Rabbitbrush defines this country in the fall. It catches the sun and shines. Well, not this year, but it still has its magic.

There’s nothing quite like this showy aster that pulls at the heart. The thing is, though: fall is early. Up North on the Plateau, such fall clouds as these…

… in the third week of August are normal, and it really is Fall there, but down here in the valley bottom, it’s just cold, with light that is in the wrong season, on an Earth that is angled incorrectly to the sun. The mountains to the west are simply not shifting air as they normally do. It’s as if they aren’t there to pull at us. And so the ocean moves in overhead, yet it is summer, so it does not all but is reabsorbed into the sky when it tries.

Yes, it’s mixing with the smoke from our burning forests, yet that’s not just smoke caught in the light up there. It’s more like rain drifting like smoke, down from the clouds and back up. But that’s what climate change is, I guess: learning to live on a different plant, with different bands of energy moving through the air. It’s confusing, but we’re alone. Rabbitbrush is here to help us through.

Note how she doesn’t open all at once. This is wisdom we need.