In which we talk about autumn....

As you can see, the leaves are really starting to change color here in NY.

Sohalia was a bit taken aback by it. She said she'd heard of leaves changing color, but hadn't really thought it would be so intense. Maddy said that she wished she had some pictures from six years ago, when there was no frost until mid-November. She said she'd never seen colors so intense in her life.

Here's Moriko with the Imperial flower of her native Japan, the chrysanthemum. Maddy said there should have been a yellow, white and dark red one, too, but it looks like only the purple one grew back this year. Her green thumb seems to turn very, very brown where outdoor plants are concerned. None of her hellbores came back this spring and neither did the azaleas from two years ago. And forget the bag of bulbs she set out in front of the house. Not even an attempt at a shoot. (She has an amaryllis coming back out, though. She just brought it up from downstairs.)



I asked Moriko if the woods behind the house were anything like Aokigahara.

"No. Not that it isn't beautiful here. But in Aokigahara, the trees are so think that by the time you're a kilometer in, you can't hear anything but the forest. No human sounds at all...."






She looked around as a loud THUD shook the ground. "What was that? And do I hear engines?"












Maddy made a wry face. "We have a blacktop and cement factory over there just beyond that rock fence. You can't hear or see it very well in the summer, but in the winter, yeah, you can see the lights and trucks, big-time."








So maybe it is a bit primordial, after all.....