'And the leaves that are green turn to brown'

Where I am in the US is a suburb of Chicago, with quiet tree-lined streets and 2 small parks, both at a walkable distance. I have enjoyed walking through the streets and in the parks. As it's summer, the houses I pass, as also the parks are full of flowers, laid out so beautifully. I see the local squirrels and like all other Indians are astonished at their size because what we, who live near towns and cities in India, call squirrels are more like chipmunks.
That was written early during my trip here. Now it's time for me to leave--tomorrow. Labor Day is over, the official signalling of the end of summer. The outdoor pool here at the apartment is closed from today (summer's over!). Though Labor Day was warm and bright, Fall is in the air. The trees outside on this street are slowly getting dressed in their fall colours--these are golden. I have already passed a beautifully red tree, somewhere in town and others turn to rust.
Autumn is a time of nostalgia I am told. So it must be fall that fills my heart--at the thought of leaving my new little granddaughter and son and wife, at the thought of the end of my holiday--a complete detach from my everyday life, at the thought too that soon all this greenery and flowers will be gone (an idea so incomprehensible to me, who comes from a sub-equatorial place!).
But then every season has it's beauty and maybe I will get to see the beauty of fall and of winter one day.

Post 2.

This is one of my tree friends in my front yard, (which was my cathedral this morning).
This morning, on it I saw 3 barbets, a pair of tree pies, a pair of racket-tail drongos




and an energetic woodpecker!

Post 1

The rains have abated for the last couple of days and the weather is beautiful.
Now, I don't know whether it's because there is no rain or some other reason, but our Asian palm civets seem to be in a fighting mood. So, for the last couple of nights, our evenings have been punctuated by the sounds of creatures [hopefully its just the civets and not supernatural beings :-)] thundering across our ceilings, after which there are the sounds of violent jumps onto nearby trees and the sounds of angry screeching, the sound of which is a cross between a cat fight and a human screech! When I turn on the lights outside, there is dead silence. Wonder whether they are fighting over the fruits of my rambutan tree.

There's a break in the monsoon although in our Malayalam(Kerala) calendar, this is the month when the monsoon is supposed to be the strongest. The day the month began--17th of July--it poured. So this break was unexpected. So I got to go for a walk.
The evening was warm, as there had been no rain the whole day today. The fireflies were out, especially in the dark of the rubber trees and in the tree over the jasmine creeper. The stars lay hidden behind the clouds. I heard, from a distance, the sound of the Ramayanam being read [this is the month when the Ramayanam is read everyday]. A gentle zephyr played with the leaves way overhead. As always, I love my night walks and the night.
Just now, I sit at my desk and I can hear the hoot of an owl, the crickets chirping and the frog chorus. I feel truly blessed.

First night walk, July

Today there is a break in the monsoons. It didn't rain the whole day and not now in the night either. So I was able to take the first longish night walk this month.
It was beautiful out. The sky was full of stars. There were only a few scattered clouds. I walked out and saw, high up in the southern sky, the constellation of Scorpio. I wished I knew the names of more constellations. The air was balmy, with a just a light, caressing breeze.
The darkness of the trees were lit up by fireflies. I saw the silhouettes of the large fruit bats flying overhead. The frogs serenaded me. I heard the screeches of the Palm civet. There were the occasional sounds of crickets.
A peaceful night in my green oasis.

My fellow worshippers

I was at a church service this morning. This church is surrounded by a rubber plantation. The church is not very big, but there is a broad verandah running all around the church, where too people stand during Sunday service. I'm a verandah regular and so I get to be kind of outdoors as much as a part of the service.
This morning there were a large number of disparate voices added to the chants and singing of the congregation. The singing got loudest when the church bells were being rung during the service, till I just had to look out at the trees to note who our fellow worshippers were.

There were a pair of drongos--

one, maybe two, racket-tailed drongos
two brown-headed barbets


a flock of mynahs squabbling among themselves and quarrelling with a squirrel who had the temerity to wander among them--

and a brown turtle-dove like bird which I can't get the image of (since I'm not too sure what it is).
As you can imagine, the music of these feathered worshippers ranged from beautiful (the racket-tails) to harsh (the mynahs). The racket-tails especially sang loud and long every time the bells rang!
During the sermon I sat on the verandah steps and watched the bird chorus.
I promise I heard the sermon--it was about living a simple life :-)

NB All images from Creative Commons on Wikipedia

Crow Pheasant

This picture is just to give you an idea of the crow pheasant that I caught on video in the dense undergrowth outside my window.(It's the rainy season and jungle has almost reclaimed the land!)




Here's the video