Seasonal

When I made this photograph, the ambient temperature was in the mid 90's, but it felt a bit hotter because of the humidity. Although the weather has yet to change, the neighborhood children are headed back to school this week to start their 'Fall' semester. 'Fall', if I remember correctly, used to refer to the fact that the leaves were starting to change colors and fall off the trees. Perhaps now it relates to our garden flowers being roasted by the afternoon sun and starting to fall over as August moves toward September. I suppose I need to reset my internal clock to reflect the new weather patterns, and I suppose the children already have.

Fall Monsoon Season

Sometimes I think the weather here in the Southeast is becoming en extension of the tropics, especially this time of year when it seems that we are increasingly battered by large and powerful storms from the Gulf of Mexico that circulate slowly, often for days, bringing humid air, warm temperatures, and excessive rain to our area well into the Fall. The cold fronts from the north and west that used to characterize the Fall are deflected, leaving us with flash floods, falling trees, rot and decay. It reminds me of the first few pages of One Hundred Years of Solitude -- everything is covered with a layer of something deeply funky. Sometimes you can actually smell the mold and fungus in the air when the rain does eventually clear. I find it rather depressing. On the other hand, if they don't fall on your head, dead limbs are interesting to photograph, interesting to photograph, interesting to photograph.