Falling Leaves, Falling Temperatures

A light and windy rain last evening just at dark brought down leaves along the lane and the rims of the north and south ravines.  

The garden and east meadow were already in shadow when I went out at seven this evening to drape old towels over the green beans which are still providing us with fresh veg.

I moved geraniums into the sun room, along with a pot of nasturtiums.

Dawn harvested the remaining green tomatoes at the Dry Creek garden yesterday and they are in rows on the west porch covered with a fleece blanket.

There is a chill in the air and the warning of possible frost in the hours before daylight.

September frost was the usual in my native Vermont; early morning outings saw neighbors' window boxes and porch planters draped with old pillowcases or towels while a sprawl of faded sheets or bedspreads covered vulnerable rows of tomatoes.

Inevitably there came the afternoon when we knew that 'killing frost' would move in shortly after nightfall. 

Green tomatoes were stripped from the vines, spread on kitchen counters, lined along windowsills, laid out on newspaper covered tables in back entries or pantries.

The last fall flush of blooms came inside to be crowded into the McCoy vases, ceramic pitchers, small jugs and mismatched creamers.

The straggling vines of nasturtiums were clipped and brought in to be stuffed into mason jars, their pungent cool scent vying with that of a few roses tucked into vintage teacups.

In my childhood I crouched in the bed of the horse-drawn wagon when Grampa Mac harvested the field pumpkins and the knobbly Blue Hubbard squash. These were arranged on the south-facing covered porch of the farmhouse to 'cure'--if frost threatened horse blankets were brought to cover them. Soon these would be carried to shelves in the dirt-floored cellar, joining the earlier harvested potatoes heaped in their wooden bins.

The morning after that killing frost is one of gentle sadness as the slow sun climbs the sky revealing blackened tomato and squash vines, shriveled bean plants, limp masses of sodden stems where only yesterday there were blooming plants.

To everything a season.

After the brief mourning for the ending of another growing time, we gardeners turn to the final clean-up for the year.

Choosing a mellow afternoon we work under the slanting autumn sunlight to yank up spent vines, trundle them off to the trash pile or compost heap; in the greenhouse pots and trays need to be sorted and stacked, trowels and diggers wiped clean and put away.

Here in Kentucky grass will need to be mowed through the end of the month.

As these tasks wind down and the days grow shorter, we  pull sweaters and down vests from the closets, spread an extra quilt at the foot of the beds.

Working outside at mid-day is still pleasant if there is sun, but the east porch no longer invites as a place to sit with a book and a mug of tea.

With the labors of the garden over for another season, I am more aware of the pantry which needs to be re-organized, my craft area downstairs that needs a good sorting.

Sewing/quilting projects laid aside in April will soon invite my attention.

As I finish writing at nearly 9:30 P.M. the outside temp has fallen to 46 F.

It was dark and chilly an hour ago when I picked my way across the back yard to fling corncobs and beet peels into the garbage pit. 

Opening the door to go out I surprised a possum gobbling kibble from the outdoor cats' dish.

I yelped in surprise, the possum glared at me, then scuttled off with Dixie-the-dog in indignant pursuit.

The cats have gone to bed, the house is quiet.

Sunrise will tell the story--whether the frost has come--or we have been spared for yet a few more days.

Trees along the north edge of the property as it slopes into the ravine.

Wind and rain have splayed Raydon's Purple Aster

That is one plant.

Spring violas self-seeded in this pot--too many to grow on properly.

These are the cheerful survivors.

A late bloom on Duchess of Edinburgh clematis.

The sepals are strangely distorted and mottled.

This bud--if spared by frost--looks like it will open with the same odd markings.

One final blossom on my favorite, Candida.

 

Early October

October mornings are notably quiet, dawn-glow and sunrise slow to push away the darkness of night.

Mist hangs over the meadow.

We are balanced here on the dividing line between Central and Eastern time, choosing, as do most at this end of the county, to live on eastern time. 

With curtains opened and blinds raised, I still need to switch on the overhead lights in the kitchen.

The cats clamour to go out, then hesitate on the front steps.

By mid-morning the mist has burned away and the sky is brilliantly blue.

The veg garden has been cleared and Jim has mowed all but the section where late crops are flourishing.

The broccoli is forming small heads, Napa cabbage is ready for salads, the green beans need picking every other day. 

Dawn brings home tender small peas from the Dry Creek garden; Jim's late planted corn there is supplying a few ears. The last tomatoes are ripening on the west porch.

 The clump of self-sown zinnias is still pretty from a distance, although a closer inspection proves they are tattered and fading.

I labored on four consecutive days this week to prepare my flower gardens for winter. 

I started with the easiest and smallest of the plantings, very carefully tweaking out grass around the clematis vines, digging around the foxgloves and adding several more that spent the summer in the greenhouse.

The new garden at the west end of the house has been mostly successful, though the weeds have been a challenge.  Most of the thyme plants along the raised edge and under the window have settled in.  Several lavenders seem happy in the angle of the wall--you can see the flower heads against the logs.  One lavender died--I don't know if it was one of those I grew from seed or a nursery purchase. 

The brilliant Mexican sunflowers [Tithonia] have spilled wildly over the space allotted to them.  Somewhere underneath that orange exuberance there is a smothered pink landscape rose and a clump of lemon balm.

The dwarf butterfly bush which I moved there has spread and flowered abundantly, crowding balloon flowers and nigella. 

The twiggy stems of signet marigold, Lemon Gem, have gone brittle since this photo was taken earlier in the week.

I have grubbed out weeds around the three David Austin roses to the right of the walkway, stirred the dirt around the foxgloves, pruned the roses.  There is still weeding and mulching to be done.

This is the original rough strip where plants moved from the farm were hastily interred two years ago.

It is a difficult spot to maintain.  Pasture weeds constantly invade--the ground seems suitable for only robust plants.  

Gooseneck loosestrife [Lysimachia] took over and had to be removed earlier in the summer. I noted that a few plants have reappeared. Daylilies do well here, also coneflower which defies weeds and insects to happily self-sow.

More work to be done here, some foxglove to set in, forking over the ground so laboriously weeded.

It will never be a tidy area, but the peonies are there, some iris, two varieties of shrub roses which I cherish.

Red Knock-Out Roses!

What would we do without them?

Tough, dependable, reviving after the mid-summer onslaughts of Japanese beetles, providing cheerful blooms til killing frost.

The roses have been troubled this year by these small green worms who can turn the leaves to lacy skeletons in short order.

I've not yet identified them, but they are surely a pestilence!  I smash every one I find.

Foxglove, tucked among the miniature daylilies which front the Knock-out roses.

Blackberry lilies raised this season from seed.  This was an interesting project. The seeds germinated slowly and at widely different intervals. In the end, I had 9 plants to set out in the new west garden. They are thriving.

An exotic coneflower grown from seed--at the moment I can't recall the variety. 

Willis, in his 11th summer and feeling his age a bit, still loyally supervises my gardening activities.

Robert assisted my efforts in the rough perennial strip.

Edward [who is lazy] enjoys the warmth of the autumn sun on the stone path.

On Thursday, feeling the soreness and fatigue generated by four days of crawling about in the gardens, I took a break to do errands and some cooking.

Friday there were green beans for us to gather.  More pruning!

It was something of a relief when the sky clouded over and a light rain began to fall late in the afternoon.  The rain continued in desultory fashion today.

Jim declared a country drive was in order, so we puttered along winding back roads through a landscape that quite suddenly is colored with autumn hues of gold and russet. 

I have watched as during the past two weeks a few trees along the south ravine and the pasture edges have begun to 'turn'--a branch of yellow leaves on the big sycamore, the dark gold of the hickories. 

A scuffing of leaves lines the edges of the lane, more drift down with each stirring of the wind.

On Monday morning [5th Oct] a lone hummingbird drank at the feeder where several had darted the day before.  By mid-morning, working in the strip of garden near the hanging feeders I noted that the busy little birds were no longer in residence--gone--until another spring.

I walked out late this afternoon, just before the early dusk, wearing my tall boots, sheltering my camera from the light drizzle.

I've been intrigued with these several trees in the hedgerow which I haven't identified. The purple leaves stand out among the yellow and golden russet of the others. I was surprised to see the clusters of red berries.

I am pleased with these 'Michaelmas daisies'--a variety called 'Raydon's Purple'.  I bought one plant last year from a favorite mail order garden, hoped for more this spring, but they sold out quickly.  The flowers are not quite identical to the New England Asters which grew in pastures and along roadsides in my native Vermont. 

Nasturtiums straggle, become shabby, and yet they have marvelous powers of rejuvenation.  Seeds from the spent blooms fall into soil of the pot and germinate. Clusters of fresh leaves and buds appear at the ends of drooping tendrils.

In a few weeks the frosts will come.  Each season I cherish the last blooms, the October flowers, knowing that the joy of them must sustain me through the winter.

For all my grumbling over creaky knees and aching muscles, the labor of gardening is richly rewarded. 

 

To Blog Again--Or Not?

It has been a busy summer.

Even as I type the words I'm thinking that summer has always been busy time! 

Planting, harvesting, preserving the harvest--as well as doing the usual tasks indoors and out.

[To say nothing of the building/renovating projects that have been an on-going lifestyle for many years!]

Dawn and I have picked green beans under searing sun, brought them in to snip, steam and seal in the vacuum Food Saver. 

We have unhappily thrown out tomatoes ruined by blight or bugs; those worth salvaging have been canned or turned into salsa and spaghetti sauce. 

I drove to my favorite garden nursery in mid-August, returning with broccoli, Napa cabbage and regular green cabbage to set out where earlier beets and cucumbers had grown.

I watered the plants for several days before a spell of rain took over.  All are growing on nicely.

In the foreground of the above photo is the late crop of green beans.  I planted bush type, but a few of the climbers germinated from the earlier planting--overgrown pods discarded on the ground as we picked.

Late August rains have blessed us with a green autumn. Leaves on a few trees are starting now to 'turn'--hickories going a golden russet; one branch on a large sycamore across the lane has a warm tint of yellow.

Hummingbirds are still a presence at the feeders.

Clematis have flowered again--other than the always struggling one that I inadvertently dislodged while tugging on a clump of grass. 

Clematis stems are so vulnerable!

Clematis 'Samaritan Jo'

In truth, it isn't busyness alone which halted my blog posts. Online resources indicate that the new blogger format has been prone to spam 'hits.'

I can deal with the odd irrelevant comment or those who comment only hoping to make a sales pitch. 

 

I cringe at pornographic filth--posts of explicit content from those nameless trolls who have the expertise to get around comment moderation and spew their filth.

Although I try to recognize and quickly delete, my reading skills have always been of the kind which register whole paragraphs in a quick glimpse.

When dealing with comments on my only August post, I was using my laptop, working at Howard and Dawn's house during the 8 days that our internet was down.

I'm awkward with the laptop touch pad, and I suspect that I deleted some legitimate comments along with the spam.

 I miss blogging--sharing photos and words that journal our days and seasons.

I can hope that 'blogger' deals with the issue--building a system that filters out the professional trolls!

 

July into August

The month of July can be summed up in three words: Heat; Humidity; Harvest.

Dawn and I have been kept busy tending the gardens at both locations.  Green beans outdid themselves before beetles and a spell of dry weather wore them out.

We purchased a vacuum sealer to prepare the beans for the freezer--a bit of a learning curve before we became proficient.

A typical morning's harvest! We soon reached the point of cringing when anyone came in from the garden carrying more cucumbers. We've been giving away some of the excess--some have gone to the Beachy's Fresh Air Produce when their crop slowed down.

Some of the prettiest green beans went into 16 pints of 'Dilly Beans'--recipe supplied by son-in-law, Matt.

The row of green beans in their glory.   A late planting of beans has since replaced these--bush beans for a fall crop. The beets [at the right behind the bean trellis] have all been consumed. Jim seeded a long row of beets at the Dry Creek property [now owned by Howard and Dawn] as well as a large packet of Sugar Snap Peas which Dawn purchased. He also put in corn, but the germination has been disappointing.  

We have harvested tomatoes for the table, but predictably, we are seeing blight damage on many of the plants. We made several plantings of tomatoes of different varieties and hope there will be a late harvest.

Coneflowers at the corner of the house. These are now past their glory but left standing to drop seeds. 

A late July sunset after an evening rain.  A week of intermittent showers brought welcome revival and ushered in a surprisingly cool first week of August.

The three dogs go to work at the Dry Creek property each day with Howard and Jim. They look forward to a cooling 'break' in the water.

When the dogs are done splashing any humans within range get a shower bath.

My son-in-law, Matt arranged for this splendid trellis to be constructed for me. The delivery came as a complete surprise. 

Jim and Howard painted and set the trellis in the newly established garden along the west retaining wall.

I am enjoying the prospect of choosing plants--maybe a small climbing rose--a clematis--or two? 

My favorite local garden center reopens next week--and a new catalog from a reliable source landed in the mailbox a few days ago, giving me options to ponder.

Mexican Torch Flower in bud--grown from seeds included as a 'bonus' with a spring order.

 A strange insect encountered while weeding.

Torch Flower in full bloom.

Faithful Willis continues to oversee all gardening efforts.

I spent many hours last week digging and weeding in my various flower borders--tiring work, much of it done on my protesting knees.

The veg harvest and processing has slacked off for now--still a variety of food for the table with the hope of plentiful fall crops. 

Summer in Kentucky is not over--surely heat and humidity will return and stretch into September.

The renovation of Howard and Dawn's house continues with Jim assisting.  Howard decided to gut the interior and create an entirely new layout in the upper story. New bracing rafters have been installed upstairs, new windows set in place. A crew arrived last week to insulate with sprayed in 'foam.'  

We have all worked to clear and tidy the neglected acreage. 

There is little energy left over by the end of long work days.

Life is demanding--and rewarding!

Raccoons on the Rampage

14th June, a Sunday, was perfect weather to putter outdoors. I had previously planted a clematis in the new garden, placing the trellis against the west wall.  In a few days it became obvious that the heat absorbed in the exposed concrete was too intense for the clematis.  Jim moved the trellis around to the wonky wooden fence below the east wall.  I replanted the unhappy clematis and put another beside it.  Both were sturdy little plants from a reputable mail order nursery; they had been grown on in the shelter of the greenhouse after arriving in early May. I tied the vines to the trellis and placed several flat rocks at the base.

This was the devastation that met my gaze when I went outside early Monday morning.

We decided that the rootling had been done by a raccoon. 

A raccoon visited the cat kibble feeder on the lower porch several times during late winter and we hadn't begrudged it the food.

Somewhat reluctantly we decided to bait the Hav-a-Hart trap.

The next morning we had the supposed culprit. Jim was loading the trap into the back of the pickup when I noticed that the raccoon was a female. Immediately we thought of nursing kits left to starve if we trucked their mom away. 'Its your plants, your choice what to do with the coon', said Jim, leaving me to decide.  My soft heart caved, hoping the attack on the clematis was a one-time mistake. We released the coon. Pondering the situation later, I recalled that the mother coon's nipples had been shriveled and dry as though her kits were already weaned.

Tuesday morning. Note that these pots were on the front doorstep.

Wednesday morning.

Thursday morning.

Friday morning, on the lower porch.

On Saturday morning this large and belligerent male was in the trap.

Howard hoisted the trap into his truck and we drove down narrow winding back roads to release the coon in an overgrown field. 

Subsequently we caught and transported two smaller raccoons.

There has been a heated discussion on the local online 'magazine' re dealing with unwelcome visitations from raccoons.

One writer stated that a friend loaned her a collection of 'rubber snakes' which discouraged nocturnal visits to planters and bird feeders.

Another contributor ranted against the practice of transporting coons to remote areas and rather self-righteously confessed that coons trapped on their property were taken to the farm of a friend who 'uses them to train his dogs.'  

Jim doesn't shoot animals, but I contend that a quick bullet would be a more merciful end than being turned loose to be torn apart by hounds in training!

I replanted the clematis vines twice before they were left to grow in peace.

I was able to salvage and re-pot most of the plants thrown about during Mr. Raccoon's nightly rampages. We have since seen a youngish coon mooching about on the front steps but it has caused no upsets. 

We've had visiting raccoons in other locations, never any who created havoc.

I've always considered them rather appealing with their pointy masked faces and bushy tails.

Since the destruction ended with the removal of the large male, I hope he was one of a kind.

I started this post using the new blogger format. I loaded 3 photos, couldn't load the remainder so reverted to the older format.