The autumn has been exhilarating and exhausting, an urgent search for yet the grandest scene, the greatest color.

And now, on a slowly emerging late October morning, fog and dew compete to set a melancholy scene for the early visitor to field and bog. Apples decorate bare trees, silhouetted like so many planets against the late, thin sun that rises far and low, climbing from behind the trees into the overcast sky keeping us cool but not cold, damp but not wet. The moist air carries scents of decay and leaf mold and freshness and pine in turn as I poke along, slowing down to the rhythm of this day.

And yet this quiet, shadow-dampened season that seems to hold its breath for winter gives me solace. It is a sobering and more singularly articulated landscape, the darkest of the year – a saturated palette of greens and browns and umbers slowly overtaking the gaudy oranges and reds as the plants finish their annual work and decommission their production lines until further notice.