Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost’s lines have been running through my head lately as I walk and pedal around my beautiful island this very mild November. While the southeast floods, California burns, and the upper Midwest freezes, we get…this.
How is this possible?
I don’t know. I’m just trying to stay grateful.For this…

…and this:
…and this:
So why am I writing this from the airport? And why am I leaving gentle, golden Washington for bitter Vermont, which is promising the coldest Thanksgiving on record?

Because…nothing gold can stay. It’s the EverGREEN State, not Evergold. Those beautiful leaves will fall, that wind WILL blow. No point holing up on an island pretending it won’t. Not when there are people I love who live far away from our goldenness.

But before I packed up and left, I captured some more island gold…and some rubies and diamonds too.

Hawthorn berries

Snowberries with rose hips

Madrona (the magnificent)

Even the lowly blackberry plays with its palette in November!

You are right, you are right, Robert Frost. So Eden sank to grief. All is impermanence. Darkness is coming, and cold. And, well…frost. But since I’m heading back to your neck of the (birch) woods, how about one more golden November image before I go?

This is, of all things, humble asparagus, gone to berry, and reveling in the afternoon sun.