I spent last week in Ontario, attending my brother’s wedding and visiting my family there. The colourful fall leaves were just starting when we arrived, but were near their peak at midweek when we took an excursion to Gatineau Park.
With my new appreciation for trees, I spent a lot of time observing the fall and being glad I had not been so foolhardy as to attempt to model it. Fall is a season of transition and far more complex than the stasis of summer. The complexity arrises from the many levels and rates at which the change occurs. Whole stands of trees appear to miss the memo, and remain steadfastly green. Within a stand of trees, there are laggards clinging to their summer colours the way your crazy neighbour clings to their shorts, and early adopters who gambol into the colourful sweater weather. What’s more, individual trees don’t change all at once: they pass through a kaleidoscope of colours before dropping their leaves; they are painted in a gradient from green through yellow to red. I concluded that the only way to model such trees would be to airbrush them after they were leafed.
Of course I visited the Thicket, which was in shorts-wearing seasonal denial even late in the week. I wish I’d had the photo below when I was leafing my trees. While I’m happy with my model, it more or less completely fails to represent the prototype.
The highlight of the week – well other than my brother’s wedding – was my first visit to the Pasture. Until then, I had only seen it in photos. Being in the area, I knocked on the door to meet the farmers. Ms Wallace’s hired man, Tim, answered the door, and relayed who I was to herself, who was being consumed by a low settee inside. As a complete stranger appearing unannounced on the step, I was surprised to be invited in to chat. Ms Wallace is the second generation on the farm, and worked it with her brother until he passed a few years ago. I don’t think they are still actively farming, and she is certainly of retirement age. Her father bought the farm, in about the 20’s, to be near to his brothers. She was aware of the farm’s celebrity, but was perplexed by the existence of a model. Well, wouldn’t you be?
As we turned back up the Burnstown road, I stopped to snap my own photo of the Pasture and the Copse. The latter will be next summer’s project. I will not be so foolish as to model it as I saw it!
