Fall in the Rockies

Fall is beautiful almost everywhere and I went out and took some pictures today as it begins to descend on New Mexico. it is not as striking as on the East Coast but it is beautiful. First here is a picture of the canyon 1 block from my house. It is a great hiking spot and frankly, the picture doesn't do the flowers justice, but I am new at photography so use your imagination, purple and yellow daisy like plants everywhere. Please show us your area's fall colors!
Betty

And here is the tree that JamesCo said he would almost pay money to see. It is very lovely though there was a wind blowing when I took a picture of it today so it doesn't look quite as elegant as it might. There are 4 of them, but I haven't a clue what they are. Of course, I don't pretend to know all the trees and large shrubs available for landscaping these days. These went in about a year ago.

Here are the leaves form these trees so you can see all the colors at once. I simply plucked them off, put them on the sidewalk and took a picture. This is what I like about these trees. This one is surrounded by dark purple shrubs in the background but the trees have some dark purple of their own. I rather like this display at my local fire station. Any clue what these trees are?

Wow Pajaritomt good collection. I saw some beautiful Quaking aspen in the Rockies early this week I'll have to shoot a pict when I pass them sunday. Here is my early ones.
Sumac.

Your sumac is georgeous! I love the fall colors. Each plant is different! Any clue what the ones I posted are?
Our Aspens haven' t begun to turn yet, but some plants in town have. Perhaps I can get a good picture of the aspens later on.
I was interested to hear you refer to them as Quaking Aspens. My grandfather in Jackson Hole, Wyo used to use that term or simply Quakers. I haven't heard it in New Mexico. But that doesn't deny their beauty.

Trees are beginning to turn yellow around here, too. I own 14 deciduous trees, so there will be plenty of fall leaves to supply mulch for my plants.

Land of Lividness! That thing is gorgeous! Wow wow wow.
It looks like a simple Acer negundo to me- Box elder.

Wow,
Kenton

Betty, your tree is as Kenton says vivid. Love it. Fall color is just begining here. If weather is indeed a factor we should have color soon as the days are surely shortning and this morning the temp. is 36 degrees.

I grow Acer negundo Flamingo and do enjoy its pink edges, but no fall color there. Will take some fall color pictures soon.

Egad! It is supposed to get down to 34 degrees F here tonight! This is one month earlier than our average first frost date. I am not ready for frost this soon. I am just no ready to give up on the garden. Of course some things will still be good especially brussels sprouts, kale and spinach.
With all this spinach-ecoli scare, I am certainly glad to have my own. We have been eating it for a while and are quite healty. I don't use cow manure which is I gather a common source of ecoli. I use horse and llama manure. Hopefully, they don't carry ecoli because I gather industry washes their spinach better than homemakers possibly can.
Of course, I don't put mine in a sealed plastic bag under refrigeration. I suspect that ecoli might really enjoy that environment.

Yes, Kenton, I wondered if it weren't a box elder, but I have never seen them used in landscaping. They are sort of messy looking in form but the color is hard to beat.

Beautiful pictures!

I'm a bit worried- not even the early-coloring trees have changed, yet it was 35 last night. I imagine some trees will look pretty awful.
My dog once had N equestrian-strain E. coli (the vet said it was common in dogs around horses- I had been taking her to the stalls with me. I think it is in fresh manure?
K

Yes fall is definitely here. 34 degrees this morning and frost on the back lawn. Nothing hurt but I want another month before hard frost. Am trying to get the plants moved back into the gh, but progressing slowly.

The potato plants are fading anyway, and the potatoes underground should still be fine. Broccoli likes cool weather, although at this late date I doubt if I'll get broccoli sprouts, anyway. Lots of leaves. No sprouts.

It's the zucchini I worry about. I could drape something over it, but I doubt if I'll have time in the morning to take it off, and from what I've read, that might be just as bad.

I didn't plant my lilacs today. I hate to wait, but it'll be warmer next weekend. I did a lot of weeding and clearing, and I sawed a dead limb off one of my trees. I'm kind of worried about the dead limbs on the trees next to the house. That's all I need is for one to crash through my roof, or a window. But they're too high up for me to trim unless I want to climb up onto the roof, and I am NOT doing that.

Last night it was supposed to get down to 34 but at the last minute the weather bureau decided it would be 36. In surveying the garden today, some of my squash had black marks on its leaves indicating slight frost. Not most of it but some.
Tonight the weather bureau is predicting 33. That is way too close for comfort to me. I harvested my 1 little watermelon -- which is a first for me and tasted it. Very nice and sweet. I plucked my one red tomato. I should have picked more but didn't see the weather report until after dark.
Only a few of the trees have turned. The aspens are still totally green as are the cottonwoods. We are getting some red from some of the species put in by landscapers downtown, but it doesn't really look like fall around here.
It is already cold. I am thinking it will be very cold tonight.

its supposed to go down to 33 tonight here with isolated spots of hard freeze. I got the daffodils and tulips in the ground. If the frost gets the tomatoes it wont be that great of a loss as the plants werent that prolific. Next year a different type of tomatoe for sure. I didnt have that much of a garden this year but I hope my hostas survive the frost. I have a heuchera that is blooming, but if we get a hard frost tonight Im sure it will be black in the morning. Im keeping my fingers crossed.

Betty, don't assume industry washes their spinach better than homemakers do. The spinach goes into a large tumbler of water that sloshes it around and then it goes on a conveyor belt where it is sprayed with a water jet to rinse off whatever the tumbler didn't shake loose. They often don't change the water in the tumbler until end of day, and it's pretty muddy then. My DH insists on washing all packaged lettuces and spinach no matter how clean they look in the package.

We don't yet know if the contamination came from the field or the processing plant. A year or so ago their was an e.coli problem with a batch of raw almonds from ONE grower, where someone used the irrigation water to wash the almonds instead of the potable water pipe. The news articles I've read say that they haven't been able to find e.coli in any of the packaged spinach tested which is why the recall has been voluntary on the part of the company producing the crop, not mandated by the FDA or CDC. It's very strange that they haven't been able to trace the origins of the contamination this time. Home grown is best of course. The kale will taste sweeter with a little frost.

Your Heuchera: what a trooper.

I have an organic farmer friend who washes his lettuce and (separately) his spinach in the family washing machine. That guarantees a wash and rinse cycle and a spin. He says it works great. His wife says every time she tries to wash clothes, the washer is full of lettuce or spinach.
I did always hear that commercially washed spinach was washed 3 times and then blown up into the air to dry and was therefore cleaner than home washed spinach. And heaven knows it is easier. But what one can never guarantee is that a worker will take a short cut or have a "brilliant" idea that contaminates everything. And that worker could be from the CEO to the janitor.
Right now I am really glad to have my own spinach grown in my own compost. The compost is well aged, and hopefully safe. Certainly it has never made anyone sick.

LOL! Love the washing machine salad spinner! At least we know the water was changed between cycles. We prefer to buy from the smaller, local family farms rather than the large industrial packing plants.

The evening news has been saying that the aspens are changing in the mountains, so tomorrow we're going to take a trip and see for ourselves. I'll post photos when I get back.

Not much change in the neighborhood at this point, except the wetlands grasses across the street are beginning to get yellow. My grasses all have seedheadss, but that's about all I can notice.

I'll be interested in learning what is impacting the aspens in the Rockies. I know the forests in the Sierras are ill. We drove up to Tahoe the weekend before Labour Day and many of the trees on Donner Summit were dead and the remaining ones looking very ill. Many are attributing the forest ills with the warmer temps and the increased smog.

The wildlife studies from Yosemite and the Sierras are showing that many species have moved 2000 ft higher up the mountain because of the warming temperatures.

We've seen that throughout the mountains in our travels this summer. Dead pines, and dead aspens. Very sad. It has to be global warming. The really sad thing is that since they spread by underground suckers a whole stand of them can die at once, leaving a big hole on the mountainside where they were.

Looking at earth's history, a tiny bit of change doesn't suprise me in the least bit.

Betty that tree is just georgeous!!! I miss seeing the fall changes. We are just gearing up for fall gardening here in the furnace blast.

All bowell contents have EColi. It is only ones that produce an endotoxin or attack a particular organ that make press. We all ingest Ecoli every day. I'd explain it to you, but no one wants to hear it, but it is common. The contents of infected food just grow those colonies to a level that is dangerous to those who don't eat the bacteria every day. Their immune systems are not able to attack these pathogens.

So Steve, it sounds like you accept the terrain theory of disease and see it as an important concept?

I am not knowledgable of the "terrain theory". What does it encompass?

Here is a brief description of germ theory vs terrain theory:

"Modern medicine has gotten to where it is today in part through a scientific and philosophical debate that culminated in the 19th century. On one side of the debate was French microbiologist Antoine Bechamp. On the other side was French microbiologist Louis Pasteur. Bechamp and Pasteur strongly disagreed in their bacteriological theories. They argued heatedly about who was correct. It was...

The Argument that Changed the Course of Medicine.

Pasteur promoted a theory of disease that described non-changeable microbes as the primary cause of disease. This is the theory of monomorphism. This theory says that a microorganism is static and unchangeable. It is what it is. Disease is solely caused by microbes or bacteria that invade the body from the outside. (This is the germ theory.)

Bechamp held the view that microorganisms can go through different stages of development and they can evolve into various growth forms within their life cycle. This is the theory of pleomorphism. He observed microbe like particles in the blood which he called microzymas. These microbes would change shape as individuals became diseased, and for Bechamp, this was the cause of disease; hence disease comes from inside the body.

Another scientist of the day, Claude Bernard, entered into the argument and said that it was actually the "milieu" or the environment that is all important to the disease process. Microbes do change and evolve, but how they do so is a result of the environment (or terrain) to which they are exposed. Hence, for Bechamp, microbes, being pleomorphic, will change according to the environment to which they are exposed. Therefore, disease in the body, as a biological process, will develop and manifest dependent upon the state of the internal biological terrain. At the core of that terrain, is pH.

Both men acknowledged certain aspects of each other's research, but it Pasteur was the stronger, more flamboyant, and more vocal opponent when compared to the quiet Bechamp. Pasteur also came from wealth and had the right family connections. He went to great lengths to disprove Bechamp's view. Pasteur eventually managed to convince the scientific community that his view alone was correct. Bechamp felt that this diverted science down a deplorable road - a road that held only half the truth.

On his deathbed, Pasteur finally acknowledged Bechamp's work and said, "Bernard was correct: the microbe is nothing: the terrain is everything." It was a 180 degree turnaround. With his death imminently at hand, he as much as admitted that his germ theory had flaws. But his admission fell on deaf ears. It was far too late. It could not reverse the inertia of ideas that had already been accepted by mainstream science at that time. Allopathic (drug based) medicine was firmly entrenched on the road that was paved by Pasteur.

The result of that road is what you see today practiced as medicine. When a body is out of balance, doctors attempt to put it back into balance, first through drugs, then through surgery. The general effect is to remove the symptoms, not to deal with the ultimate cause of the ailment."

Yes and no. I am a veterinarian who believes that every chemical used as an allopathic treatment has to be weighed against the homeopathic effects of the being. Alleopathic use is best used when the homeopathic process fails. This of course is subjective therefore the Dr. But I feel that if all beings are correctly affected by their environment they will thrive. The only problem is that man changes her/his environment and this results in immune failure that requires alleopathic intervention. But I feel most immune challenges short of viral result in successful outcomes. Though alleopathic intervention assists in the outcome. This is based on the understanding of the systems that protect the body. Yes Alleopathic intervention has its undesired effects but a trained individual (Dr) can define and adjust these failures. OR NOT.
Beaushamps view is good and logical but not comfortable with the essence of attack. Bacterias do not change in the body but rather produce an event that succumbe the individual to advanced risk. IE production of endotoxins, and other devastating processes. The organism viral, or bacterial do mutate but only in the future tense.

The monomorphic vs pleomorphic nature of microrganisms usually takes more of a backseat to the discussion of disturbances/imbalances in the body's inner ecology acting as fertile soil for the disease process and or invading microbe to take root. Traditional medical systems like Chinese medicince, Ayurveda and Unani approach health more from the importance of terrain, as in keeping the terrain balanced and the digestion strong. Digestion in this case extending to the cellular level. Some of your commentary on "eating dirt" to strengthen the immune system reminded me of the terrain discussions, which is why I asked.
:-)

Okay, you two, you've successfully hijacked the thread. All very interesting, but would you mind getting back to how fall is in your neck of the woods?? You can D-mail each other. Unless, of course, somebody else wants to weigh in on this biological discussion. I myself think all three men had a piece of the truth. The fact that Pasteur's hypothesis won the day just goes to prove Thomas Kuhn's belief that all leading scientific revolutions are determined by factors -- social and political -- other than purely scientific.

Sorry revclaus. It was an extension of the e.coli discussion and indirectly related to what is happening to the aspens in the Rockies and the evergreens in the Sierras. Any further commentary on the topic will go to Dmail or another appropriate thread.

I love the fall in the mountains because of the lovely colours of the aspens, cottonwoods and fields along with the refreshing smell of pines and firs. The cool crispness to the air changes the scent. Early fall is my favourite time to hike in the woods and along the lakes. There seems to be a heightened energy of anticipation emanating from the earth, the plants, the wildlife - everyone knows the snow is coming soon.

Fall is also the time we start baking alot. The oven helps heat the house and the warm, baked foods are great when coming in from the crisp weather.

OK I love the rain in the fall and the ground getting its feet wet and the soil recovering from the powder that it had. I like to see the cold mornings that I have to use my seat heater to warm up. I love the crackle in the fireplace that warms the room more in one spot than another. Ah Fall.

Actually, I agree that the discussion about theories of bacterial infection is fascinating and I hope it moves to some other thread rather than dmail so I can follow it. A lot of this discussion is new to me, but I guess it is poor web etiquette to hyjack a thread. So please, would the two of you take this up where I can read it?


And I do love the fall in the Rockies a lot more than in my home states of Louisiana and Mississippi. They have so many evergreens, it almost doesn't feel like fall and they don't get a lot of fall color. But watch out for Spring in the South! It is spectacular.

I have read about something similar, a theory as to why people tend to get sick when they go on vacation. We're used to the germs around here and have defenses against them. But if we go to Mexico or Japan or even just Chicago, we're in the territory of a whole slew of organisms that Mexicans, Japanese, or Chicagoans are quite used to, but that would lay us poor Coloradans low because we don't have the defenses. Almost invariably, one of the bugs gets through the defenses and makes us sick. Sometimes just sniffly, sometimes dangerously ill.

That shows another side, too, of the buying local argument. If I ingest germs with my Colorado apples or cantelope, shouldn't I have better defenses against them than against the ones that tag along with grapes from California or watermelon from Oregon?

And here I am, enabling the hijackers! But this is a fascinating subject to me, probably because I have a scientific background as well.

As for color in the High Country -- I wouldn't know! I've lived in the area for 17 years, and I've been to the mountains less than half a dozen times.

Why? Because I don't have a car. And that's about the only way to get up there. I moved to Colorado partially for the mountains, and about all I can do is look at them from afar. (Sigh!)

I didn't really mean to send everybody off into hyperspace. I forgot to put this ;-) after my first sentence. Too big a hurry today. Why don't you start a threat talking about the scientific stuff??

White, I'm so sorry you can't get to the mountains much because of lack of a car. But here's a pic for you from our trip today.

Now that must have been a breathtaking drive!

Not sure about starting a "threat" talking about "scientific" stuff, but I'd be happy to start a "thread" in an appropriate forum if others are interested. :D
There are many interesting theories/philosophies.
I don't want to put anyone on the spot and have the thread seem like work rather then relaxation. A fall picnic under those lovely trees seems in order.

pictures like that is what made me move to the mountains. I have incorporated 2 Aspen groves in my garden plan. The only problem is that I am never home to see the color.

Cornus Daybreak is beginning to develop nice pink fall color.