Autumn Joy

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It is a rainy and gray in Lagos, as the keeper of sacred law begins her descent into despair, anticipating the return of her daughter to the underworld. According to myth, this is the time when the goddess Demeter begins to grow sad, thinking about her daughter, Persephone, leaving her to return to Hades. As a result, the earth begins to lose its life and become increasing barren. When Persephone departs, the land falls into winter until the time when Demeter anticipates the return of her daughter.

Now, there are other interpretations of the myth. The alternative version has the barren period as the dry Mediterranean summer, when life was threatened by drought. For most people, that version does not work and it does not square with the sophistication of the people who created the myth. It’s the sort of thing a certain sort of person says in order to be disruptive. The Greeks understood not only the cycle of life, but the consequences that came from ignoring or denying this natural reality.

That’s probably why autumn has such a magical quality to it for most European people, at least those with a grip on reality. There is the beauty of it, of course, but that beauty is followed by winter. It is the ability to appreciate the majesty of nature, even when you know what follows, that separates people. On one side are those who long for an endless summer, where they never have to think about tomorrow. On the other side are those who accept the cycle of life and the reality of the human condition.

Even in a place like Lagos, the beauty of the season is impossible to miss, unless you are one of those summer people. There are those who prefer summer to winter, but would not want to live in a land without seasons. Then there are those who spend their winter bitching about the cold, swearing oaths about how this is the last winter in wherever it is there is winter. If you are around these sorts, autumn in made even better, as you get to see their torment against the backdrop of the fall foliage.

Being a level-headed occidental man, I love this time of year. Yesterday morning I got out on a bike path in the country. The leaves are just starting to turn around here. For some reason, fall has been late this year. Perhaps Demeter got her hopes up that this time things would be different. Maybe she took a class on feminism and died her hair blue, until Zeus came down and straightened here out. Women, even the supernatural ones, need a man to keep them in line. That too is the nature of things.

Out on the path, I did not encounter many people. Around Lagos, spring is when people get out and do their walking, hiking and riding. As spring turns to summer, the number of people I will see out in the woods will shrink until the fall, when it is down to the hardy souls who are outside all year round. This is true of fishing. If you are a fall fisherman, this is one of the better times, as you have the river to yourself. The people inside don’t know what they are missing, but then again, those outside don’t miss them.

This time of year in this part of the world brings the white tail rut. It is the time of year when a young buck goes in search of a bride. In reality, it is when they go insane chasing tail to the point of exhaustion. It is one of those things that you can explain to a city person and they suddenly become wiser about life. Urbanization has cut most people off from the reality of life, like the breeding cycle of animals, which means they can fill their heads with crazy ideas at odds with the human condition.

I think the thing I like most about this time of year is the shorter days or that the days are growing shorter. I am at my most productive in the fall and winter, as the ever shorter days reminds me that I have only so much time. When the sun is up until a few hours before bed time, it feels like time comes to a crawl. When you wake in the dark and come home in the dark, you have no illusions about time. Every rustle of the leaves is like a giant clock striking the hour. Best get at it.

Now, I do like winter, so the gathering darkness and dropping temperatures is not followed by something I think is awful. In fact, winter is my second favorite month of the year, just behind autumn. The only reason winter falls behind autumn on my list is that it does not snow enough here in Lagos. Instead we get ice storms that are no fun. They can be pretty, but usually it means spending an hour chiseling my car door open, while trying not to fall and break a hip. I’m not a kid anymore.

In Denmark, they call this the cozy season or the start of the cozy season. They have a word for it, “hygge” which roughly means “a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being.” They take all their fun indoors, where they will turn the lights down, sit by the fire and have conversation with friends and family. In Lagos, we include the sound of sirens and gunfire, but the concept is the same. I’m looking forward to the hygge.

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123 thoughts on “Autumn Joy”

  1. Fall and winter are beautiful because they force modesty and quietness upon the baser peoples. No cars with windows open/tops down, blasting their garbage noise. No sluts of any color bopping down the sidewalk with fat rolls and tattoos akimbo.

  2. My favorite time of year to be outdoors. The temperature is comfortable for physical activity, the scenery is beautiful, and the damn bugs are gone. I may go for a hike later today.

  3. I see lots of posts by Z-man talking about his hometown as “Lagos”. Is Lagos a real place or a made up name from a movie?

  4. For contrast, we Antipodeans get to drive home in the sunshine and the winter pyjamas get put away. Gardens are very overgrown but the soon lack of rain will turn the weeds and brush into tinder for bushfires. The weather at this time of year is very nice as the mornings are still quite cool. That said, football is over and cricket hasn’t started. Thank goodness the Rugby World Cup has filled in this lonely gap on the sporting calendar. I can’t stand horse racing so that doesn’t help. The retailers will again attempt to shove American Halloween down our throats and then finally give up and shove Christmas down there too.

  5. Thanks for the post Z. We have had a magnificent foliage season in New England. I’m glad I got back in time to enjoy it. I was much smitten in my travels with Oregon. Silver Falls State Park and Columbia River Gorge are unreal. The area around Bend is a fascinating mix of Volcanoes, Mountains, Desert and Rivers. West Central Washington is nice too, especially near Leavenworth. The summers are short but glorious, fall is really brief, winters are long, cold but sunny on that side of the Cascades.

    I couldn’t live in Oregon though. Too much POZ and even if you can withstand the grey, it seeps into the rest of the people. Eugene is a perfect example of what happens when you let your community go. It is dysgenic and dystopian.

    Beautiful post though, enjoy the end of the season. I expect the snow to fly this winter. I myself am looking forward to it after nearly two decades in CA.

  6. I would imagine an added plus of getting out in nature near Lagos is the lack of vibrancy once you leave the urban spaces behind. When I used to live in San Francisco, Diversity may have been our strength but it was hard to find it at the beach or parks outside of town and there was no vibrancy. Filipinos holding family gatherings was about the limit to it in San Francisco parks.

    The west side of town is mainly Chinese but the only Chinese you could find at the beach were Chinese women with white men. I once asked a Chinese woman who lived a few blocks from the beach why she had never been to it and she told me that “Chinese don’t go to the beach. They make money and buy real estate. ”

    Consequently in the woke capital of the US the beach and nature trails were safe spaces for white people.

  7. I do not prefer Summer to Winter, or vice versa. Instead, after a long hot humid summer in the swamp of murr-lann, I look forward to a crisp refreshing Winter. After a long cold dark Winter, I look forward to a bright warm Summer. It is the polarity and contrast that keeps things interesting and enjoyable.
    Regardless, a lovely Autumn and Winter to all.

  8. I find it so funny when North Sea Europeans try to appropriate the Greeks… it used to annoy me, but it is their nature to be the more “open minded” ones…
    either interpretation of the Demeter myth is valid, the dry Medi summer is followed by rain in autumn. probably the mountainous, inland Greeks adhered to the wintery interpretation.

    at any rate, it is clear ethnogenesis is real, as a mestizo descended from Medi whites that colonized (and outbred a little) in tropical areas, I loathe the winter; but at least do like the colors of the fall, the few times I see them. and due to proximity to the Andes, i learned to keep around some inappropriate cold weather attire at least…

  9. I grew up in New Jersey, just a tad north of you.

    My opinion is the the fall in that area is a very hit or miss season. If it stays dry, the colors and smells of the drying foliage are magical.

    Some years it would rain too much and knock all the leaves off as soon as they turned. Kind of a grey season less cold than winter.

  11. Back in my pro ski patroller days, autumn was always a rough time. I was either living on savings from my summer guiding job, or lacking that savings, was taking temp work where I could find it to pay the bills. I was always watching the weather, waiting for the temps to drop and the “real” snow (not that pretty termination dust) to start falling so that I could get back to work doing something great again. It was a time to watch ski films to help keep inspired. Fishing always helped, as I agree with Mr. Z about having the river to myself.

    Winter is by far my favorite season. Mostly for the skiing, pond hockey and the lack of bugs. Fortunately, my family feels the same. Also, I just really enjoy weather, especially the kind that, after spending a day in it, makes me feel like I really earned my beer. In my part of the world (NW Montana), winter brings the most interesting weather.

    • Got back yesterday after driving my son out to Loveland for his first crack as a ski bum. Flew back into BWI from Denver. It came as no surprise over the three day drive that the further from the vibrant diversity the cleaner the bathrooms.

      • I’ve only played at Loveland a couple times, but it seems like a great place to be a ski bum. Absolutely loved the roadside skiing. Park at the bottom and hitch rides up to ski down. Repeat until the shit-eating grin becomes nearly permanent.

    • Maryland? The wierdest thing about the East, it’s nothing but mountains, mountains, mountains, Canada on down to the Carolinas, with all the action along the coastal strip.

  13. A quick update on last week’s Scandza meeting: there has been one column on Scandza in the Scandinavian alt-media press. It only perfunctorily touches upon the conference itself, but there’s a lot of excellent snapshots of the soap-dodging horde, the blogger’s big thing being counter-doxing the Antifa.

    http://www.uriasposten.net/archives/105115

    He encourages people to send descriptions of people who’ve harassed or threatened you, and he’ll see if he’s got a photo of the delinquent in his archive.

      • Yes, but they issued that themselves. My point is that almost the entire Scandinavian alt-media scene is kosher-right. Even the MSM had a better coverage than did our supposed allies.

        If I want to know where a given right-winger stands on the JQ, I just have to check whether the Scandi alt-media link to their stuff.

        Tommy Robinson: kosher
        Jared Taylor: haram

    • I hate to pay a compliment to the Copenhagen Antifa, but unlike the USA Anita, they are neither anemically skinny nor obese. They look more formidable.

      Thanks for link Felix.

      • The broads had a lot more high energy & venom with our bunch. The cops took down the boldest men in the first few blocks.

    • You’ll notice the local media ignored the whole thing. The whole point of Antifa is to lure our guys into confrontation. That’s when the media is instructed to cover it. Ignoring these idiots is the right tactic. Ignore them on-line. Ignore them in real life.

    • Males – AIDS Skrillex guy, just vary the height & hair color. Females – Occasional Cortex crazy eyes, witchy hair, unfortunate teeth. Of the bikers that pursued our bus, the most hardcore was one of these aged Norns, a cross between Lizzie Warren and the undying paper boy from “Better Off Dead.”

  14. Yes, the NCR trail is lovely this time of year. No tubers blocking the path around Monkton. I need to get back in enough shape to do the distance from Ashland to York, PA and back. I usually get on at White Hall and turn around at Ashland (south) or New Freedom, PA (north).

  15. The mid Atlantic climate leaves nothing but disappointment for the vast majority. For lovers of cold it’s this bizarre hybrid of ice sheets followed by a sort of balminess where you sweat in your coat, followed by snow melting and refreezing into ice. For lovers of warmth and nice days, it’s a never ending steam bath where even the nights are oppressive. In the Spring it rains too much, so really, it’s only nice this time of year. You feel a stiff cold breeze in the winter and in the summer, when you’re dying for one, a not one leaf rustles. It’s a climate that doesn’t commit to any standards or principles at all. Just a muddled mess. It’s the Mitt Romney of climates.

    • The Greater Pittsburgh Area has the worst weather of anywhere except maybe London. Tons of overcast days, ridiculous amounts of rain, freeze-thaw winters from November to March. The 5 or so nice days are *really* nice, but that’s when you have to mow the grass. ~151 rainy days per year on average. Right below Rochester, Buffalo, Portland, and Cleveland. Which aren’t exactly Eden themselves…

  16. California has its own Autumn season. Its not as pronounced as that of other places but it is definitely unique, and somewhat but not entirely Mediterranean. e light is much different, much harsher and angled, making shadows sharper and more defined. The days can be hot, but the nights and morning are always cool unless you have the autumnal Santa Ana winds blowing (they are indeed miserable).

    There are the now annual power black outs, and pumpkins are being replaced in the stores (they showed up in August) with Christmas decorations. But soon there will be snow on the Mountains and the place will look pretty for three months.

    Somewhat related, the Danish hyggie or whatever is now being denounced as racist. Yes, its too White. SJWs want to abolish it with Danes denouncing their White privilege and inviting people of color into their homes or something.

    Related, Mitt Romney is featured in the Atlantic and he’s not tolerating Trump any more. He’s going to rally the Cuck Republicucks to remove Trump. I assume he’s the new Egg McMuffin — Mormons: not your friends, definitely your enemies. There is nothing more cucky than a Mormon.

    It remains to be seen how eager Republicucks will be to follow Kasich and Romney into cuckdom. Yes it is their natural cucky instinct, the shame and the humiliation is the turn on, but there is no place for them in the Democratic Party. All positions are reserved for young lesbian women of color. White men particularly older ones need not apply. If they throw out Trump and install Hillary, what exactly is their position in the Party? They can do it, but they will be like the Tories in the endless Corbyn Government — thrown out by their own voters and without any friends and nothing but enemies.

    My guess is Romney is trotted out as the interim President when the FBI removes Trump and installs him as the figurehead caretaker for Warren or Hillary, TBD in an epic cool wine aunt battle. At least that’s the plan. Interestingly enough Romney’s main issue was Syria. I doubt anyone cares really about the Kurds, but this is Military push-back by Generals and Admirals who want to play war games and see a weak Presidency and Congress and powerful hereditary bureaucrats. After all, every General and Admiral wants to play armchair Patton and who cares what flyover people pay the price? THEY did not go to West Point or Annapolis, nor did their fathers and grandfathers. Hereditary leadership in the military is a sign of strategic weakness.

  17. Home grown tomatoes. Fresh corn on the cob. Watermelon and cantaloupe. Slave to my stomach, I’ll take late summer.

  18. I’m a native southerner who moved to coastal Connecticut several months ago. It’s my understanding that Z is at odds with Vox Day for reasons unknown to me, but my new life here reminds me of VD’s advice on where to live with regard to what’s coming: cold, northern and white.

    Sadly, this state is a shambles compared to New Hampshire, Maine or even Rhode Island. Seasonal and natural beauty aside, I’ve often found myself among a surprising amount of diversity I didn’t expect to encounter this far north, and the infrastructure in and around Hartford and the other vibrant towns is crumbling. At least DFW, my former residence, was a booming metropolis apart from the languishing south side.

    Still, my particular town and the town in which I work are quiet, quaint and rural places free from too much vibrancy and crime. I still hold hope that the conditions in Connecticut are anomalous among the New England states, but my trip to Lewiston, ME earlier this year was equally dispiriting. Is there no place where the demographic rot has not taken hold?

    • Winnipeg, Manitoba maybe one ofthe most brutal winters in the world… is over 20% non-white and non-Aboriginal… Filipinos and somalians and Indians abound.

      They will put up with any weather in exchange for welfare benefits. But it is not a natural situation. Remove the welfare or comfortable society and they’re gone.

      • Yep.

        Welfare is the elites way of waging genocide against heritage whites. If whites were wise they’d figure out a way to crash the welfare/police state to end this slow motion genocide.

    • No. I am sorry, so sorry, but I travel the 48 states. If it ain’t the diversity, it’s the meth or tatoos.

  20. If you say pumpkin spice three times in a Starbucks, a white chick in yoga pants shows up to tell you everything she loves about fall.

  21. Rural Eastern Ontario for me…

    I always have to laugh when people living in places like Lagos talk about “winter”.

    Your winter is our spring. This isn’t to brag about my cold weather living abilities, but to point out the differences in attitude. Our winter is actually to be feared, not just chilly jacket weather. Fall is therefore sinister, quickly ripping away our only reprieve from the cold, a brief 3 month summer period.

    In a way it is cozy, but it reminds me of the brutal winter coming up. So fall is kind of an unpleasant time for us. At least winter is stable; we know it won’t get any worse.

  23. Nothing better than southern California weather, even hot months generally get cooled down by ocean breezes.

    It was great. Looking for a ranch or farm….somewhere.

    • I’ve been all over the world and generally prefer the more frigid climes, but yeah, there is something neat about S. Cali and the ability to run around in jeans and T-shirt all the time, even some winter days.

      • Never too cold, but sometimes too hot, and most time “just about right.” Something about oceans that keep temperatures moderate. We complain about NOT enjoying different seasons in most years. Last year we had a wet winter. I’m going to visit the Northwest soon when it’s cold just to see how it is and whether I can make the change.

        • Re Northwest: it’s the paucity of winter light which bugs me. Temps are quite mild, and you can either tolerate the rain or you can’t.

    • Much agree. SoCal weather and clime is the very best. Born there, so I’m biased, but it feels like home.

  24. Enjoyed a drive from Würzburg down to the Black Forrest town of Donaueschingen this weekend. Fall colors are changing and even zooming down the A81 at 280-kph, the fall scenery was spectacular. On Sundays, the trucks are not allowed on the autobahn so drivers have the road to themselves.

  25. A California native, I spent a handful of years in North NJ. The first three were working in our Downtown Newark office. In winter, the gray became tiresome, the cold tolerable, but was overjoyed by the effect winter had on the Natives. The day-time street population of Lagos on the Passaic drops 80% from summer peak, and that is no exaggeration.

    During summer, only the lack of bush meat hanging from the shop awnings gave you any indication you were not on the Mother Continent. By January it was almost normal on the streets.

    • One of the things that probably allowed, and continues to allow, blacks to take over white neighborhoods is that they are much more of an outdoors people than other groups. I’ve noticed that even in my very white area there seem to be a lot more blacks than the official numbers suggest. Of course this is because they are out walking around a lot more than whites. They seem to have, in many cases, an intuitive and probably unconscious understanding of things you have to explain to whites such as the concept of patrolling your territory if you want to keep it. Whites invariably try to “outsource” these tasks to some sort of hired help. “why should we patrol our neighborhood? That’s what the police are for…” They really do this with everything in fact whether it’s educating their kids, maintaining civic order and decorum, or keeping savages and foreigners out. This has led to disaster of course as it favors (((those))) who are good at infiltrating and corrupting the proxies these tasks have been fobbed off onto.

      • Good point, but they’re terrified, literally, of wilderness nights.
        Someday that may be essential.

      • Pozymandias, I would disagree on Negroes being an outdoors people. Quite the opposite – they are rather afraid of nature and don’t appreciate the earth’s beauty the way Whites do. They do understand territory however, and lacking an inner life or consciousness, they go out in search of stimulation. Their “pleasure,” such as it is, is only aroused by sensory inputs – hunger, sex, or violence.

        • …or maybe they just live in such squalid, crappy living conditions that they need to get out of the crappiness for a while.

      • That’s because they don’t have a job to go to, a family to support, or do anything else that makes a 1st world civilization…

      • Noticed my post stirred up a bit of hatin’ (downratin’ that is) as they say in the hood. Just to be clear, I’m saying all this as a white guy who, like Z, watched this happen in Baltimore itself. One of the advantages intelligent people have over the stupid is that, even when doing the same exact things, the intelligent do them in a more organized and methodical fashion. What I saw in B-more was that the blacks had these little patrols of whatever random dumbasses showed up (often drunk or high) on a given day. They probably didn’t even realize they were “patrolling”, they just knew… Whites need to do the same kind of territorial patrolling but can be a lot more systematic about it. Formalized communication protocols, weapons and martial arts training, etc…

        I think part of the reason the ((media)) went so nuts over the Zimmerman/Martin case was a fear that whites would start doing more aggressive patrolling like this. This is why, in a ridiculous fit of absurdism, they turned the Hispanic Zimmerman into a “white vigilante”. They weren’t even willing to wait for a similar action by an actual white person. I honestly think that if whites in Baltimore had recognized the threat and set up the same kind of neighborhood patrols that they had in Zimmerman’s suburb in Florida, the blacks wouldn’t have expanded as much as they did. Note that this kind of thing would also have worked for opportunistic foreigners like the H1B Indians. It takes very little to spook most of these people and make them feel “uncomfortable”. Next thing you know they’re on a flight back to Bangalore.

    • I won’t walk outside here in DFW until the weather is cold enough to keep the Pajeets inside. When I used to jog on the bike path in the winter, it would be me and a few other Whites, and a sprinkling of Chinese. Go out before the first freeze, however, and it’s nothing but Saris and funk.

  26. Winter is my favorite time of the year, mainly because I spend about eight weeks skiing annually. I live in a place with short, mild winters, so going somewhere to enjoy REAL winter is a treat. And Z is right…cold weather is highly stimulating to mental activity.

  27. My prior kvetching aside, Halloween in California has an odd charm in that people struggle to establish that they’re “in character.”

    When it’s commonplace to see a mohawked goth mommy in fishnets with a spider web tattoo decolletage complete with a black widow nestled betwixt her silicone warheads in the checkout line at Ralph’s on Easter Sunday, you wonder how poor Elvira ever got noticed. Her height?

    • “…..When it’s commonplace to see a mohawked goth mommy……” I just did a spit-take. LOL. Two headlines from the OC Register over the last two days. The SWPL faction has glommed onto a rural Mexican peasant feast in a big way. (The fact DOTD is intertwined with ancient Christian beliefs is never mentioned, of course.)

      “Day of the Dead kicks off early with face painting, costumes, lowrider cars that rock — literally”

      “Where to celebrate Day of the Dead near you”

      • The Day of the Dead, celebrated in towns and cities throughout Mexico, is thoroughly Christian in that it celebrates and bridges All Hallows Eve, All Souls Day, and All Saints Day. It’s a bit more festive than All Saints Day in Spain, which is beautifully reflected upon here by Gerard Van Der Leun at American Digest.
        http://americandigest.org/wp/days-dead-now-year-round/

  28. In the Midwest the changing of the seasons is embodied in the cycle of farming. The planting in spring turns into the vast fields of corn in summer and the harvesting in the fall. It is sad in a way because it means winter is right around the corner but it also carries a sense of accomplishment, even if you aren’t a farmer. Already the empty fields warn of winter but carry with them the whispered promise of spring. It somehow echoes the past when our ancestors would labor through the spring, summer and fall to put aside the crop so we could survive the winter. That practice of laboring now so we would be prepared for harder times to come is ingrained in the white DNA. When we are gone and people with the self-control of a swarm of locust are in charge, they will learn why Europeans knew not to devour the seeds you needed to plant the next spring.

    • One of the best pictures of farming life and the way the labor changes with the seasons is Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book about her husband’s childhood in northern New York state, “Farmer Boy.” Not as childish as some of the Little House books (which are wonderful for children, of course) and the descriptions of Almanzo’s father’s work day, from crops to hay to carving shingles in the winter, are vivid. So, too, the remembrance of his mother’s immense meals to feed people who worked hard all day physically.

  29. Autumn is also the traditional beginning of the hunting season. My eyes won’t permit me to hunt now, but some of my best autumn and winter memories involve hunting pheasants and deer in November.

    • I go elk hunting with a group of good friends for a week every November. The cameraderie combined with the rugged pursuit of wild game makes it one of the high points of the year for me.

  30. Thank you Z for taking a break from the Imperial Capitol train rumbling down on us and reminding us of the real world.

    I absolutely love living at just shy of 6,000 ft looking up at mountains and living on, of course, a range front fault. Suppose one of these years I’ll get snookered by one of these faults then it won’t be so much fun. The chance we take. Either gun fire and unpredictable vibrants in your world or an unpredictable range front fault and globalist pirate Mitt Romney skimming the goodies out here in Utah. Thank you Orin Hatch for passing the pirate saber to your princeling pirate.

    While writing this the old boy cat is curled up next to me purring, the 20 year old girl cat is curled in front of the wood burning stove, and through the window I see 4 does, 1 yearling and a forky buck wandering through the field and down into the wash. The lead doe is vigilant on guard while the others graze. Rifle season opened yesterday and the smarty-pants deer know where to go to not get blasted. In my back yard. Basic Husband threw all the old cruddy pears and plums and old garden winter squash vines across the fence, and the deer spread the word good eats at Range’s digs.

    One of the great aspects of living here is the joy of following the color turn over 3 or so months from 10,000 feet wood cutting on the plateau to 7,000 ft down above town, oaks turn a gorgeous red sycamores yellow, down to St. George about 2,000 ft, then follow the color down to the high desert. Months of following the color change.

    We don’t get ice storms. We get snow. Last year got a fair amount of snow for Southern Utah and lots of spring rain. Usually get last snow around mid-May. Basic Husband gets out there to shovel, I cheer him on and push some snow around, then he lets Sublimation take over (the process of snow and ice changing into water vapor in the air without first melting into water). Nothing better than newly fallen snow shining soundlessly under a full moon with deer scuffing through the field, bedding down on the berm of the wash in snowy moonlight.

    • I drove through your snow last winter heading south, Range, so thick most cars were pulled over parked waiting for a break to see through it. Myself and a very few impatient souls plowed forward at 20mph. I reached the top of a long hill and the ground was suddenly dry all the way to Nevada. The drive from St.George to Salt Lake and beyond is one I never tire of. Utah is the best kept secret in the US. Did you deliberately inflict Mitch the bitch on us to get him out of the state?

      • Utah, northwestern Montana, and North Idaho are all horrible places.
        Stay away if you value your sanity. Stay away!

        • Well for all Commies yes they are horrible places but for this crowd here they are more than welcome…

      • Thanks for your story. Lots of people still think of Mormons as they were 150 years ago. That’s fine. Then stay away. The polygamous goofballs here are Warren Jeffs clan. And small patriarch polygamous groups like the Allreds. The women may have big hair, but no blue hair and the men keep them in check….like in prison. However, people have discovered the secret of Utah and we’re growing en masse. So many old alfalfa lots and sagebrush fields now turning into subdivisions. The northern half now majority secular, breweries all over. How about a Polygamy Porter! As for Mitch the Turtle, not from Utah. Are you thinking of that little pissant Romney? Mormons behave as a herd and vote tribaly. The inflection point here is when Mormon guns are grabbed.

  31. There is always some unease when autumn comes for me. Never have been quite sure, maybe your reference to greek mythology helps. Time is getting short and one more notch to mark life definitely resonates.

    Winter is comforting here in Michigan and if it wasn’t for driving in it it would be even better. Of all the paintings I have done, winter themes are my most prevalent and satisfying.

    • Landscape paintings are the best. When I had some C.M. Russell prints, I really enjoyed the color and especially the Montana outdoors he painted.

    • Yes, that fall energy is something special. Some kind of duality: life exploding all around, yet death draws near.

      Interesting to hear about your paintings. Mine are almost all versions of autumn. I love winter scenes but have never been able to conjure them up myself.

      I’ve always been drawn to the stillness and subtle contrast. To this day, the drugstore tchotchke art with the dickens cottage aglow next to the frozen pond makes me smile and ponder what it would be like to live in that scene.

      Interestingly, a lot of that type of art is exploding with life. So perhaps that is the draw too. Seeing a family, a community, enjoying the landscape in spite of its seeming inhospitable qualities.

  32. Having grown up in New England, the autumn season is when I feel the greatest longing to return. The Sierra foothills are beautiful in the fall…But winter in Northern California is a great racial sorting mechanism.

    California is probably not even 30% white but in the Sierras during the snow season you’d think it was 90% white. Even the other Ice People (East Asian, also 30%ish) don’t show up in great numbers. The Japanese are very outdoorsy the Chinese less so. The only dark skinned people(the plurality of Californians)you find up here in winter are the hired help.

    Interestingly, the Sierras are by far, year-round, the whitest part of California.

    • Yep…lived in Mammoth Lakes a couple years….Whitey White except maids and cooks. Years later got offered a water company job there, but declined as I couldn’t stand the thought of a town of mostly LA idiots, 10K-15K up on the mountain then down one main road, blocking up roads to stop where ever they feel like it to put on chains, block up the main drag and only supermarket in town. And way too much snow. Lefty enviro idiots!

      • Despite it’s location… the access routes make it SoCal’s. In winter from NoCal you have to go through Tahoe…so there’s not much interest in driving the extra 2 hours to get to Mammoth. Beautiful area though.

    • Way back in the day I took a language course at DLI in the Presidio of Monterey, Monterey, CA. Weekends off I’d ride my bike or run up and down the coast. Asilomar Beach was really gorgeous back then. It was really white back then (talking ‘70s, early ‘80s), despite farther south than you’re referring to.

  33. First snow of the season in the High Rockies. Yesterday the 14ers were a thousand shades of grey and the low sun turned them into a mosaic of sharp relief in contrast to the deep blue skies. Today, the pure white crowns every ridge and peak, and all is majestic. Where I live, no one puts on a coat until the temp is in the teens or lower because the air is very dry and thin and lets the sun do its work. The winter brings a unique and eternal hardship (so rare in today’s environment), and the gift is the opportunity to once again test your mettle against the elements and challenge you to survive! We were build to move and prevail.

    • Hear hear. Autumn has been my favorite time of year for as long as I can remember.

      There is a kind of nostalgia that comes on, an anxious energy that is both lingering and fleeting, sometimes in the same day. I want to dwell in it, but unlike summer, autumn is full of reminders that time is short.

      As a rather introverted and cerebral person, I find the internalizing and retrenching that autumn invites to be a comforting and energizing reprieve from the bustle of summer. It is also the season that inspires the most creativity.

      Autumn in the rockies is wonderful. I was able to spend time at elevation earlier so I was able to see the first turn of the aspen. And take in many afternoons on the trail as the heat of the sun falls through the floor into the high elevation night.

      I normally do some autumn camping. The solitude among the turning leaves is something special. Summer camping here is approaching california crowding so autumn is a time when crowds are thin. It is also when the campfire starts well before dark and lasts not so long before its best to curl up under wool with someone special.

      Unfortunately here in the front range we had an early hard freeze and snow already. 80 degrees to 27 degrees in the same day. Another awesome part of rocky mountain living. Well, in my opinion anyhow.

      The early freeze, coupled with a much delayed onset of color, means most of the trees have dropped their leaves without turning.

      Gardens and planters are mostly gone and the feel of November is already upon us. Many trees are but sticks and the smell of rich earth is in the air as the piles of leaves and greens are making their way into mulch.

      Kind of a bummer really. Normally autumn lingers here and the color is a fantastic contrast to the snow capped peaks and the coming greyscape of winter.

      Well, so it goes. I have been blessed to live in some of the most beautiful places on earth. So I can’t complain about being robbed of the full spectrum of autumns display too much.

      Perhaps its also a sign that my gut is correct: it is time to find a new meadow among the peaks. To start looking into those places where the descent into winter does not harken the isolation and incongruence of urban consumer angst, but instead the warm gratitude of friends and family drawing closer together to bond over meals and stories, to create something that might last longer than a shopping season or tinder date.

  34. Autumn is my favourite season. I love the colours and the sunsets and the temperature is usually about right for me. I am not a summer person and the part of Europe I live in now has very long and humid summers where 38c is the daytime norm. I find it exhausting.

  35. ***On one side are those who long for an endless summer, where they never have to think about tomorrow. On the other side are those who accept the cycle of life and the reality of the human condition.****

    I was always the former. Great post.

  36. In German the concept is “Gemütlich.” It’s cozy, but it’s a cozy only Derbyshire’s ice-brains understand. It’s what makes some whites love Tolkien’s “Hobbits” and others tinker with everything from root cellars to their prepper/fallout shelters. I guess that’s why the Derb’s “Ice Brain”/”Sun Brain” is helpful, but was always a little too Manichean for me. I’m an autumn brain. Too long a summer and I’m like the poet Robinson Jeffers, “angry at the sun.”

    • I love the idea of hygge, gemutlich, koselig, gezelligheid, whatever you call it. Here’s a good article that ties it to domesticity, a concept that’s also very appealing and in turn tied to family. But that’s all very retrograde and Stepford and throwback.
      https://www.crisismagazine.com/2015/in-defense-of-domesticity
      It seems Autumn is also the time of nostalgia, yearning , or saudade (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade), which reflects the Demeter and Persephone myth nicely.
      The only antidote is McSweeney’s, please forgive the vulgarity, but it’s a brisk slap in the face that will bring you down to earth. That, and caramel apples.
      https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its-decorative-gourd-season-motherfuckers

      • It’s a time that forces the family together.

        (I tried to phrase that as neutrally as possible)

      • “Biedermeier” is a good one to know, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biedermeier

        “Bieder” can mean everything from “tame” to “simple” to “conservative.” It was a German aesthetic reaction to the powder-puffy androgynous over-the-top limp-wristed affectations of the über-rich French. German just does not have a concept (actually most languages don’t) for a specifically pejorative word for the middle-class (ironic, considering Marx was German) and they have to rely on the same loanword as everyone else, “Bourgeois.” The word in Germany is “Bürgerlich,” which literally means “citizenly” (sic). But I guess revolutionaries generally do consider good citizenship to be the ultimate evil. Look at the animus of our ruling class for a neighborhood watchman like George Zimmerman or normies and their desire for basic law-and-order.

  37. The cozy accompaniment of gunfire, LOL. You’re getting sentimental.

    I do like northern summers, though. You appreciate it more as a counterpoint to winter. I used to go fishing at sunset in Wisconsin, when it would become wonderfully cool, even chilly. Summer is an active, outdoors time.

    Later I moved to Florida. Southern summers aren’t so nice–hypertrophied humidity and stickiness. Just staying inside, refugees from the heat.

    • The elderly may prefer the hot, humid weather because they don’t feel the heat. What would be hot for you and me might be comfortable for an 85-year-old.

    • I tend to hibernate here in Texas, depending on the severity of the season, anywhere from early May through mid October. Temps just stopped hitting the low 90s last week, and I may even get to turn my AC off the end of this week (for a few days at least). I was definitely made for 4 seasons. Adored summertime in Maine, and Spring in Western Mass where I went to college meant snow on the ground while buds started appearing on trees. Winter in Moscow did get rather grey, but I still prefer the cold to the heat, always. Exile’s making me envious!

  38. In the “ice box of the nation”, 5-6 months of cold and snow are slightly less enchanting after a few months. it’s a nice reprieve from the mosquitoes and it had been doing a nice job of keeping our streets clear of the homeless and mental patients but the progressives are re-jiggering that with more and more shelters and methadone clinics. i think that money would be better spent on 1-way tickets to a metro area, perhaps I’ll try to get a local Councillor to come up with that idea themselves…

    • When I lived in New Hampshire, I would get tired of winter by March. Spring was not a great time there, but the summer was great, mostly because it was short and not too hot. That’s what I like about the mid-Atlantic area. You have about six weeks of too hot, but otherwise you get four seasons that are not too long or too severe. Some years are better than others.

      • One of the well kept secrets about northwest Montana is the mildness of the four seasons. Summer is never humid, autumn is gorgeous, winter is perfect for skiing at our magnificent local mountain, and spring is when you go to Scottsdale or Maui. Tinkering, reloading, and diy projects are as much a part of the local culture as hunting.

          • Can’t pry Basic Husband loose from exploring the high desert. His eyeballs roll at the thought of Wyoming or Montana. C’est la vie! Look forward to a western meetup. Husband is exploring Texas Rio Grande after reading Paul Horgan’s book on the Rio Grande history. Told him to watch out for the Sinaloa cartel guys and to chain up whatever’s on the back carrier.

        • Yep, great seasons up here. I’m thinking we may be neighbors, so Z-man, if you ever make it to NW Montana, there looks to be at least a few of us available for a meet-up/drink-up!

      • Here we get on average 100 days of 100+ degrees. If the humidity stays in single digits, you can survive outside—sort of. Once the rains begin, one stays inside mostly. Even the damn cactus curl up and die.

  39. Z, you really need to get a garage. One big advantage of suburbs / rural areas is being able to garage your car in the winter (and summer, for that matter).

    • I’m plotting my escape next year and on the list is a house with a garage. I like to tinker, so a garage will be put to good use.

      • If you like to tinker you’ll end up with a driveway full of cars and a garage full of projects.

          • Go crazy? Because he’s wound and used to looking over his shoulder every 3 seconds? Addicted to stim and chaos? Plenty to write about in Montana. And the world of the Imperial Capitol still finds it’s way into Montana.

  40. I’m probably doubling Christmas this year between Europe & Russia (which celebrates it post-New Year). It will be an interesting contrast and both will be several degrees removed from my American experience, or at least the Californicated version.

    In my youth, the holiday season among the American Sardaukar of Appalachia was, like most things, a throwback to several generations back – large (often double digit) families gathering at a patrirach or matriarch’s home in Highland Games numbers.

    Two generations of post-Wokeness on, we’ve been “rescued” from our hillbilly backwardness – our holiday gatherings are much more sparsely attended by much smaller much more broken families and individuals, most of us having been scattered by economics, the Sacklers and)or abortion.

    California Christmas has almost always been celebrated with various girlfriends and our respective social circles of scattered rootless transplants, including her obligatory gay BFF(s) and wine aunty best frenemy(s).

    You can probably imagine the unavoidable struggle sessions about the outrages of the year and weeks of post-holiday in-fighting after one of the unmutable objects met my unmovable disdain after spewing their nonsense over a dinner I paid for.

    I feel more rooted in a foreign country alone this afternoon than I”ve felt on many a California Thanksgiving or Christmas.

    Big White Pill – I see 3x as many children as dogs here – inverse ratio to CA. But something may still be rotten in Denmark – 2 of 3 kids have only a mommy in evidence. May be a queered sample given my early hours, seeing only kids with stay at home moms (maternity leave 1 year+ here). Full couple socializing doesn’t get started until late-late vs. the US.

    I hope so. Seeing this relatively vast number of Aryan kids is heartwarming & I”d like to think most have intact homes. The kids seem well-adjusted on the whole. Nuclear families may lack the anti-fragility of my childhood’s extended clans, but cis-families + proximity still = hygge.

    Go anywhere but West, young men. Autumn & Winter in shorts at the beach is only warmer on the outside.

  42. This is by far my favorite time of the year, and I love the winter too, mainly because of the snow. I have always found summer to be by far the most enervating and boring time of the year. I know I am in a minority.

    • Nope. Fall and Winter are the best… except here in So. Cal where it’s shades of summer, always. Can’t wait to escape.

    • I have lived in various parts of New York State for my entire life, save one year in Tampa, and I love the Autumn, followed by Winter.
      I grew up on the shores of lake Ontario, and for those unfamiliar, I have three words for you, “lake effect snow.”
      In the 70’s and 80’s, first snow would usually fall a day or two after Halloween, and we had serious blizzards well into April. Winter was generally continuous snow cover.
      Summers were hot and humid.
      You are not alone. Autumn and Winter are real white folk seasons.

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