World on fire
I was putting together a pot of fish chowder last night when from the corner of my eye I noticed that everything outside was glowing an otherworldly orange. My first thought was of southern California and how on earth could it have made it all the way to the Midwest so fast and wasn’t the wind blowing in the other direction anyway?
The world revolves around me, didn’t you know?
And then I felt bad for grabbing the camera to get some shots of the whole neighborhood ablaze with the setting sun, but goodness, that sky. How could I not? This series of shots may very well be one of the best things in my visual arsenal to help sustain me through the bleak, gray winter. Oh, Maude, winter. She is a comin’. Did I tell you? The sky was so weird on my way home last night and I swear on my first pet bird Itchy’s grave in the landlady’s vegetable garden that it was snowing just a little bit.
And then this sunset and the garish way the light reflected off of the leaves whose color is finally turning now that the nights are dipping down into the low 40s…well, surreal comes to mind. Once again, I think I need to invest in a couple of lenses for this camera so I can get the best effect possible. I love seeing what comes out compared to how I remember it as I looked with my bare eye. These come pretty close. Though they lack the smell-o-vision feature of the mildewing leaves and the sharp cold shocking my nose hairs.
Hey, El, see the two grassy areas on either side of the driveway? That’s where the new garden beds will go. Full sun! Whoot!
And then? I turned back towards the house to get back to the warm pot of chowder and saw this.
And my head exploded in a joyful celebration of color.
No, really. It did.
"In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait commonly for the stillness and longer nights of autumn and winter before any thought will subside; we are sensible that behind the rustling leaves, and the stacks of grain, and the bare clusters of the grape, there is the field of a wholly new life, which no man has lived; that even this earth was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants than men and women. In the hues of October sunsets, we see the portals to other mansions than those which we occupy."
~Henry David Thoreau
October 25th, 2007 at 10:30 am
i saw the orange down here too. fabulous. amazing pictures.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Gorgeous. So Gorgeous!
I LOVE THE COLD!!!!!!
It’s frosty here this morning and it makes my heart leap childishly. I hope we have a snowy winter. (Apparently it doesn’t snow every winter here. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE snow?!)
Can I visit you some day?
October 25th, 2007 at 11:26 am
I’m on the west side of Cleveland and we had an awesome sunset last night too. Brilliant pinks against gray clouds.
Nice pictures.
October 25th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Haven’t noticed anything so spectacular here on the east coast. Maybe I need to start looking! Or cooking fish chowder! Beautiful photos, Kelly—love that blue-violet one! It does have a bit of a wintry feel, I have to say. Except for two days we haven’t even put the heat on here yet.
October 25th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Gorgeous! The pictures capture it so well.
October 25th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Beautiful pictures! I really like the contrast from the oranges to violets. Although I totally laughed about your thought of the fire reaching the midwest (I would have totally thought the same thing!).
October 25th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Really beautiful photographs! Last night the moon was so bright I felt like I was in an enchanted world. The air was so crisp and now the leaves are finally changing here in Northwestern PA. Again, beautiful pictures.
October 25th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Whoa! Great pics!
I live in Northern California, and this morning the wind was blowing just so that I could see the wall of smoke to the South. It must have made it’s way up into the central valley!
October 26th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
whOOt! Mighty purty!
Yeppers we had some gorgeousness in our little corner of the world too…it is so nice just to get outside and smell FALL. (Apologies to all dealing with too much fire right now, but some people in our environs do burn their leaves, and…well, it smells pretty good.)
And that is one mighty long driveway missy. You can plant LOTS of beds out there.
(I’m personally glad it’s finally cooled down: it becomes Soup Season now!)
October 26th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
oh lordy . . . i’d forgotten how wild ohio is . . . the weather, the sky , the bugs, the feel of it: wild . . .
October 27th, 2007 at 12:32 am
Wasnt’ it a fabulous sunset? Sky blue pink!
October 27th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
“The world revolves around me, didn’t you know?”
How is that possible, when it’s so clearly spinning around me?
October 28th, 2007 at 6:24 am
Now some of those should be hung up to remind you of brighter days, during the months ahead.
October 29th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Very nice! I found your blog from the 100 Hats article today. We just have some acorn squash last night - mashed with sweet potatoes, sour cream, and brown sugar. Tasty. I write reviews for MotherTalk too so it was fun to read your Reincarnationist review. Your food writing is inspirational. I’ll be back for more!
November 1st, 2007 at 4:46 pm
I may add one of these photos to my collection. I’m so totally not kidding. Gorgeous.
The sunsets here are quite pretty, too. One of the best things about this area, really. I’ve never seen better sunsets (though those above come pretty close).