Rain, rain, rain. Not huge quantities all at once, but rain almost every day. At least it is not cold and that makes it bearable. It seems that every time there is a hurricane anywhere we catch the tail end in the form of heavy clouds and water. I hope that next month is going to be better, we should have couple of weeks of growing season and I still have some fruit in the garden which needs more time to mature.
(Click on the picture to see it full size, use a back button to return to this spot.) In the meantime the flowers are still in bloom and when it stops raining the butterflies come out. This particular one is feeding on a flower called "butterfly plant" and it does really attract lots of them. The best thing is that this is actually a wild flower, native to this area and so it is not very demanding in terms of water or good soil. I am saving the seeds and planning to have more of them next year.

Well, even though I am complaining about the weather I was not home for the entire month. I made another trip to Europe, this time to Belgium. Fall seems to be a good time to go. Fine weather, no tourists in sight and lots to see. We visited many stone quarries because this part of Belgium is a type locality for many Devonian and Carboniferous sediments. The locals love to quarry and their towns and villages are all built from Paleozoic limestone with slate roofs. This makes for nice durable houses (most of them survived two world wars and will be around for next few hundred years). However, the limestone is medium gray and the slate is dark gray and that makes for a rather limited pallet of colors. Unless it is very sunny the towns have an overall depressing feeling. Maybe that is why every village seems to have at least one brewery and many excellent pastry shops.

Well, I was not the only one traveling this month. The day after I returned I took Kumiko to the airport for a two week trip to Japan. She is coming back tomorrow and we have no further travel plans for a foreseeable future. But then, who really knows?

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