September 2025

Mist dissipating into blue. The walnut trees on the north side of the house are now nearly bare, even as the one on the south side is still more green than yellow. The sun briefly blazes through a new hole in the hillside canopy.

Damp, overcast and quiet. The sprawling old white lilac battling a blight is once again flowering, with a dozen half-sized clusters at the ends of ravaged limbs looking less like white flags than signal fires: a fight to the death.