The Color of the Day is Yellow

The trees and ditches are spattered with yellow along my walk this morning. In the woods it’s mostly leaves changing into their autumn attire. There’s still a lot of green but here and there a yellow flag flutters, pale or lemony or tending toward brown. And poking through the litter of leaves and twigs on the ground are a few yellow sprigs of fern. I suspect the ferns and some of the leaves on the plants in our backyard are yellow because it’s been dry.

Yesterday we had some rain, though, and the ditches are yellow with blooming flowers. There are at least four different species, the bouquets of duller yellow that I call ragweed, tiny little yellow starbursts about the size of a pencil eraser, bigger five petalled yellow flowers, and the biggest of all, standing on stems two to four feet high, yellow-orange blooms half the size of your palm with multiple petals that make them look like sawblades.  

Even the sunlight is yellow this morning. I guess it’s that kind of day. I think I’ll have a couple of eggs with yellow yokes, toast with yellow butter, and maybe some lemonade.