellow Dog. Don’t know about these things,
I’ve been away a long time.
The birds are gathering, ducks and geese are already flocking here. The roof
on the garage is the next ‘must do’ project and it will get done this week
if the weather holds. We have a season end bluebird box check and cleaning
to do before the weather changes. Some boxes will have to be replaced, all
things to be done before we head back to Washington State. And yes, we really
did just get here.
Did you know Dragonflies migrate? They do, or so I’m told.
Originally published September 14, 2009 on Fly Anglers Online by Deanna Travis.