we minnesotans talk about the weather because it is the most dramatic thing about our landscape. we don’t have oceans or gorges or mountains or the big sky of the western plains and southwestern deserts. we have lakes, which are pretty and placid but which are not, with the exception of lake superior, dramatic. we are, however, on the 45th parallel in the middle of our continent and we can have 130 degree temperature swings between high summer and low winter. all of which helps explain our weather obsession, and the reason  behind this photo, which stands as a marker of the day when a brief, gorgeous period of equilibrium between warm green summer and colorful fall tipped irreversibly in the direction of the latter. a chilly day blew down most of the remaining leaves today, and in 24 hours it went from color-on-color october to gray-on-brown november in my back yard.

a collection of late october finds: crabapples, nest, turkey feather, bracket fungus, pinecone, birdseye knot, dried leaves and weeds

shoreview, minnesota