Tuesday, September 20, 2011

On rowan

The riping of all sorts of fruits and berries might be the first sign of fall (or autumn if you like), but nothing is so inevitably a message of summer's end as rowan berries. There is a saying in Norway, that if the rowan tree is laden with berries, we won't have much snow that year, since the tree shouldn't carry that kind of heavy load twice in a year. Actually, it might be the other way around... That the tree is tempered or toughened by the berries, and thus is capable of carrying more snow when winter comes. It doesn't really matter anyway, since the amount of snow we'll get is much more likely to be influenced by climate and weather conditions than the state of the local rowan trees, but whatever. Whether it's a sure weather sign or not - it's a sure sign of autumn.

I meant to take some grand pictures of the red, lovely rowan berries (which were plentiful and beautiful this year), but I missed my chance. The heavy rain we've experienced for weeks and weeks have made photography difficult, and the rowan berries are now soggy and not their usual glorious self. I missed a narrow window due to bad light conditions. Another time I didn't have my camera with me (and the pics I took with my phone are a) crappy, and b) stuck in my phone because I've lost the chord).

So we're left with the only semi-decent, slightly out-of-focus, berries-looking-more-orange-than-red shot I've got. It's hardly enough to build a blog post around.

But there you go.





8 comments:

Liza said...

The shot looks good to me. The berries are so pretty...they remind me of out holly berries some.

Li said...

It's a better shot than I would have gotten. our local indicators of winter include the colours of the "wooly bear" caterpillar and how thick the walls of the muskrat dens are this year. But...I'd rather just be surprised. (Unless it's like the 4foot snow blizzards of the last 2 years, which were a nasty surprise!)

Kelly said...

Ah, but don't you think the amount of berries might also be dictated by climate and weather conditions, therefore intertwining it with the amount of snowfall as well?

Orangey, red...they're lovely no matter what the color.

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

A good post and a wonderful picture.

Have a good day.
Yvonne.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I've seen those - now I know what they are!

Carolyn Abiad said...

Lovely! My grandfather used to have one of these in his yard. I remember collecting the berries as a little girl.

Sue said...

so that's what a Rowan tree looks like. Didn't Tolkien mention them somewhere? something mystical about them?

LL Cool Joe said...

Yep, lots of signs that Autumn is here in the UK too. The rain has also stopped me getting out and about with my camera.

Nice shot anyway.

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