Leaf Mother will soon be painting the landscape in crazy autumn colour, but she starts with a splash here and there to let us know the time is coming. Autumn hints begin in August here. I'm posting this now on Sept 12, and things are already more advanced (that Virginia Creeper is much more colourful now!) though the trees still have more green than gold, The apple-crabs are nearly ripe- showing colour and I've snacked on a few, but still a bit hard. They are really delicious when ripe.That full-size apple is rather early, not bad flavour, terrible keeping properties- by the time they are fully ripe they start to fall, and start to brown from the core outwards.