I was staring out at the orange-mottled scene in front of me, the top edge of the Black Forest reflecting in the Nonnenmattweiher Lake down below us. (What a fun name!) It was a gray drizzly day to be out hiking with 5 friends, but despite the chill in the air, we were responding to the call of the outdoors and the company of lovely people. The last time I had been out this far into the Black Forest was during the Spring of 2020, when the only way to get outside, according to the government, was in the name of "doing sports." Everyone suddenly became a hiker.
I closed my eyes and recalled the vibrant bright green from that time, the tips of trees showing off their new growth. I remembered how brilliant the whites of the apple tree blossoms had been, and the blue of the sky without contrails breaking it up. With another minute, I could've remembered the feel of that spring sun and the cacophony of birds. Today the colors were much more muted and animals were beginning to hide away. Krista pointed out that the oranges and yellows and even reds of our glorious fall were definitely fading away to brown here at the end of October, and soon they would descend to the ground, leaving only the darkest of green conifers. As I tried to picture what the forest will look like in just two weeks' time without the orange, I caught a whiff of Christmas, all pine wrapped up in cinnamon and firewood. It was fleeting, but it struck me how much the colors of the forest are tied to seasons for me. The brown and white crunicheness of winter, the neon green growth of spring, the lush overhead branches with their thick greens of summer, and these muted warm tones of fall. If you can't tell by now, I love the forest!
Nonnenmattweiher Lake and Belchen Mountain to the right
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