Oak

The cool of the autumn still hasn't gotten all of the trees to drop their leaves. Like this oak here, mostly green still.

Then again, most of the maples have dropped all of their leaves already.

Decaying frosty leaves

Another frosty morning today, after a week of rain. Leaves have started to decay, but today they were covered with frost. A couple of oak and buckeye leaves have found their way to the the otherwise birch and maple leaf ridden sidewalk by our house, from trees a little way down the street.

 

Windy autumn day

Autumn has been uncharacteristically warm and dry this year. Everything is still green, a whole lot of flowers are still blooming, and the trees have only started to change color and drop their leaves during the past week or so. Some mushrooms are popping up here and there and the acorns are turning brown.

Today was a somewhat windy day, as we were walking along the banks of the river Vantaa, and in the surroundings of the Tuomarinkylä manor, the gushes of wind sending leaves fluttering to the ground.

Out in the fields

We live at the edge of the city, in the quiet suberbs of Helsinki. Almost right behind our house, just a few streets down, there are vast forests and fields of hay, wheat, barley and oat, meadows with flowers, city owned orchards of oak trees, and a golf course. Yesterday we went for a walk on the footpaths throught those fields in the gloom of late summer, early autumn.

 

Geese, while planning their escape from this cooling country, seem to like the already cut hay fields, as well as the ponds of the golf course, where the ducks like to reside as well. They were sitting around in flocks, discussing their strategy. Every now and then one of flocks would take off and re-locate. In the evening, when we went strolling around again, it seemed that the flocks had united and decided to take off to a completely new location.

 

As of late summer, there are still flowers on the meadows, but already mingling with the flowers is a whole lot of mushrooms. The trees have not started to turn yellow or red, but apples are ripening fast and acorns are growing bigger, berries are making bushes hang heavy.

 

 

As already mentioned, we went for another walk in the evening, as the one in the daytime was cut short by rain. The evening sky was mostly clear, with some scattered clouds around, and the almost full moon partly visible through the clouds. The rain and still wet shrubbery had lured the snails out in herds to munch on the moist leaves.

 

Acorns and peppers

Acorns are still green, but getting there. Soon the squirrels in the neighborhood will be busy carrying them into their little hiding places here and there.

 

Both of our late bloomers, the naga (bhut) jolokia and the (green) pepper, have slowly but surely proven to be quite productive plants after all. There's a whole lot of peppers growing on each of them, getting bigger by the day!