It was Leaf Peepers weekend in Davis and Thomas, but there wasn’t much in way of leaves to peep at.
The foliage is dull, almost monochromatic, after a summer of rain followed by drought. Now, the rain is back, just in time for the final crop of outdoor festivals and a week or two of “peak” color.
On Saturday morning in Davis, the showers started just about the time participants were lining up for the big “Run For It” 2K walk and 5K race. It just got worse from there.
It will take a real miracle of nippy nights and sunny days to bake a good autumn out of this soggy, dreary batter. The forest appears to reflect the nation’s overall dour mood. Neither woodland nor homeland is in an autumnal mood.
I have seen autumns that started out dull but somehow ended spectacularly. Unfortunately, this year the maples dropped out of the beauty pageant early on, their leaves browning, withering and dropping in September. Without their brilliant accents of yellow, orange and red, the autumnal salad becomes as colorful as a head of month-old iceberg.
When one gets to be 71 and knows both days and autumns are numbered, the loss of a centerfold-worthy season is especially disappointing. At this age, there are but two annual events I look forward to: the tomato harvest and autumn color. Again, due to weather extremes that oscillated like Donald Trump’s stance toward Putin’s war in Ukraine, the tomato harvest was a bust. A dull, rainy autumn is doing an encore.
I can mumble, “Maybe next year will be better” and get back to splitting firewood. Or I can open the “West Virginia/Autumn/Tucker County folders on my hard drive and relive those glorious autumns of what seems like long ago, then go to bed and dream of next summer’s tomatoes.
A few from autumns past in West Virginia
