Written almost live as I went through the forest
Photo shots on a quiet autumn morning run
From chesnuts, red trees, fall, and the English language, to a sweet expat reward back home
Like every time I go jogging, I first walked for 5 minutes and then started running when I got into the forest. The last days were here sunny but windy, throwing all the ripened chestnut fruits off the trees -as you see in the lead photo. Mother nature knows: the trees evolved “knowing” that this time of the year is windy, so they must have their seeds ready to fall by then.
Oh wait, dear native English speaker, is this why “autumn” and “fall” are synonyms? Because plant parts die off and fall? I looked a bit into this in Merrian-Webster’s “Words at Play” section here:
By the middle of the 1800s, American English and British English had diverged, and so had fall and autumn. One early American lexicographer, John Pickering, noted in his entry for fall:
A friend has pointed out to me the following remark on this word: “In North America the season in which this [the fall of the leaf] takes place, derives its name from that circumstance, and instead of autumn is universally called the fall.” — John Pickering, A Vocabulary, or Collection of Words Which Have Been Supposed to Be Peculiar to the United States of America, 1816
Back to the chestnuts that fell, see how many there are. A fest for squirrels! (sorry, I saw two of these cute small animals but the shots weren’t nice…)
Here’s a close look at one I just picked up:
And here’s a lady picking up some, to eat them of course!
Mother nature’s fungi also point out at the fall:
Just like in this photo book dedicated to the first fungi of this fall season, shoot some weeks ago but up in the mountains where the fall begins earlier:
Colors, of course, are the most indicative features of the fall:
See this gradient from green to yellow to red:
But there’s still a lot of green in the “plateau lemanique”, which is the French for “flatlands around Lake Geneva”. For example here, the palm trees are barely starting to turn yellow:
And some cultures are still very green -I think these are carrots:
Last, although the temperatures aren’t too low yet, the north-facing sides of rocks already have very little sun, making these lichens burst:
One last turn and I run up the gentle slope back home.
I am tired.
For an Argentinian expat, nothing better than a mid-morning refuel with dulce de leche filling inside something that resembles a factura -our local kinds of buns (by the way, factura literally means “invoice”, and I have no idea why!).
I am a nature, science, technology, programming, and DIY enthusiast. Biotechnologist and chemist, in the wet lab and in computers. I write about everything that lies within my broad sphere of interests. Check out my lists for more stories. Become a Medium member to access all stories by me and other writers, and subscribe to get my new stories by email (original affiliate links of the platform).
