I am leaving town a bit earlier than anticipated, so am jumbling to get everything squared for a month-long trip. Yes, I owe you a book review, no worries, it will come. So will travel reports and of course Art on the Road, given how much is currently on offer in Southern California. Just not on a regular schedule.

In the meantime, walk with me one last time in the fall woods of Oregon, along the river. It was an easier choice than that of the peace dove from this fabulous photograph that my sister sent. Clearly her options are overwhelming, a sad testimony to the current state of the world, but the set-up was, I thought, ingenious. (The lowest sign adds: and all other countries not mentioned here…)

I was encouraged by the fact that there is this public reminder expressing our hope for peace. I was also propped up by a recent article by Anne Applebaum making a case against pessimism. (Gift link, should allow you access.) And I want to remind you that excursions into nature are by far the easiest and most effective remedy for momentary despair, if only to remind you what’s a stake to fight for, rather than give up.

Need not be a monumental hike. Can be sitting on a park bench, for all I care, or counting the daisies in a strip of lawn, or, as in the case below, walking around a wildlife preserve on easy paths.

Falls has arrived, luminously so.

Herons, ibis and cormorants hanging out, ready for lunch.

Some finding morsels more easily than others.

Next to the yellows, and isolated reds, there was a sense of the lushest of green, almost mirroring early spring in one last Hurrah before the cold nights set in.

As always, there were surprises: yesterday some form of land art, I suppose, although it made me think of all these sneakers slung across the street wires…

Familiar trees, ever changing. Through seasons, through wildlife activity, through human interference. A reminder that change is inevitable, at times beautiful, and we might as well go with it. Says this aging blogger, about to drive my car to L.A. for a change in scenery.

I’ll listen to Piazzola’s seasons on the way South, but here is Fall.