Few things make me happier than autumn, and it took me a few years to accept that the glorious colors don’t really start appearing in New York until November.  And now that it’s November I can’t stop taking autumn walks.  I have hundreds of pictures over the last 14 years of Ft. Tryon Park, the Hudson River and Inwood Hill Park that look exactly alike, because I always have this urge to capture the beauty forever.  Yesterday afternoon I dragged my drowsy family to the river (we’ve now extended our walk time to our favorite spot by 15 minutes since moving) so I could see those leaves.  Our lovely walk was interrupted by a gigantic hawk landing in a tree right above us with a dead rat hanging out of its mouth.  While I continued moving forward, the two of them stayed still and watched the hawk eat its dinner, a first for our annual autumn river walk.

Also new is Huck breaking out into passionate Billie Holiday-like renditions of jazz choir songs.  Making us feel like our lives have become a musical, when he got upset with us for not agreeing to walk on dangerous rocks along the river he very earnestly sang the following words:

In the meantime, here are pictures of our neighborhood over the past week, including some young explorers checking out the Inwood caves after school last Friday.

This is the hawk eating the rat.