Amazing Autumn Days

Morning Mist Rising

The glorious fall weather and the vibrant gold and red autumn colours continue to last – I am almost afraid to write about it lest I jinx it. From sunrises and early morning mists, to afternoon blue skies and crisp temperatures, to evening stillness and bright starry skies – it has been simply incredible.

On Wednesday evening, Sadie and I take a stroll at dusk along the Crofton Sea walk. I laugh at the hooded mergansers with their helmet-like heads, crests up, bobbing and chattering on the evening tide. It is almost too dark to catch them on camera and they are a bit far away. Perhaps I will get a better shot another day.

Hooded Mergansers

Suddenly I see another sight which causes me to sharply draw in my breath –a large trumpeter swan floating in the bay, his black beak shining, his glistening white feathers with wingtips raised like the swans of my childhood storybooks. It is too dark to get his picture now. I have been reading The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht, and I can't help but think it is moments such as this, unexpectedly sighting a lone swan on a moonlit bay, which inspire such writers of mythology.

Today, once again, it was too nice to stay indoors – too nice to even putter around the yard doing house and garden maintenance. I grabbed the camera and headed out in the car with Sadie, ostensibly to run some errands but really just to marvel at the amazing scenery.

The road from Crofton to Duncan is not only full of colour from the leaves – reds and golds, browns and burnished yellows and almost springlike greens among them – but also lined with orange pumpkins.

Pumpkin Alley

This is an annual post-Hallowe’en tradition – everyone takes their carved squash and leaves them  along the sides of the road.  There are, literally, dozens if not hundreds of them, stretching for miles.  The grinning orbs bring a smile to the faces of passersby. What strikes me is how amazing some of the carvers are. There’s not just jack-o-lanterns and jill-o-lanterns, but muppet-o-lanterns, bartsimpson-o-lanterns, and spider-o-lanterns.

Spider-o-lantern

We pick up a library book in town and head back, but decide instead to continue north to Ladysmith, to check out a beautiful walking trail I had read about. These signs, however, posted just today, deter me:

Instead, we drive a little further, to Ladysmith’s Transfer Beach Park where the trail has, I think, its endpoint. The park is overdeveloped for my liking – full of playgrounds and tennis courts and little buildings – but it is quiet enough at this time of year and there is a nice offleash area full of leaves and very nice dogs. It is also well marked with bear alert signs that had just been posted, so we didn’t wander far.

Sadie in autumn leaves

A beautiful brindle great dane pup stole my heart – 14 months old, he just wanted someone to play with him, but the dogs there were mostly very little or very old and so he frolicked around by himself, kicking up leaves as he went.

Hai!  Wanna play?

We stay until the sun starts to drop behind the hills, and then head for home. As I round the final bend into Crofton and see beautiful Osborne Bay laid out before me, the gold and red trees that line Joan Avenue, and the magnificent snow covered Mt Baker in the distance, I once again find myself thinking how very blessed I am to live in this amazing place.

Osborne Bay, Crofton BC