110th Street and into the woods

The walk to the top of Central Park takes a brisk fifteen minutes. The trees have a bit more turning to do.

Dark winter coats have arrived. 

The cold took me by surprise last night when I walked out in a (white) coat for the first time. A homeless man under an eiderdown on the corner of Lenox and 126th moved me to stand in line for a Starbucks hot chocolate. A first. Starbucks helpfully posts calories with drinks, now, and 400 seemed a good idea, yesterday evening. No idea if he liked it, or whether he would have preferred coffee, but on my way back past him, an hour later, his friend - not there earlier - wanted one, too. But I only have a one-chocolate budget.

Black fences, below - I really hate them, just from an aesthetic point of view. The parts without them seem to do quite well.

It has been a mushroomless late fall and early winter, so far, but I'll continue to scan dead logs and trees. The dry conditions are to blame, and the lower forest growth droops with lack of moisture. One does not often see droopy asters.

At home, sunlight is down to under an hour a day on the terrace. It has dropped below the buildings that it scaled even in late September.

But in two weeks we will be in the long Cape summer evenings, drinking gin and tonic on the patio, braaing, looking at the mountain, playing with corgis, talking to my parents, thinking other thoughts, maybe having a lunch under a tree.

And that is good.