Foliage

Every year we say what a strange winter it is. Hardly any snow except for that one big storm...so little variety this year, just hovering between 5 and 35 for five weeks after Christmas... I point out that there has never been a normal winter here.  They are all strange. We might say it's been a wet spring, or a hot summer, or a late fall, but we don't tend to describe those seasons as strange, even when it was wet in June and dry in August and September, as this year. But this was a strange autumn, perhaps because of the rain irregularity of summer, or any of the five other standard explanations for why the foliage is doing what it is doing this year.

Peak foliage was at a normal time, but was disappointing this year. The bright reds and oranges of the maples were subdued.  When that happens, we adjust and look at the goldenness of the birches and beeches and enjoy that.  We were surprised as we headed up to Quebec City, because the drama of the foliage diminished up through NH and VT as expected, but lingered in Quebec Province even as we headed farther north. The maples were late there, and fully dramatic. When we drove out through the Plains of Abraham, almost three weeks after it was supposed to be peak, it was the best display we had seen all year.

Now we are home, and many leaves have fallen. Yet a lot of the sugar maples are at peak only now. There are large vivid patches on the hills. What held the maples back but not the others this year? People speak knowledgeably and convincingly as if they know about such thin gs, but the following year their predictions are no better than anyone else's. 

It's been a strange autumn.