Fall pics 2013

September has now gone and October is upon us.  It has been cooler than usual here with little rain, a big difference from a rather wet August.  Here are some photos from around the house.
After the rice harvest, these rice-stalk teepees were put up.
An amazing blue sky and wispy clouds.

I forgot what these  purplish flowers are, but they are beautiful.
One of our fat garden friends that will someday become a flying creature.
This red-legged spider was walking across the floor one day.  I opened the door and told it to go outside and it promptly turned and walked out over the threshold. 
When it got outside on the mat (to the left on the black line), it was met by a smaller brown spider, saying, "Nice to meet you; hope you like it out here."  I then shut the door on both of them.
These are a couple of happy pinwheels I found at the local 100 yen store.
On October 1st,  I opened the rainwater holding tank (our former septic tank) to discover this drowned critter. It was not there last I opened it on the previous Friday. Before this,  I only found drowned June bugs, but this was the first mouse.  The water only comes from off the gutters, so it must have crawled through the  downspouts, through the pipes, and ended up in here with no way to escape.  It got promptly buried on the back slope.
I saw this moth out the kitchen window in the next field.  It was clinging to a long grass stem and not moving much at all.  It was still alive the next morning so I moved it to one of my flower beds to see what comes of it.
Update 10/1--it was gone from the spot I put it, so I don't know where it ended up.  :-(
Another beautiful sunset here in Kita Kobe.