The Little Things...

It's the little things in life that are so rewarding...  Here's one. I came home to Montana from a two-week trip to find my old Subaru wearing its first set of snow tires! (new, from Costco, courtesy of my sweet husband). Winter, they say, is coming here early -- next week, in fact.  There's to be a low of 17 at least one night.  But, for now, it's Fall and sunny with afternoons approaching 60 degrees. We walk just a few blocks from our house to the Bitterroot River to witness autumn's last gasp.

Willows and cottonwoods along this river's sandbars provide bright color in a state where evergreens reign (the Ponderosa pine is the Montana state tree).  

Beside gorgeous trees, we see plenty of wildlife.

A water ouzel, or American dipper, takes flight from a rock just below the surface of the river, lower right.  It's a wonderful Western bird (http://www.closerlookphoto.com/articles/species_profile-Ouzel/Ouzel.html).  Other birds that we spot on our hike this day include a golden eagle, small heron, chatty flicker and a family of mergansers.

We find a number of other morning hikers along the river's edge.

Knox Pruitt, 2, and his mother, Robin, are up early to see what's wild along the banks.  He says they're looking for beavers. And later on, we do indeed see where a beaver has gnawed a small tree into a pointy stump.

When we hike with the sun to our backs, the mountains rise above an even more colorful scene (helped out with ground-level red and orange shrubs). Parts of the Bitterroot River look like a lake right now; the water is unusually low from a hot and dry summer, but reflections on a still surface are beautiful.

Reflections in yellow, orange and red.

And when we get home to citified maples that line our corner lot, we're reminded of the raking work ahead, especially when our largest maple drops everything and turns the lawn bright yellow! Probably next week. (We do need to clear the way for massive numbers of Trick-or-Treaters.)

This maple of ours is a bit scary this time of year. (But a new little pear tree, in the foreground, produced enough pears to join a friend's modest pear harvest and make a killer pear crisp!)

Also at home is a vegetable garden with homemade hoops (sturdy plastic garden stakes with red tubing cut into small lengths and slipped over the stakes) that I plan to cover on Friday with some inexpensive frost-protection fabric. I hope it keeps the kale, mixed lettuces and arugula in an edible shape for as long as possible.

Hoops define our rows of greens before fabric will help cover everything and mitigate damage from frost. I hope. It's an experiment. I wanted white pipes because that's what I've seen in other gardens. But these festive-red hoops may be just what I need to help get through the winter. And maybe the rows of three kale varieties, one mixed-green lettuce, one arugula and little radishes, would you believe?, will last at least into Thanksgiving!

Copyright © 2013, Becky Homan