Two mornings, about 3 days apart, and the conditions couldn't be more different. The brighter set features sunlight breaking through intense, glowering cloud cover, so that the backdrop was darkness and the foreground was bathed in golden light.
The foggier views are dimmer, darker, mistier. I've tried to pair up similar views for the fun of the comparison. While I was shooting the fall foliage color down in Missouri, we were losing what was left of the year's foliage up north here. The hard frosts have turned all the corn to a dry, golden texture.
With weather this extreme and changeable, it really makes sense to keep the camera at the ready! Unfortunately, I forgot to grab it for my evening walk with Dakota where the sun was setting and the moon was rising. Oh well, maybe tonight?
A few other Autumn notes:
-- The Canadian geese have been very active. I've been told that the adults must teach the new youngsters about flying in formation before their final migration begins...but I'm not sure if this is true. But they are constantly flying around and honking like crazy.
--I'm actually waiting and listening for the Sand Hill Crane migration to fly overhead. They are usually up so high, they are hard to spot EXCEPT that they are so noisy (raucous!) that if I'm on hand when this event begins, it gives me a thrill to watch them.
--And finally, although I personally don't eat meat, I do allow one friend, who is an experienced bow hunter, to prowl our acreage here in search of deer in season. He is a true hunter, who dresses and consumes what he kills, and is very grateful for this food! Plus, there is a lot of overpopulation pressure by deer in our area as there are no natural predators. For this reason, the hunting season is necessary. Growing up as a farm girl, I don't mind guns for hunting...but I don't allow them on the farm anymore because too many hunters get too nutty and careless in season. It's bad enough it sounds like we're in a battle around here during the annual deer gun hunting weekends.
Shorter days, longer nights, gray skies, cold rain, foggy weather, gloaming vestige. So many shades of silky, pearly, subtle gray...
...better to express that touch of depression that can settle in than to succumb to it...besides, gray is so beautiful!
And with those images in my head and thoughts in my mind, I ranged near and far over the Etsy catalogs, searching for things that helped portray this mood, these feelings of grayness. In the final form, "Stormy Season" was born and my quest for making treasuries for expressions of moods and feelings takes another step....
"Copper Creations" curated by Etsy seller Rebecca of MountainMist Fiberworks celebrates that wonderful orangey-coppery-russet-brown color which is found in leaves, in metal and (obviously!) in the palette of many Etsy artisans right now. In fact, when I peeked at Rebecca's shop, there were many lovely knitted hats and scarves--in wonderful copper shades!
So "Blue is Beautiful" (a definitive statement) and without the blue sky behind these russet fall colors, would the contrast be as exhilarating?? Of course not! and this very blue treasury, curated by PaulaArt, trends toward a deeper, darker collection of blues. Visit her Etsy shop for a very different collection of surprises: wonderful recycled materials turned into whimsical objects.
"Loving the last day of autumn" gathers a collection of mostly subtle colors with dots of brightness, much like the landscape now in the Midwest. It's curated by Etsy Seller CurlynChic whose shop specializes in craft supplies including seasonal rubber stamps that are very cute.
Please click and visit this lovely collection, curated by NestHavenStudio, who curates many lovely treasuries, listed on her page. 
I think it's a habit from my Alaska days. I mark the season's changes paying extra attention to the solstices and the equinoxes. So fall has officially begun. The moon is full. Day and night are of equal lengths. And changes in nature are everywhere here at WillOaks Campground. Today, the primary colors seemed especially striking.
Red - Yellow - Blue. Primary colors, yes, yet more subdued than in the box of crayons. The red stems at the top were luscious berries that have already been stripped. The yellow is some type of wild sunflower: in due time, these seeds will be eaten. And finally, Great Blue Lobelia, a wild flower that has been naturalizing nicely in the few years I've been paying attention. This was used for some type of medicinal purposes in earlier days, but I don't experiment with these things.
Meanwhile, clouds of tiny flowers, in both white and pale lavender, are everywhere. These are in the wild aster family and around here, are a sure sign of autumn.
And here is the final set of photos from the Missouri collection. I'm still awed by how brilliant these colors are because while I was away for about 4 days, almost all the leaves fell off the trees here at WillOaks Farm. I heard we had quite a wind storm while I was in Missouri and the past few weeks, we've had so much rain, a lot of the ground is just plain soggy. 
