KAMIAK BUTTE + THE MUDDY COLORS OF THE HARVEST

In June the wheat fields are green. The entire country out here is a perfect dream of rippling green waves, twinkling and glistening and glinting in the breeze. June in the Palouse is some kind of trick on the eyes. It's an emerald city every which way you turn.

And then comes August, and the wheat has turned gold, and the combines came out and the waves get razed down to nothing. The tires leave gaping tracks, blackened stubble smokes after the burn, and the gentle green waves are replaced with hill after muddy hill of browns and tans and blacks. And for just a quick minute, in the beginning of September, you have this magical week or so before the leaves on the trees turn gold to match.

It is romantic, and it is ugly, and it made for a killer hike in the rain last weekend. The drizzle (I hope) helped douse out some of the wildfires in the area. It definitely ushered in a hint of the coming cold weather. Done all my flannel be accounted for. Let's go for it, Idaho.

Kamiak Butte is about a 20 minute drive outside Pullman, and at the very tippy top of the 3 mile hike is this intensely insane view of what's left of the Palouse after the harvest, once the land has given all it's got. Empty and quiet, but still somehow beautiful. Maybe even more so.

I just think there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

My parents were there too! My mom killed it up that hike, I swear, that woman. SOMEDAY I will be able to keep up with her. Unlock my inner Stanger woman from its beast cage or whatever. Shrug emoji. 

Idaho has been a lot of good things so far, and a lot of itchy growing pains, too. Backwards growing pains? Sloughing off some of what the city added on. I like being a little more connected to the earth like this, a little more vulnerable to the rocks and rolls of everyday silly things. It's funny, even tucked away in vehicles and behind double paned windows like we are, with heaters cranking and all these layers happening, I still feel a million times more vulnerable out here than I did in the city. Idaho softens me up. And I'm not just talking about the inevitable suburb-10. ;) Whatever, bring that on too, Idaho! 

SEARS CATALOG

Huck made this adorable friend on the hike. Total Bridge to Terabithia type deal. We have since bumped into this family at the hardware store already. This small town junk. I don't know, what are you gonna do. 

And now that is the end of that. 

BOOM! Thank you, Idaho, for all this beautiful early autumn garbage. We'll take it and soak it up like there's no tomorrow. 

(Thank you also for all the falling-apart barns. I forgot how much I love those.)

Now it's really the end.