autumn colors

I got a precious dose of autumn this weekend on another visit to Lower Devil's Canyon. The seasonal changes in the desert proper are subtle, too subtle for a newcomer like me to appreciate. But the creek running through the canyon was another story.


Ok, it's still subtle by my Vermont standards, but out here it's nothing to sniff at! I practically jumped for joy when I crossed the creek and found a tangle of fiery Virginia Creeper on the rocks ...


And as my fellow climbers hiked up to the rock towers, I held back, skulking around the riparian zone, gazing at the Sycamore trees and wild grape leaves.


Back at home, I had another kind of autumnal color waiting for me in my dyeing pot. I've been hankering to get back to dyeing -- spurred by the Taos dye workshop and the recent snap of cooler evenings -- and I finally got out my dye pots over the weekend.


Left to right: pecan hulls, apricot leaves, persimmon leaves, peach leaves, and eucalyptus. The peach leaves are from a neighbor, but the pecan, apricot, persimmon, and eucalyptus are from trees in our own yard.

I've done a fair bit of experimenting the eucalyptus around here, trying a few different types of leaves and barks and trying different methods from long simmering to fermentation. I always have ended up with yellows. This time I just tried an unimpressive, scraggly eucalyptus shrub from our yard, and I was amazed to see the shocking orange it produced.