When I rolled out of bed this fine Sunday morning, it was pretty clear rom here to the mountains. But there was a low mist visible, and I remarked to Missus that it looks almost like we have our fog back. Within half an hour or so, we did! It is one of the things I have always loved about where we live!
The first time I came to Cache Valley for longer than a quick visit, I was taken by the fog, the “pea soup mornings;” as I called them then in a poem I wrote for my then girlfriend, now wife. The fog was thick, and the mornings mystical to me. Mountain fog is not the same as the coastal fog I experienced in my youth in California. It doesn’t seem to reliably roll in and roll back out again, the way the coastal fog would seem to do. Instead, it has to sort of burn off, or dissipate, when it feels the urge to. It also seems to often come with the sun, such as this morning when the wet ground seemed to have produced it in the first place as the sun came over the mountain.
It’s chilly, not cold, but after a vote, I put a fire in the stove, and can see it’s warm glow from where I am sat typing this. It is time to get to work on that firewood pile for winter, and finish up the cutting, splitting, and stacking. There is not enough prepared yet! It is time to consider going down to get more for our supplies, in case we do stay here next year, too. I also can start looking for wood to turn on the lathe! The weather is changing early this year, I think. I’ll check my weather station records to confirm it. If I am wrong, that usually puts my mind to rest. I think we are predisposed to think the current year is generally worse in some way to the previous ones.
Days like today remind me of what it is I love about living here in Cache Valley. They remind me of an old friend since gone, who would look overcome with love and warmth and joy when he would speak of the place. He grew up here, and told me long before I ever came here that it was the most beautiful place on Earth. It may not be, quite, but it is the most beautiful place that is not set aside as a preserve, and where someone could actually live. I wish so much that he was still here to enjoy it! I would love to have his company here, and a friend here.
I walked out to get the firewood, and was immediately struck by a phenomenon I have never before seen. There was a rainbow in the fog just distant, and the diffusion of light between me and it made it appear white. It was a white rainbow! I have seen circular ones, and I have seen moonbows, and I have seen one on an apparently sunless morning. I still never quite figured that one out. But to see one appear white, with only the slightest hints of any color at all, was amazing.