With Time and Frost, Things Fall Apart

Fall can be a bittersweet time, a time to look forward to cool-crisp nights, hearty meat-and root-vegetable stews, and the smell of burning leaves, that is, you’re allowed to burn them where you live. On the other hand, the coming of fall and frost signifies the end of the growing season, and the beginning of fallow time. The life force fades from the trees as their iridescent leaves drop. But it’s in the garden where the change in temperature registers the most, reminding me of the story of the little red hen and the importance of harvests and food preservation.

When I looked at the dried up chile plants in the pots on my porch, I decided to try to photograph them silhouetted against the sky.

Sometimes all it takes is a different angle to wrest us out of our usual ways of seeing. Or cooking. Or doing anything, for that matter.