The grey and the gold

 

 

Grey skies and golden roses-- on Saturday I picked the last ones before the rain ruined them. It was a wet and chilly weekend, with the first snow falling in the high mountains. 

Tom and Nova were over on the west side of the state this weekend, also our friends Karen and Bruce, who sent this white knuckle view of the North Cascades Highway yesterday afternoon. Everyone got home safely. 

Here in the Emerald City, we were glued to the television watching sports. The Seahawks and Mariners both won. The Mariners play a second game in Toronto this afternoon before heading back to an ecstatic Seattle. Many baseball fans were not even born, the last time we had a championship team!

Oh my, the darkness descends rapidly up here in the left hand corner of the map. The decline in solar radiation especially noticeable in October. A few golden battery lights help keep the late afternoon gloom at bay. 

 

So let us go on, cheerfully enough,
this and every crisping day,

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.

From "Lines written in the days of growing darkness" by Mark Oliver.