11.12.07 HILLSIDE HOME

Walking the woods yesterday I came across this cozy rustic home with its sweet entrance and chimney. Perhaps a relative of C.S. Lewis’s Mr. Tumnus lives here?

11.10.07 ALLIUM ALWAYS

Several years ago my wife planted garlic chives in one of the flower beds. Its a beautiful and useful plant. Grass green ribbon-like leaves and pretty white flowers are used in asian cooking for a mild garlic flavor. It is a perennial, the clumps expanding slowly. This time of year the flower stalks turn to seed which spread easily throughout the garden starting new plants whenever a seed can find a tiny bare spot of ground.

11.08.07 SURVIVOR

Many people revere the amazing Ginkgo tree, Ginkgo biloba. It comes to my attention this time of year as it turns bright gold and then seemingly all at once drops its yellow leaves in a carpet of color. The Ginkgo deserves the reverence it receives. Its leaves appear in the fossil record 270 million years ago yet it is thought by some to be currently extinct in the wild. A European discovered that the trees were still being maintained by Japanese monks in their gardens in 1690 and it was then found that this practice is common in temple gardens of Japan, China, and Korea.

An amazingly resilient tree, some trees are believed to be over 1500 years old. It has few disease or insect problems and survives well in urban conditions. The most amazing story I have come across is that four Ginkgos growing in the area between 1000 and 2000 meters of the epicenter of the Hiroshima atomic bomb blast still survive!

11.06.07 ROADSIDE COLOR

Its that time of year when the colors of electioneering bloom along our country roads. I took this shot this morning as I voted at the local firehouse.

11.04.07 AFTERNOON GLORY

The intensity of afternoon light at this season's shallower angle sets the fallen leaves ablaze. Their fire is fleeting and will soon be replaced by the dull browns and grays of winter. The season, just as this afternoon moment, must be caught and savored before it passes.

11.03.07 AUTUMN EXHALES

During our day's of drought the mountains have been quiet. Now as the weather changes the wind picks up and the mountains once again humble us with their roar.

11.01.07 BURSTING BITTERSWEET

One of the common "jungle" vines in the forest here is bittersweet. It twists around tree trunks or forms dense thickets. Our native bittersweet, Celastrus scandens, is being forced out of the ecosystem by a much more vigorous but very similar looking vine, oriental bittersweet, Celastrus orbiculatus. The oriental version was introduced in 1879 as another unfortunate tool for fighting soil erosion. Bittersweet vines are covered with beautiful berries this time of year which are often used for holiday decorations. Bittersweet is poisonous.