Fall chips away at summer’s monopoly of green in the troll wood. Willow, alder and cottonwood roots suck chlorophyll from their plant’s leaves. Aki peed on all three. She doesn’t discriminate but I favor trees that produce colorful leaves like the willow, cottonwood and wine red high bush cranberry.

The leaves on alder trees, no nonsense pioneers that first colonized the glacial moraine, immediately go from green to dead brown. Their roots hoover all the color, nutrients and beauty from each leaf as if worried about a thief in the night. Willow and cottonwood roots sip the chlorophyll until yellow and oranges replace the leaf greens. I took many photographs of the colorful ones but only one of alder leaves and then only because they cradled a heart-shaped cottonwood leaf.