Countryside

Horses in Pasture
Canaan, CT

When I drive along Texas Highways, I tend to look only at what appears to be endless miles in front of me. The roads tend to be straight and monotonous. Driving in New England is quite different. There are many old rural roads and most cannot go straight because of all the hills and brooks and rivers they traverse. As autumn advances leaf gazers get in their cars and drive to the countryside show. They fill these roads on the weekends to sneak a peak at the free show.

The New England autumn is a live broadcast which informs its viewers of the winter to come. On all channels and frequencies it beams a spectacular colorful show by mid October and at its close, its leaves fade to the ground like fireworks on a 4th of July hot summer day. The show ends by the end of the month and we all wait for Thanksgiving, more football, and the onset of winter and the Christmas season.

I welcome autumn as much as I do spring. There is nothing subtle about each. Each boldly struts its change like a young flamboyant male. But autumn, truly puts on its best show in the Berkshires where I grew up.

In a few days, I will be back home, among maple leaves and friends approaching their autumn. It will be time to capture the glory of autumn again before my season also advances. I would like to think that I have at least forty-five more autumns in me. If I photograph them, I know I will have more.