Last Autumn Gasp

Posted byGary FultzPosted inabundant life, accomplishment, adventure, Build Faith, devotional, devotional thoughts, dreamer, end of life, eternal, expectations, Faith, Gary Fultz, Gary Fultz Blog, GaryFultz Blog, goals, God in Nature, Inner Peace, intentional, Know God, knowing God, Nature, nature pictures, outdoor scenery, perspective, Photography, quality of life, relationship with God, Spiritual PerspectiveTags:, , , , , , ,

Autumns Beauty in colored foliage is coming to an end where I live. I am the one gasping as a wind gust removes a hundred leaves to flutter. Up till now they have merrily waved at me all summer through life’s winds. Most of those children are gone, and I once again feel a little older as I shuffle through the fallen. Some of them look so young.

Next will be the golden aspens and then the tamarack needles once a soft green, now a glowing kind of marvelous gold. Suddenly they will be the only conifer naked in the bog and swamp while their cousins balsam and spruce greenly line the edges.

I don’t know why our apple tree is so optimistic. There are still green leaves and crisp apples. Fruit of a well lived season will be shared. I shall live out my season like the apple tree. I decided.

Click to enlarge and forward

That part of us touching eternity. Reaching for God. Knowing God. Choosing good and knowing hope as winter is coming and life goes on to the next season.

Hmm…yes. Of all the pictures of what life should be, I will look at the apple tree. May my fruit forever be, worth the grasp from my autumn’s tree.

Gary

Published by Gary Fultz

Outdoors Man, Hunter, Fisherman, Guide, Writer / Author, Photographer, Public Speaker, Musician, Song Writer, Story Teller, Follower Of Jesus. Love God and family and total strangers

98 thoughts on “Last Autumn Gasp”

  3. “I am the one gasping as a wind gust removes a hundred leaves to flutter. Up till now they have merrily waved at me all summer through life’s winds. Most of those children are gone, and I once again feel a little older as I shuffle through the fallen.” . . . beautiful prose and pics Gary! Thank you.

    I too “..feel a little older…” in the gentle, fluttering colored rain on my forest wanderings.

    It instills my soul with a comforting hopeful sense of ending/beginning that Paul penned 2,000 years ago in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 . . .

    “Therefore we do not lose heart though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

    Looking forward to spending ageless, endless seasons of beauty together with Him someday brother.

    Be Blessed my friend.

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    1. Ah Fred. You penned the passage I was thinking/hoping someone would put into comment. We are much alike in and out of the woods and seasons of life. The eternal becomes more and more real as the veil gets thinner.

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    1. Thanks. What is left here is the yellow and some brown leaves. The tamarack are stunning in the swamps here. I am told that autumn heads south at the rate of a foot a minute. I’m not sure how true that is, but it makes sense…kind of. Enjoy your fall season when it hits.

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  5. So, I think this might be my favorite all-time post that you have written. It is written beautifully, and I will return to read it again. You might think about printing this one up and gifting this as a letter to friends and family. These are words to cherish, and you have crafted them with so much wisdom. I absolutely love that photograph of the apple in the autumn rain. It speaks to me of a life well-lived; storms come and go, but the blessings of life are not diminished by a heavy rain. Washed clean, like the sky so blue after a rain shower, that apple is incredibly lovely. (The last two paragraphs are just so good, starting with, ‘that part of us touching eternity…’ ) Wow!

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    1. Thank you for the glowing comment, Linda. I have realized I do not have the gift of knowing what will “really” connect a reader’s world to my world of thoughts, emotions, longings and realizations. I had the same thought with the apple in the rain and a life well lived. You have me thinking about printing this one up for friends and family….some of them are a tough crowd. That would be quite the litmus test.

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  7. Thank you Gary for sharing your life with us. These are great pictures showcasing the natural beauty of our Creator who always shares as well. So many, though, take it all for granted and never acknowledge Him or His greatness, or His love in creating it all and sharing. Mankind was given dominion on the earth by God but must use it correctly or not at all. You are blessed to live in such a magnificent place of wild natural beauty.

    And wild it must be. If we take the wild out of it something profound and spiritual is lost. Wild nature gives us the correct reflection of who we actually are and even tells the future. That apple tree is so cool, a last holdout providing some nourishment and beauty. You’ve done the drill now for many years and am sure have appreciated every moment. It makes all the difference when a man actually honors and appreciates the Lord and His great bounty. It becomes personal. And one gets the big idea that life for the living actually never ends but simply undergoes a graduation to a greater land of greater beauty when one’s relationship with the Lord enters an entirely new phase not so easily discernable at present. But just as nature changes every year through the seasons so will we change and actually are changing every day as He prepares us and we prepare ourselves.

    Pure wild undisturbed nature reflects the heart and will of our Maker, something you know very well, of course, much more than most men. Even so, there are two types of men who love the wild—those who access and use it selfishly for their own purposes with no regard for the One who made it and His expectations for our behavior within it, which for such men has no bearing upon Him or His desires or any relationship with Him and it—and those with the right attitude who always strive to put Him first and honor Him. These latter few are the ones who see it clearly, as you do with your excellent photography, and share it freely with those who may honor Him as well.

    We know its wild when all is working only in the way He designed it and we are far enough away from the things of man that we hear the still quiet—supplemented only by occasional and brief natural sounds, often from a seeming distance—that belong there which only accentuate the beauty and mystery. Such a place is God’s country.

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    1. Thank you for your insight and great comment RJ. If I could have recorded and had the wild” sounds of the flocks of geese, the loud swans, ducks and the haunting loon from the two nearby lakes echos while this post is read, that would have topped it off better than whipped cream on apple crisp. The chattering/quibbling squirrels and occasional owl would have been there as well.

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  10. Stunning photos as always Gary and I love your thoughts on apples. They are my favorites and after complaining about the cold while I trimmed them every Winter, I now fondly remember seeing them through every season for thirty years. May God grant us both fruitfulness with our families, our neighbors and even a few enemies until harvest time.

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    1. I thought of you on Monday AJ, as a friend and I were catching all kinds of fish (22 feet down on the bottom) in front of a gorgeous golden tamarack filled swamp. I finally convinced my friend to keep a nice bass for eating as the crappies were coming slow. You would have enjoyed that setting…and the fishing.

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      1. Ah… I can see it now… well, sort of. Never seen tamaracks in person, but the pictures look amazing. You are spot on, I would have enjoyed that setting… and eating a bass or two… nothing wrong with that from time to time. Both largemouth and smallmouth are delicious when they come out of clean water. Glad you had a great outing!

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    2. My daughter likes her boneless bass fillets boiled in saltwater, drain and put melted butter with seasonings in it. Pike from warm water are really good this way as well.

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  13. Beautiful words and sentiment, Gary. This post makes me think of my grandmother who was born in 1898. At some point, I was telling her to hang on because we wanted her to turn 100; she was maybe 96 or so. She (always a positive person) said, “Oh Betty. Don’t wish that on me. The next world is more real to me than this one.”

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    1. Thanks Betty. The older I get, the wiser that sounds. My wife doesn’t think I will even come close to getting that old. She thinks my last words wil be “ha, I can do that…here hold my prune juice”

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    1. Thanks Stacy….I thought a lot about all those I know who are more like our pear tree which has never produced a pear. I have decided it’s better to allude to them by not mentioning them…you caught that.

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    1. Oh my…Summer grew legs and ran right by me. Maybe it’s a side effect of being very busy??
      I’m avoiding the notion that time speeds up with ones age…It only seems so I’m hoping.
      Another question I’m bursting to ask at the gate.

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    1. Hi Jim
      The Autumn beauty in the tree colors is hard to beat. I know the west coast has it’s own kind of beauty. I am biased towards lots of nature and not many people when it comes to beauty.
      In your travels, you see about everything I imagine.

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    1. Thank you G.W.
      I love these apples…I didn’t get them all picked. I fear their crispness now is from freezing solid.
      I woke this morning to a layer of snow on the ground…I should post an apple update…A single picture might do. We all know where fall, by it’s very name, goes….Life

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      1. I had a dream about apples and apple trees a few weeks ago. These trees, and the apples themselves, had a faint golden glow aura around them. The fruit came down within picking reach. I picked one, looked at its beauty and took a bite. The taste was “out-of-this world.” A very unusual dream for me, and one I keep thinking about. Very unusual for me to have so vivid a dream.

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    2. Sounds like a nice dream. I’m not one to put significance on most dreams but when it sticks out like that….keep it in mind just in case? I have a couple of dreams like that from my past. Truthfully, I have not met many bad apples, but yet probably none that were as good as in your dream.

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  21. The tamarack needles absolutely wow me, never seen them in person but the pictures captivate me!! The Aspens in the Rockies are my favorite though!!
    Like you, I’m enjoying Autumn from my own little neck of the country.

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    1. I have been to the Rockies in the middle of the golden aspen peak colors. Very grand, very spectacular. We have tons of lakes, bogs and swamps instead of mountains. The tamarack spring needles are the softest green in nature I think. The wood is spiraled as it grows, with a tighter twist than most conifers, so they can take a severe wind blast well.

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      1. I still haven’t blocked the idea of visiting there, love to see it for myself!

        We just spent some time in Winter Park Colorado a few weeks ago, and the hiking was great with all that aspens in color change mode!!

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    1. Thank you Teresa. Every tiny bit of nature changes our context and perspective. I think I rewrote the few words I used on the post 5 times…just to make the “chord” sound right. This morning all my pictures are covered in snow. What a perspective change.

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    1. Thanks Anna. The season makes me thoughtful of so many things gone by as well as marveling at the beauty. There is an eternal perspective to heed in the beauty in death of the leaves and the season to come which ultimately brings spring.

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  30. Autumn is my time…I feel as though God created all the colors and beauty just for me. It looks like the colors are mostly done where I am in CO…I will look for the beauty in the coming cold of winter. ❄️

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    1. I understand the immense beauty of Autumn and taking it in personally…we all get our own slice of beauty from our corner of the world. I think God delights in making it personal. And then the cold beauty of winter. SO different yet stirs us to the core.
      I’m glad we are created to know and enjoy beauty….We could be like so many animals and just take everything for granted

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  31. Honestly, Gary, even though I love those photos from your shutter, your unique written description painted the views for me. I could clearly see it all. I could detect a audible flutter as well. God’s grip on His vine. – Alan

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    1. Thanks Alan. Maybe it’s our imagination, but sometimes we possibly hear within the flutter pieces of eternity through the thin veil. The season has quickly turned to flakes whispering winter through the windows to the tune of a couple inches. The vine is secure here…sometimes the branch shivers a bit. God’s Grip is such a truth to be connected always.

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    1. So true on the fruit Matt.
      The cold rains take our leaves away. We have been snow covered for over a week now.
      Today it got above freezing for the first time in a week.
      Fishing is tough when the line has ice on it and the reel doesn’t work in those conditions.

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  33. Pingback: Thankful For Friendship – Jesusluvsall's Blog

  35. Wow, Gary. A beautiful meditation to end the day just as Todd was saying, “the people in the neighborhood say, “Hi Mr. old person,” as he walks our dog Fannie. I said, “No they don’t!” And so we bantered back and forth. “You’re in denial,” he said. “No I’m not!” I said. I don’t feel old but the truth is my back hurts, my knees creek, my Achilles are sooo tight. But still, I don’t feel old. It’s all about the fruit, right? Keep producing…
    Beautiful prose. ❤️

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    1. Thanks Deb. I also tease my wife being married to an old person. She points out that I still portage canoes in the wilderness, ski the mountains and snowshoe in deep snow through the woods. I don’t feel old either…after being up and stretching for awhile.
      It’s possible that in my next conversation with my wife about being old, she will remind me that I can still get in and out of the boat as long as it’s the right height next to the dock.
      yep…its about the fruit

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    1. Thank you, Priscilla. That’s quite a change, Alaska to Texas. I’m sure Texas has its own kind of beauty, even though the seasons are so different. I might struggle a bit having lived most of my life in 3 northern states

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