November 20, 2011---seriously seasonal

     When John and I left for the beach on Friday, all the leaves were still on our ginkgo trees. We arrived home tonight to find them all on the ground. Every single one. "A squirrel pulls a lever and they all fall off," someone has said about the way ginkgo leaves fall all at once. Sorry I missed it! 
     The ginkgo leaves are in two vanilla bottles. I had emptied them (using the vanilla for baking) before I left. Also included are some very small clusters of nandina berries. All this is so November---the ginkgo leaves, the nandina berries, the vanilla bottles (which emerge from my spice cabinet almost exclusively at holiday time). Strangely enough, though, it is very warm out tonight, and the sounds I heard as I gathered the ginkgo leaves off the ground were spring frog and insect sounds.