A beautiful place to be

As I begin to write, it's last Tuesday, Nov. 8, 7:06 p.m., or as my body reminds me -- 8:06 Daylight Savings Time. Remember that day? It rained hard all day. The rain has stopped. The waxing gibbous moon is bright, illuminating at 96.4 percent. Jupiter shines bright in the east, obvious with a glance toward the moon. Yes, there's an app for that and that's where I got the information.

As you read this, we already had a full moon on Friday, Nov. 11, or so my app says. The stone drainage ditch on Main Street roars like a river as it seeks to become Leatherwood Creek. The bright moon reflects on foggy condensation floating from the valley below. Ninety minutes earlier the largest object since the early '70s -- an asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier -- passed between the Moon and Earth. "No impact," said the app. It's another lovely evening in the Ozarks, another passing snapshot of a moment of beauty.

Karen Pryor, able employee of our good city's CAPC, looked at a few photos I took of the previous week's foliage. Her reaction was not to the photographs.

"Wow!" she exclaimed, "We sure do live in a beautiful place."

That is the single thread that binds us all together. We live in a beautiful place. Eureka Springs is a series of mountain valleys scrunched together by the slow pace of geology and water seeking form, creating coves of cool-loving, northern deciduous forest species on north- and east-facing slopes. On south- and west-facing slopes a mix of southern pine forest elements and drought-loving plants such as yuccas and prickly pears, seem at home without a desert. The rocky outcrops and bald knobs create windswept glades where one is likely to find plants associated with prairies just to the west. Oh yes, and then there's the acquired beauty of nature-contrary Victorian design.

An appropriate mix of sunshine, well-timed rain, and a light frost or two bestowed vibrant fall foliage this year, like a collective clearing of cloudy cataracts, revealing colors that words do little to justify. Just a week later the vibrant orange, reds and yellows have turned to shades of burnt sienna. Most have fallen to the ground, revealing the skeletal forms of trees gone dormant, waiting to catch winter-cooled sunlight and your attention again when covered with ice or snow.

Ticks and chiggers are fading; dead we hope. A new beauty emerges. I like to think of it as the time of year when the rocks come out. Thanksgiving must be near, evoking gratitude -- every day -- for the beauty of this place we call home.