Nature can be fickle then turn on season's dime to pay back for all the trouble. 2012 was a droughty year and when the rains finally came in July some benefitted while others were just a little too south or received just a little too little and late. Then came blazing September with fiery reds and oranges turned gold! Oldtimers said it was the drought that gets the credit and that it was Mother Nature's apology for making trouble! My taildragger airplane doesn't fly very fast but lets us explore the scenery slipping past underneath. This is a fiery maple arch that I wouldn't have discovered but for flying over a lucky route to a stunning long driveway in a hidden valley. Imagine beautiful countryside in every direction, then tucking over a ridge to find a fairytale farm with a long, manicured avenue of maple trees, balanced, symmetrical, ablaze! Such good work should be rewarded! A few days later I drove the hills and twisting valleys in Wisconsin's Driftless to find the family whose planning and work created it and to ask permission to paint their handiwork. In my coming and going underneath their arch of trees, I found a paradise of color, their own special place, worthy of their work and a certain reward for them and now for me in the completion of my newest painting called Maple Archway.