Every year the Essex Fox Hounds holds the Hunter Trials competition, as a pleasant tailgate fundraiser for the club.

This year, First Daughter who prefers to remain anonymous on this blog and teh intertubes, swept up the awards!

A second, a third, THREE firsts and TWO championships!

Cady is so cute I have to put in two pictures of her. But, she's BAAAAD!

Why is the treeline looking so bare? Well might you ask.

Why are leaves on the ground being gathered and carted off? Aren't they supposed to turn colors, and then, after cool nights, fall on the ground sometime in October?

Here are some brave flowers that are putting on a valiant show in the face of expiring shrubs.

The leaf above is from a sunflower. It isn't turning brown because it is cold - it hasn't been! It's turning brown because evil poisonous gasses from burning gasoline and ethanol and coal, are consuming the atmosphere.

This is a branch from a venerable boxwood shrub, which has a thin layer of leaves on the outer surface, whilst the inner branches are consumed by this lichen.

A charming wet rose on a rainy day.

This ivy shows how the leaves gradually lose the ability to photosynthesize and lose chlorophyll.

The lotus in the pond was my first alert that the primary cause of decline is atmospheric, since the lotus lives in a continuous supply of water, ruling out climate change induced drought. This leaf is indicative of the earliest signs, with it's bleaching of color, and pronounced veins.

This leaf is further along, with brown mottling, from dying cells.

And here we have arrived at the condition most of them are suffering. Just, dead.

Wild asters are in such a plethora of vertiginous plenty, they make me dizzy!

Maple leaves, and a cluster from Japanese Andromeda, clearly demonstrate the damage from atmospheric gasses. The scorching of edges, and the pockmarked stomata, are clear symptoms. CLICK on the photo and the evidence of cellular damage is obvious.

So, some lovely roses for a momentary respite.

And then back to fearsome damage, this is a zucchini leaf.

And here, it should cause consternation, the tiniest ever chestnuts, and the tree's leaves.