It's impossible to think of winter when the entire world is aflame...
...the view from the back door, adorned with power lines...
...a neighbor's bonsai...
...scarlet berries, leaves alight...
...at the burnished end of the
spectrum,
...early-morning dew slowly burns off...
...bejeweled...
...from a distance, cherry trees are bronze...
...arms outstretched, sweeping down, enfolding the sidewalk...
...some leaves are scarlet...
...and the swings...
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| Acer palmata japonica |
...Dissectum group, the shape of flames...named palmata by Swedish botanist Carl Thunberg after the hand-like shape of its leaves...
 |
| Momiji means "Baby's Hand" |
frames the view of Old Edo (Hiroshige)
 |
| the smooth-leafed cultivar of the Dissectum group |
..."Momiji no Te" (maple-leaf hand!) when children cross the street...a natural stop-sign...
...an aged beard regains its youthful hue...
...chain-link fences hidden by nature's gleaming tinsel...
...concrete walls painted...
...with cursive scrolls in scarlet ink...
...at the burnished end of the
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Who was it that said she couldn't write poetry?
That picture of the clap-board fence with the ivy hanging down looks just like my mum's back fence did about three weeks ago. Complete, I'm sad to say, to the condition of the timber. Must do something about that...
We've had the first heavy frost here. My feet actually crunched on the grass yesterday morning. Brrr. Mind, Scotland's had snow already, so I shouldn't complain.
(blushing....)
ReplyDeleteActually, that's a whole building(you can *just* see the roof at the top of the--shed?) Oy! Fix yer mum's fence, lad! :-)) I put some of those photos in, as a matter of fact, because Alice and I were just talking about how we're always surprised that strawberry leaves turn red (why wouldn't they?...they have chlorophyll, too, I suppose). And ivy, and other vines, that they change color come fall. I was even surprised by the cherry trees when I first came--always thinking of them as covered in pink blossoms, not red-bronzed leaves.
Heavy frost already? None of that here yet, although Tokyo is on roughly the same latitude as Nashville, Tenneessee, and we're even a bit south of that. So not much in the way of the frosty-snowy, much to my boys' dismay ;-)) The Midwest is getting pounded, though, I just heard from my mom. Friends of my parents' just drove from Michigan (where Alice is--hope they're all ok in the nasty weather!) over to Chicago in driving sleet. Yuck.
Talking of frost, did you see this, on Astronomy Picture Of The Day, a few days ago? Gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteSome forecasters are giving snow for my area over the next few days. Shouldn't be much, though, even if it materialises at all. Temperatures look to be pretty low for a good while, though, so if we do get any, it might freeze hard. If I remember, I'll get some decent batteries for me camera.
I just love ivy, though. especially when it's growing down rather than up something. Green waterfalls... Lovely!
Wow! Those pictures are soo beautiful. Oh, and happy (late) Thanksgiving to you too! I ate a lot of food, and think I gained a pound or two. Nano's going fine. I think I'll be heading towards the big 50,000 later on tonight. :)
ReplyDeleteSo I went to the Showa festival last weekend and it was really great! They redecorated all the rooms in the building and had games at every station. The games are more for small children though so I brought my little brother and sister with me.
If you want to find out more about the school they have a website.
http://www.showaboston.org/about/home.html
And if you look at the picture on that page you can see a girl performing the tea ceremony. My brother and sister and I tasted the tea, and it tasted like dirt and leaves, although it wasn't an unpleasant taste. My sister downed it all in a few seconds, and my little brother barely had a sip before putting it down (he's 6 by the way). We had a great time, and got to watch a Taiko drumming performance afterwards. :)
Ez--thanks:)) I'd willingly gain two pounds if it meant I could eat my mother's pumpkin pie and homemade noodles and stuffing (and I know they taste *really* good today as two-day leftovers... *sigh*). Glad you had a good Thanksgiving and NaNo is going so well! 50,000 words already? I can hardly keep up with a blog--I can hardly imagine writing 50,000 words in the course of a month (my brain hurts just thinking about that, actually)! So, if you write a whole novel of 50,000 words and submit it...then what? Are winners chosen? Do they publish some of the submitted novels? I wish I could read yours when it's done:-))
ReplyDeleteJust checked that link--Showa Joshi Daigaku! I know where that is! *That* women's college. That's cool that they put on a festival like that--what a great way to share Japanese culture with surrounding Boston. Your brother is the same age as my daughter (youngest), but she loves green tea and mugi cha--mainly, I think, because all the adults around her drink it, so she wants it, too:)) If you're eating or drinking it, she wants it. Kid likes coffee, too (though she only gets that if she steals it out of my cup:)). Taiko is awesome--love watching those sweaty, muscular, shirtless men drumming... ;-)) Japan has the *best* festivals ever-- lean young men in loincloths parading through the streets carrying around o-mikoshi (portable shrines)... finally, a festival for the ladies:))
Daz--I missed that one! It's perfect, too--that's a momiji leaf in the photo, just like the middle momiji photo up in my post:)) I should do their challenge, I guess. That photo must have been taken up in Hokkaido, because (1) no place else is cold enough to have frost yet, and (2) no place else is dark enough at night to get a star photo like that (too much extraneous light).
ReplyDeleteIvy--I've always loved it, too, and for the same reason. I love any flower or plant cascading down a fence, an embankment, anywhere. I love wisteria, too--fuji, in Japanese, but not the same kanji as the mountain. And then I went to Portland last summer, as saw English Ivy choking the native forests... arrrgh! When will people learn not to take plants with them when they move!
Call it a swap for the grey squirrel :-/
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though, yes it's a crying shame. The only glimmering of hope in it is that — just possibly — the added biodiversity may turn out to be a good thing, if/when climate change hits hard enough to seriously change the habitats. In a recent history series about the natural history of Scotland, the final programme was on climate and, inevitably, focussed a lot on climate change. We were introduced to Scotland's first vineyard. A good illustration of how drastic the change has already been, I'd say.
Climate change--last summer in Portland my sis took us to the zoo. There was a striking pair of photos taken of Mt. Hood by the same photographer in the same month (late August) ten or twelve years apart (I think 1998/2009). The first with snow, the second without...
ReplyDeleteAh, but is it human-caused... ahem
ReplyDeleteTo which my answer is, 'Who Cares?' If we can forecast the change, see that it'll cause problems, and think of ways to reduce it, we can discuss human-kind's role in causing the problem afterwards.
Good point:)) Just what I think--seems a waste of time to argue about whether humans have caused climate change or not. Just figure out whether it's happening or not, and what to do about it. Time enough later to assign blame... (as an American, I'll take a large percentage of it).
ReplyDeleteDamn right too. Bloody yanks! Ahem. Please remember 'twas my country that gave us the whole industrial revolution thing. Don't be too quick to take all the blame :-|
ReplyDeleteOh, well, I suppose I could share some of it... ;-))
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