Silver and Gold

🎶Make new friends, but keep the old. One is Silver and the other Gold!🎶. Granny’s daughters used to sing that song in Pioneer Club, years ago. This week, it is running over and over in her mind. Granny Hat has already made many new friends, the Silver kind, up here in the Treasure State. 

But some Golden Oldies came to town this month, dear friends from “back home”, (sorry, nephew Zachary). Greg and Tricia aren’t really “old” like Granny and Dad but they have been dear friends for around 26 years. They visited folks in Idaho, then came to northwest Montana “on their way to Mt. Rushmore”.  What a joy it was to see them and share some late summer Big Sky. Golden indeed!

” and all at once, summer collapsed into fall” Oscar Wilde

September summer yields to fall very quickly here at 43.3800 N!

The aspens in Granny’s yard suddenly started going Golden this week. The blue spruces are sporting Silver highlights.  Even some of the “evergreens” in the woods are turning lime green, then yellow, and will soon lose their needles! These are the Rocky Mountain Larches. When buying one at the Center for Native Plants, the nice lady told Granny they are “deciduous evergreens”, which is a puzzler for sure. 

All over town, Granny Hat hears phrases like “winter wardrobe”,   “base layers” and “snow shoes”. Moving from one long temperate region to four seasons, Granny has a lot to learn about winter wardrobes vs summer duds. How she wishes she hadn’t donated her collection of 80’s Lands End turtlenecks! For the first time in her life, she will be stocking her pantry with canned goods in case she gets snowed in. She hears the locals talk about all the “indoor projects” they have postponed for silvery, winter days. Granny decided she better save all sewing, furniture refinishing and book reading until at least November. 

As long as the sun shines and Granny’s mountains are dressed in autumn colors, best be outside hiking and gardening. There are daffodil bulbs to plant and a nice collection of wild flower seeds to sow before the first frost. Granny Hat and dad planted one of those “deciduous evergreen” larches, and some ponderosa, Douglas fir, spruce, birch and aspen trees the other day. They are covered with wire cages to discourage those pastoral deer; Granny would love to stay friends with them. The ball is in their court. As long as they leave her trees and flowers alone, they are welcome to the left-over alfalfa.

Warm fall days and crisp evenings bring out the Ringneck Pheasants and Magpies, eating their fill in the pasture behind Granny’s house.  This morning an autumn storm dusted the ridge of the Swan Range outside her window with silvery powdered sugar snow. Dad, who originally hailed from the land of oranges, avocados and The Mouse, just stared in disbelief and fear.

Winter may be around the corner but there are still a few balmy days predicted for early October. How Granny Hat loves the fall!

” Autumn leaves shower like gold, like rainbows, as the winds of change begin to blow”. Dan Millman

” No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.”  John Donne

” Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.” Jim Bishop

Granny Hat is so thankful for the changing seasons, such a picture of the gospel, of God’s redemption – death to life over and over every year. 

“Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,

Sun, moon and stars in their courses above,

Join with all nature in manifold witness,

To thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.”

Great is Thy Faithfulness by Thomas Chisholm