Sunday Stills "Fall Foliage"

 Fall colors in Medora, North Dakota -top photo at the site of the DeMores packing plant and it's surving smokestack. Middle photo-entrance gate at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Medora, North Dakota.

The trees along the bridge spanning the Little Missouri River in Medora, North Dakota.

The remainder of photos are from here on our ranch.

Fall comes to each part of the country at different times and different ways. In the area where we live, western North Dakota and eastern Montana, fall starts sliding quietly in to the badlands. As early as the last week of August we start to see the beginnings of the changes the new season brings. Little by little, the leaves start changing color from the greens of summer to the brightly lit hues of autumn.

Trees aren't very numerous here. It isn't a place advertised for fall folliage tours. To many this area is just a dull place that barely receives notice as they pass thru. Those of us who live here and love where we live, it is far different.  Each season brings it's own uniqueness. Fall in the badlands and on the prairie is a time of color. From the ground up the colors seem to glow in the sunlight or even on a cloudy day.

These photos were taken September 28,2010 when I was riding in our Twin Buttes pasture checking cattle.

Cedar trees provide the green, elm, ash and other trees provide the yellow and orange colors. Little blue stem grass is red this time of year, grayish green sagebrush, currant, wild plum and chokcherry fill in other shades of these colors.