These are my colors. From 1978-82 when I was in high school, I made many of my own clothes, and these were the colors I gravitated to. They were called “earth tones.” My mother called them “brown.” Looking at the prairie these days reminds me of the one and only “suit” I ever made, a lined jacket, pants, and a corduroy vest that had all these colors in it. I loved that vest.
The mature prairie behind the house continues to look different than it has other years. The individual plants stand out, although I couldn’t tell you without their bright flowering heads what they are. Well, these are the seeds of grey headed coneflowers. It’s seed harvest time. This time of year they flake right off their stalks and release a great, citrus-y scent that stays in the skin.
And this fluffy one was the last to bloom, goldenrod.
As for these with the sherbet-red stalks, they are exploding aster puffballs!
And this is our wave of blue stem…
The colors of the ground are in harmony with the colors of the trees, and the light of the low sun is just burnishing everything. It’s precious metal time. Jewels of the earth time. A final shout before everything is blanketed in snow.