Morning Thanks--Alton's south pond

 

It had been a while since I spent an hour or two out at the pond south of town, a pond that wouldn't be there if it weren't for all the work done on Hwy 60. When the DOT decided 60 should be a four-laner, overpasses galore needed to be constructed. The extra dirt needed to create hills high enough to build those overheads had to come from somewhere--why not just next door? 

So, the pond south of Alton wouldn't be there without more concrete on the highway beside it. If I were a card-carrying environmentalist, I'd have something critical to say about that, but I'm not, so I won't, at least not on Sunday afternoons in sunny October when a walk around the pond and out to the river is an in-the-flesh Sabbath blessing. 

I don't know whether any time soon there will come more days as perfect as Sunday. Rain came in last night, which suggests a front. Winter is inevitable. Me and my smart phone caught the south pond at its most glorious--bright sun, clear skies, warm temps, everything dressed in fall's tawny saffron.

The Floyd snakes through the fields like some skinny garden snake, except legions of time more slowly. Up at the spot where I sit, where the river flows straight south, any northern breeze at all appears the river itself flow upstream. Right now, it's little more than ankle-deep.

When I sat in the pickup and thumbed through the pictures, the word that came to mind is texture. Even if we've got no towering oaks to catch flame here on the prairie, what's there at the south pond is most certainly strong on texture. 

I won't try to be an art critic, but what's alive about this picture, what takes you in is not the triumph of color but the mystical appeal of texture. (And now I'm out of my league.)

We skipped our Minnesota color tour this year, couldn't quite fit it in. There's nothing quite like hardwoods turning into fantasy in the fall, blazings reds and oranges. But I'm not complaining. Yesterday's hour was a joy.  

And, sure, I might have traded Alton's south pond for a path through an oak forest at Itasca State Park, or a Vermont hillside, or maybe a place in Maine or the UP; but I'm not complaining about this little pond dug a decade ago by a heavyweight scoop on huge tires. 

All of this was there to see, and this morning, I'm thankful for little old south pond, sweetly outfitted in fall's inimitable garb.