A walk around my neighborhood

I've always been in awe of the walks my internet friend Darla takes in her neighborhood, whether she's in the mountains or by the bay.  She always takes us places of interest, all the while showing us her neighborhood.  On Thursday I decided to take a walk around my neighborhood because it was going to be the last lovely day for awhile.  So, instead of mowing my yard, as I should have, I spent a couple of hours looking for signs of autumn and Halloween.  Unlike Darla's, my post is quite long.  So long in fact, I have to break it into two posts.

I began shooting photos as soon as I stepped off my porch.

After all, as the Chinese proverb states, " A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step." Looks like I have just taken mine!

You can see this house at the end of the block from my front porch.  The lady who lives here sweeps the street, as well as her driveway and sidewalk.

This is the same house as above after I turned the corner.  You can almost see my house in the far background.

I stopped long enough to talk to the kitty that was in the driveway of this house.  I've seen it at my house before.  I just never knew where it came from.  Still not sure, but s/he looked quite content.

Ah, my first sign of Halloween, or at least autumn.

I fell in love with this landscape.  The home owner has a great eye for both color and design.

I laughed when I saw this house.  The edging at the curb was half finished, which I thought was really odd.

I live in a very patriotic neighborhood.

I saw nearly as many flags flying as I saw pots of mums.  I also saw some really clever landscapes I wouldn't notice if I was driving by in my car.

Finally! Signs of Halloween!

Of course I had to stand in front of this house and take in all the decorations, including the ghost flying high above the fence on the right.

I really don't know the term for this little triangle of land that has a road on three sides.  My neighborhood association has taken over this triangle, and in conjunction with a local nursery, we tend and care for it.

We are very proud of what we have accomplished, because this was originally just a patch of ground that was full of weeds.  I tried to back up far enough to show the entire thing, but

even from this angle, I couldn't get the entire area.

Although I wanted to find some signs of Halloween, in its absence, I settled for looking at landscapes.

Mums and other flowers made this landscape colorful.

And this house had both pumpkins and mums.

We end this leg of the journey as we turn a corner and see the arbor the people added to their house a couple of years ago, as well as

their hedge of mums they have planted in their side yard.

I'll be back tomorrow with the rest of the neighborhood walk. Not sure which has taken longer, the neighborhood walk or getting the photos off my camera and sized for this post.