the end...?

Yesterday Griff and I went to one of our favorite summer haunts...the pull ferry.

We sure had some fun adventures with my sister and the kids in August when they came to visit.

I will always have a quiet giggle in my heart when I think about that day and how we all got muddy and wet and had twigs and leaves in our hair and then had to go to town on the way home.

We must have looked like a right bunch of bush whacker's!

The grass is dry and brown and dying in those same fields where it once grew over our heads...

Some think of this time of year as the end.

In a lot of ways it is, but for me it's always the beginning of other, creative, looking inward sorts of things.

Life doesn't end for most things...it just goes to sleep...

It sets its seeds for it's next life in the spring.

Burrows itself down deep into the earth.

Roots itself preparing for the next phase.

And then slowly, just disappears, under deep depths of mulch and snow.

It gives itself back to whence it came.

Feeds the ground that nurtured it.

And in this process, gives us a gift of jewel tones and warm hues...

Down by the river, a mysterious miracle is also at work .

The salmon who came from these places as tiny fry, have come back after 4 years in the ocean to give it all they've got.

Fighting the rushing currents, only knowing that this is what they must do...

No matter what, they keep on struggling...

Only to spawn and die.

So in all of this seemingly difficult to watch drama, there is a marvel to behold.

I am a witness to a force powerful and inspiring.

No one knows how the salmon know exactly where they came from.

Some say it's a smell...

Some say it's the stars...

Some say it's the moon...

I say...

I love a good mystery.

Griff and i will say goodnight to this place for the winter.

It's getting much to wet, even for my gumboots.

But we'll come back again for more adventures next year when all is bright and new again.