Dayton beautiful in any season

You only have to stop for a moment and look around to know we live in a beautiful little valley. The majestic Pine Nut Range stands as a vanguard over the rest of the desert mountains that surround our valley.

The Dayton Valley is beautiful in all seasons, from the starkness of winter to the softness of summer, which includes its greenery along the Carson River. We are lucky to have a major Nevada river run through this area.

We see a lot of snow on the Pine Nut Range, which means skiing is good in the Sierra ski areas.

I always say when the snow lingers on our mountain range, it's our ski area. When Como, now a ghost town in the Pine Nuts, was a busy mining town, there were times when people couldn't come down to Dayton due to snow drifts over the only roadway to that Alpine community. According to diaries written by Emma Nevada Barton Loftus, there was a time or two when people had to be rescued after they tried to come to Dayton.

Since I have lived here, I've seen some spectacular thunderhead clouds over the mountains and sunsets that were to write home about. One cloud formation I love is the lenticular clouds, which are pancake flat and sure look like space ships at times. The long, flat clouds are not seen in too many places in the world. We are privileged to see them here. The other two places where they can be seen are Switzerland and Tibet. I wonder what the pioneers thought of this unusual cloud phenomenon.

Springtime around Dayton comes and goes daily. We plant gardens and plant gardens and plant gardens until the final frost, but it is hard to describe the beautiful green buds on the cottonwood trees along the river. And seeing all the families of quail busy teaching the little ones how to avoid cars as they scurry back and forth across the roadways just as you get there. Emma fed the quail, as I do. She talked to them in the fall, warning them not to stray too far or get killed.

Summers here are a lot more bearable since the spraying of the black gnats and mosquitoes. When I first moved here, a person couldn't go outside because of those bugs. Everyone from the 1850s on complained about the pests until in the 1990s, when the county began to spray so you could sit outdoors and enjoy our wonderful weather.

And the fall season along the river is so beautiful when the cottonwoods turn a pleasing color of many shades of gold; it takes your breath away. Combining those colors with the yellow rabbit brush, you could say that Dayton Valley is gold country.

• Ruby McFarland is a board member of the Dayton Historical Society, a docent at the museum and has lived in Dayton since 1987.