The Tattered Edges of Autumn

I didn't intend to work outside this morning.  Recent dawns have been quiet, damp with remnants of early rain, any hint of sun quickly shuttered by low-hovering steely clouds.

I pulled on my cut-off wellies to go out with cat litter and scraps for the kitchen waste heap. 

The possibility of finding a rosebud or two lured me out again, scissors in hand. 

Clambering about in the straggle of thorny branches I found a small clutch of roses--petals cold, slightly damaged, but worthy to be brought inside and tucked into a tiny jug.

October always finds me reluctant to begin tidying away the remains of summer's gardens.

As long as the battered zinnias open another colorful blossom, while a few shaggy petals still glow on the leaning clumps of Michaelmas daisies, I tell myself that a stray butterfly, a late hummingbird may be drawn in.

I noted the last hummer, likely a transient, during the morning of October 6. Several days of intermittent showers have discouraged the diminishing ranks of monarchs and fritillaries. 

It was the work of an hour and a half to cut down the splayed stalks of coneflowers, gone-to-seed asters, the bare twiggy stems of blue prairie flax. 

Puffs of seed caught in my hair, clung to my old jacket. 

I carried armloads of stems to toss alongside the small barn, dumped still more at the edge of the south ravine. It would be nice if some of the seeds would settle amongst the leaf mold and coarse grass to send up new clumps of bloom.

Pots of spent zinnias have been carried into the greenhouse where perhaps I can collect some seeds. I discovered a zinnia seedling growing in the gravel near one of the pots, a tightly folded bud at its tip--likely too late to mature and blossom before frost.

Each time I've passed the front windows today or stepped onto the front porch I've noted the changes created by my simple pruning. We become so accustomed to our surroundings--to the height of a row of sunflowers, to the spill of the Michaelmas daisies in their shades of dusky purple, mauve pink, deep lavender. 

Remaining still in my doorstep landscape are the tubs of pentas, the tangles of nasturtiums that will succumb to the first frost.

Two little pots of heather have revived with cooler weather; pansies are flourishing. 

Leaves are thinning on the black walnut trees that line the curve of the lane; walking there one hears the muffled 'thunk' of walnuts hitting the ground.

The soft gold of tulip poplar leaves glows against the russet and bronze of hedgerow trees.

Here and there a blaze of scarlet sumac stands out along the edge of the north ravine.

Wild turkeys, ten of them, process beneath the hickories, bend to forage beneath the oaks. 

Evenings draw in, mornings are misty dark. 

These times of transition arrive on schedule, not unexpected, yet each season catching at me with a sense of wonder.

Nasturtiums were slow to flourish from spring plantings.

This one growing in the big pot at the corner of the greenhouse is unique. I'm hoping it has dropped seeds for another summer.

Two years ago gold nasturtiums rampaged up the greenhouse wall. 

Ragged zinnias, that appeared among pepper plants in the veg garden.

Clematis Samaritan Jo died back to the ground after early summer flowering, then suddenly clambered to the top of the trellis with fresh growth.

The fall blossoms are slightly paler in color than in the spring.

A bumble bee cold and still on a velvety spray of celosia. 

The golden nasturtium got in the line-up twice. 

Violas tweaked out of the pots side-lined after spring bloom and grown to blossoming size.

Lavender and thyme sown in the spring but didn't flourish until later. 

 

Quilt Display at Misty Mountain Sales

Misty Mountain is a mercantile in the South Fork Amish/Mennonite community.

While its stock of goods caters particularly to locals of those persuasions it has items of interest to those of us who live a simpler rural lifestyle. 

The section of kitchenware is alluring with quality bakeware, cutlery, everything needed for canning and preserving. What you will not find there is electrical appliances.

There is a selection of fabrics used by the plain people for garment construction, as well as most of the gadgetry desired by quilters. I often buy thread, sewing machine needles, rotary cutter blades there. 

Two aisles in the store are given over to books, stationary, greeting cards, as well as picture books for small children, all of a type considered suitable for the Amish community.

A display of Leaning Tree cards is there for those who are more 'English' minded.

In the back of the store are utility items: brooms, mops, shovels, canning jars, small hand tools.

When building our present house we purchased our wood-burning stove there.

Whatever my errand at Misty Mountain I detour to the area where quilts are displayed, for sale on consignment.

Some are vintage, others more recently constructed.

Most are machine pieced, hand quilted. 

The precision of workmanship varies but is usually fine quality.

Today I noticed that the display had been altered since last time I was in. 

I'm sharing my photos for those who are interested in stitchery.

Sadly, the fabrics used in the quilts aren't 'quilt shop' quality. 

The store stocks reprints of calicos that were popular in the early 1980's when there was first a renewed general interest in quilt making. When my late friend Edie Robie and I began constructing quilts many of these same prints were produced by VIP and Cranston Print Works, but in a better quality fabric. 

A beautifully pieced and quilted Broken Lone Star; quilting detail below.

Classic 6 point Lone Star with 'clam shell' quilting in the white areas.

I believe this pattern is Wedding Ring--I should check on that.

A white whole cloth quilt, sometimes referred to as a Bride's Quilt.

The quilt is protected by a clear plastic sleeve that caused distortion in my photo, however the quality of the stitching should be evident.

Quilt constructed from identical hand-embroidered blocks.

This older quilt doesn't display the usual quality of work.

The tag notes that it was hand-pieced and machine quilted. This was done on a standard sewing machine--a difficult task. As you can see, the layers of fabric bunched creating wrinkles and wobbling lines of stitches.

A display of colorful scrappy quilts. The lozenge-shaped pieces of the one in upper left were hand whipped together with a variation of a herringbone stitch that I've not seen before. 

 

Another September

I have spent nearly an hour this evening trolling through journal posts from past Septembers.

Nothing much changes.

There are slight variations in the weather from year to year--drought or rain--lingering heat or a sudden downturn in temperatures.

There is a tallying of the garden, the crops that have flourished, those that have been disappointing.

My observations don't change greatly; I wake between 4 and 5, lie in bed sleepily watching as daylight leaks slowly into the room defining the furniture, picking out objects as fuzzy shapes of grey. I glance at the red numbers on the digital clock, knowing that it isn't time to rise and start the tasks of the morning. Time enough when colors return to the room: the mellow 'hand-loomed scarlet' paint beneath the white chair rail; the patterns and colors of the quilts stacked in the open cupboard.

Through the window the trees bordering the west end of the meadow as it pitches toward the ravine are foreshortened, distorted by the gradual slope of the land. The tallest oak seems no higher than the lower panes of my window.

The hummingbirds are dispersing, a few at a time, seemingly on schedule. Watering potted rosemarys and geraniums on the screened porch I may startle a solitary bird zooming away from the feeder. The clamoring whirl of tiny swift bodies fighting for sugar syrup is over for another summer. A male hummer darts to perch on the clematis trellis; goldfinches sway on the leaning stalks of coneflowers. 

Sunflowers at the edge of the garden cant at crazy angles, a few shredded gold petals still clinging to the darkly ripened seed heads.

Jim has harvested butternut squash, trundling them, heaped in the old wheelbarrow, to rest on the covered back porch before being brought in to line the newspaper covered shelves in the dark back hallway.

We have no fall garden this year. The relentless heat of late July and August didn't inspire the seeds of beets and green beans to germinate. A few gaunt spires of okra stand in the now weedy area they shared with rows of potatoes and green peppers. Jim has run over much of the garden area with the tractor and bush hog. 

'When can I take out the sunflowers?' he asks. 

'Not yet,' I reply. 'Let the goldfinches finish their gleaning.'

Several of the clematis vines have produced fresh growth, even a blossom here and there, smaller and paler than the exuberant bloom of early summer. 

The shrub roses have struggled against a particularly fierce onslaught of Japanese beetles. Will there be a few blooms to cherish before frost?

Newly planted pansies have settled into their pots and I have pricked out the tiny self-sown seedlings from the spring plants, given them fresh soil. They are in the greenhouse where I hope they will put down good roots before winter.

As the calendar moves us toward the equinox I hope for a mild and prolonged autumn; mellow days in which to prune, weed, reorganize perennial plantings; days of gentle rain when a fire in the woodstove is welcome and the smell of simmering soup and baking bread foretells shortened days and crisp clear nights. 

Ragged sunflowers.

Cosmos have not been vigorous this summer.

Cosmos petals look as though they had been streakily painted in watercolors.

Newly purchased pansies with a 'baby' seedling or two tucked in.

A mum from last year wintered in one of the raised black tubs.

Always the companionship of cats! Shelby, the cantankerous little calico.

Robert--who lords it over us, indoors and out.

 

The Scrappy End of Summer

Faded rudbeckia, survivors of last season's seed grown plants.

Swallowtail on the white buddleia; this was a frail plant from a local nursery's bargain table, bought in spring of '22; oddly enough, it survived the winter cold while my well-established magenta one was a casualty.

Several varieties of seed-grown Michaelmas daisies have self-sowed in a nearly invasive manner.

 

This geranium and a twin located farther along the porch railing have been in constant bloom. The planters were  gifted to me, products of the local produce and plant auction. When they arrived, the geraniums were surrounded by trailing verbena and greenery. I soon discovered that the 'filler plants' had been merely tipped out of nursery pots and crammed along-side, the root balls not down in the soil. I disinterred them and resettled the geraniums which have rewarded me with exuberant bloom.

Seed-grown zinnias, a variety called 'mini zins'. These were slow to start and reach a size for planting out. The leaves are tatty, but the small blooms lend color at the front door.

 

More zinnias, calendula, and pentas, new to me--displayed at the nursery as one to attract butterflies, which they have done. The pentas stand heat well and revive quickly after dead-heading; I will include them in next summer's planters.

Zoomed shot of a goldfinch happily feeding on coneflower seed heads.

 Coneflowers left last autumn for the delectation of birds seeded around the Knock-Out Roses nearly submerging them.

The heat wave finally broke on Sunday after Friday evening wind swept through leaving us with a sultry unsettled Saturday.

The wind took down many of the sunflowers already heavy-headed and leaning. 

From a distance some of the smaller sunflowers appear pretty, but closer inspection finds them tattered and past their former beauty. 

Tuesday was cool and overcast. I strolled around the dooryard [trailed by faithful old Willis-the-cat] noting the shabbiness of the various plantings, the veg garden already given a rough mowing, leaving only the rows of sweet potatoes and the sprawling vines of butternut squash.

Like the summer-weary gardens we of a certain age may retain some of our better features when viewed from a little distance, while closeups reveal the ravages of our years in wrinkles, blotches and straggly hair!

This Thursday morning was cool, 58 F. when I glanced at the outdoor temp indicator a bit before 8 a.m.

Our high for the day was 73--a 30 degree drop from last week's afternoon readings.

Our hummingbird visitors have diminished in the last several days. For weeks I've refilled two syrup feeders at least once a day; we've been sure of 8 hummers, possibly one or two more. 

The level of syrup in the feeders is decreasing slowly now; I've seen three birds at a time, no males. 

It seems very early for a fall migration to begin.

I began tidying the greenhouse today, discarding a few overgrown seedlings that didn't make it to the garden; I gathered up plastic containers too flimsy to keep, yanked up coarse grass growing beneath the benches.  Half a dozen each of lavender and thyme plants were languishing in starter pots. I'm not sure where they should go as the spots designated for these haven't proved hospitable for over-wintering. 

The dozen plants have been tucked into larger pots with fresh soil mix and ranged along the back of a bench. It will be interesting to see if Willis decides to take up napping on the newly cleared and swept bench, shoving the pots about to his pleasure.

A gift to myself yesterday was a dozen pansy plants from my favorite nursery in the South Fork community. Those have been divided into two large shallow pots and set alongside the front steps. I hope these will behave as others have and survive frost and cold to rebloom during the winter months. 

We'll have warm days in the next few weeks, the A/C will be again turned on; still, for me the turning of the calendar page to September is the beginning of autumn although the equinox is several weeks away.

Summer Heat

The east meadow yielded 4 bales of hay on this third cutting of the season.

Mark Beachy roared in with tractor and mower on the 17th; he and his father, Titus 'rolled' the hay and loaded it home just before dusk on Saturday evening.

This is a fine arrangement: the Beachys  have the hay for their cattle; our field is cut. 

The back garden for which I had lofty visions, is a mess! Blackberry lilies have seeded and sprawled, as have coneflowers, monarda and a welter of lemon balm. Weeds abound seemingly encouraged by the layers of mulch I lavished after a mid-spring weeding. 

The zinnias were volunteers that sprang up from last years' planting alongside a row of beans in the veg garden. I found them, a few at a time in the grassy edge of the garden or emerging where J. intended planting potatoes. In spite of my vigilance in rehoming them, several have bloomed in the now tangled veg garden.

Flowers in planters near the front steps have struggled in the heat. I was rewarded last week with one delicate bloom of dahlia.

Jim's melon patch exploded with some of the tastiest and biggest melons we've grown here. They ripened in such abundance that many were conveyed to the Beachy's produce farm for them to sell.  They  raised an earlier variety which finished bearing about the time ours went into high gear.

Each spring in early May I sow nasturtium seeds in large pots, keeping them in the greenhouse until all risk of frost has passed. I allow some of the summer blooms to go to seed and give the ripened seeds a prod down into the soil, often having a fresh crop of flowers in late August and through September. This year the seeds sulked, germination was scanty and growth was slow. Two of the four pots planted have rather half-heartedly come into bloom. 

Michaelmas daisies better known as New England asters, are traditionally harbingers of autumn, beginning to bloom along with Joe Pye weed and goldenrod. My seed-grown varieties tend toward earlier bloom. Strangely, the lower leaves yellowed and shriveled early on giving the plants a tatty appearance. 

For over a week the heat has been punishing--temps in low to mid 90's F. by afternoon. In this our 14th summer in south-central Kentucky I should have remembered not to be lulled by a few cooler days. 

Last week on several days when the sun had moved to the west side of the house, I tackled the over-grown sage, marjoram and thyme in the raised bed near the front steps. I ruthlessly hacked down leaning stalks of coneflower, tugged out the unresisting dry stems of poppies. 

Along the south-east retaining wall coneflowers have taken over. the Knock-Out roses there have had a poor season, as have all my roses. Japanese beetles moved in early and have stayed late. The untidy coneflowers need cutting back, but the goldfinches have found them and are enjoying the heads already gone to seed. I'm torn between attempts at tidiness and enjoying the flash of the beautiful yellow birds swaying on the stalks.

We are stuck in the heat wave until at least Monday when temps are supposed to drop to low 80's F. 

Meanwhile we limit outdoor work to the most necessary; I scurry out with cat litter and kitchen scraps, peg sheets on the back porch lines, return to the cool house with clean cotton shirt clinging damply to my back. 

J. goes out at dusk to mow grass which by noon the next day lies in brown shreds. I brew iced tea, add slices of lemon. Elmo the not-so-bright cat rushes to the kitchen at the sound of the ice maker spewing cubes, stretches to snatch one from the dispenser. 

The cats venture out first thing in the morning, picking their way through dew-soaked grass. As the sun pierces through the morning mist they are ready to return to the house, slightly disgruntled, suggesting that we open the door that leads onto the screened porch. 

The porches are unwelcoming in the heavy heat; I go out to refill the hummingbird feeders, water the rosemary plants that summer in a row along the railing's edge, then shut the connecting doors to contain the benefit of the A/C.

Meals are very simple; the hot weather doesn't inspire appetites.

I read, spend hours at my desk: genealogy, history look-ups, typing a few letters, retreating to a corner, book in hand.

Summer will end as it always does. September will bring warm afternoons, tempered by cool misty mornings and evenings that begin to draw in. 

I say, bring it on!

 

Thank You!

Nellie, on a catnip high.

Thank you for your words of comfort re the passing of Nellie-cat.

He was a dear boy.

The love of animals is a common bond.

 

Early July Weather/Garden Journal

The pall of smoke from Canadian wildfires kept our weather unusually cool and damp through June. Nights have mostly been moonless.

Tipping into July, summer has asserted itself. Early mornings register a scant 70 F, but the air is heavy and moist, forecasting noon heat in the high 80's F.

Stepping into the greenhouse to water a few remaining seedlings I am nearly flattened by a wall of heat.

J. runs the A/C in his shop, it is turned on in the house by mid-morning.

T-storms and wind have torn through during several nights causing area damage and power outages. 

We have been safe here though sleep-deprived by unsettled nights.

I pull the bedroom curtains during a thunder storm, sometimes turn on a bedside light to read. 

The cats are upset by the storms, piling onto my bed, twitching with each loud thunderclap.

When the sun breaks through the haze we slog into the muddy garden, picking cucumbers, tomatoes, up-earthing a few hills of potatoes. 

Meals have been haphazardly timed; I keep freshly brewed iced tea in the fridge. 

When it is overcast but not raining I've managed to move volunteer coneflowers from one area to another, pull a few of the lushly proliferating weeds. 

Sometimes the evening is cool enough to take a book to the east screened porch. Often the book rests in my lap as I watch the antics of the hummingbirds. I've counted 6 at one time thronging the two hanging feeders; possibly there is at least one more. Both feeders need refilling daily--and my sugar canister is getting low!

Monday was happily busy. A friend dropped by to practice music for a church service later this month. She and her husband were headed home to make pickles, and after sampling a jar of last year's Dilly Beans decided to add that recipe to their pickling venture.

G. and M. breezed in for a rest stop between produce auctions. The big one in Casey County gets underway noon-ish [Eastern time] and can run for several hours at peak produce season. The smaller auction at Speck Ridge advertises their starting time at 4:30 Central time.

I was reading at my desk late yesterday afternoon when J. buzzed in and announced that I needed to drive to Speck Ridge to collect a share of the sweet corn Matt had purchased. That auction usually winds down rather quickly  so I flung myself into the car, and while mindful of the stretches of road that wind up and down the ridges, I have to say that I made good time.  The auction was still in full swing.

Matt and Gina will be canning for the rest of the week:

Photo from Gina of the auction bounty unloaded onto their dining room table.

I came home with 2 dozen ears of corn and 3 dozen eggs, generosity of Matt.

Matt also acquired these beauties but had no room left in the truck to safely carry them home.

We installed them gently in the cargo area of my Honda and they are gracing the east porch until they can be retrieved.

Gina delights in 'selfies' and in photos of unwitting family members.

I dislike having my 'picture' taken, but here I am, protesting, caught in my torn garden shirt and grubby jeans. 

New potatoes scrubbed and ready to boil in their skins.

Monday morning's harvest of tomatoes and cucumbers. We are already at the point of offering cucumbers to anyone who stops by.

Tuesday morning, first harvest of Tenderette green beans.

Monarda 'Raspberry Wine' and a tangle of coneflowers. 

Still color in the western sky at nearly 9:30 P.M.