september has been a wonderful transition from summer (if those wet and chilly july and august could be called summer at all) to autumn. the leaves are slowly turning colors and start to lay a crunchy carpet on the ground. over the past weekends, we’ve gone collecting black currants (makes wonderful jams!), apple-picking (made muffins, pies, and cakes, and still have a bushel to go) and collecting kastanien (inedible chestnuts, but great crafting material). pity that i can’t remember anything from my plant path course except that not all mushrooms are edible, otherwise we could have gone mushroom collecting in the woods as well, if i could distinguish one from the other. this time of the year, nature offers a lot of activities to fill up a pre-schooler’s day (ey, that’s the first time i used that word: goodbye toddler, hello pre-schooler!). even rainy days are no exception: completely outfitted in rain gear, jumping into puddles keeps jan filled with glee for hours! it’s been a wonderful autumn so far, and i don’t mind the drop in the temperatures (yet). funny that it takes this to realize how much i enjoy being outdoors. there’s a lot of varied things to do and jan’s enthusiasm for all these activities is just contagious!

autumn is also the time of the year i appreciate the four-season climate the most. when the leaves turn golden in the sun and the pullovers are again brought out of storage, it reminds me that time do pass by. another season over, another year will close soon. it prods some reflection, how the year has been, what the future holds.

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i just read lei and stephen pretty much doing the same things in california and lei brought up a comparison i was trying to quell: should we move back to asia, jan will be deprived of all these things. hm.

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