The Years To Remember

  After a couple of hard frosts and today's high winds, most of the leaves are down. On my bike ride yesterday, it was just a constant shower of pretty leaves along the trail. But the wind today just tore so many down and deposited them in the roads.  Most of the garden is turning brown and I'm chopping spent plants to add to the compost layer, so when I come across flowers still blooming, I appreciate them even more.  A few flowers are holding on like this calendula. I grew it from seed I saved the year before, but this is only one of 3 flowers that it produced. I'll try again next year. This snapdragon reseeded itself from the previous year's planting.  I hope that continues. Nasturtium are still going strong. Another solo bike ride led me to learn a bit more about the trail and the 10 mile section I ride most often. The scenery was lovely. I got my flu and covid vaccinations Friday as I'll be traveling a bit this fall starting with the Maine trip later this month...

It's been a quiet week with not much happening. I've been working on optimizing my home in terms of rearranging things to make life easier, instead of living with things where they were placed when I moved here so long ago. It is refreshing! We've had a string of gorgeous fall days in the sixties with full sun. One day I looked up to see a sun dog in the very high clouds. It's a mini rainbow caused by light refracting in the very high cloud particles. Breaking down the Earth Boxes and putting away pots and tools has been my focus this week. A very hard frost put a period at the end of the growing season.  I planted 70 garlic cloves this morning in my new raised bed. Some from my niece Emily, who is a farmer, along with the rest that I grew.  It’s a questionable design choice to plop a raised bed in the middle of a flower/herb garden, but why the heck not? One of the reasons I love to garden is that almost every thing is an experiment. The day of appointments was success...

 Fall is such a pretty time of year, but behind all the colorful trees and harvest rewards, there is the loss of daylight which gets me down a bit. I have plenty to do to keep me busy, but there is a noticeable downshift  in energy this time of year. I am quietly putting together little projects to keep me busy in the dark and cold months. I have picked up a metal chair and small stand which I'll be refurbishing and adding to the back garden next spring. The last foundling monarch emerged on 10/12. It seems a bit late considering the weather is quite chilly. The colorful zinnias persist! The Music Man show was impressive to say the least. The costumes were colorful and helped set the scene, and the sets were an intriguing mix of construction and digital images which blended perfectly. The story itself was a journey back in time to when my siblings and I watched the movie on TV as kids. The sexism only bothered me a little, and was definitely reflective of the time (1957). Rece...

Thursday - A beautiful and somewhat warm morning inspired me to hop on my bike and ride the roads around town. I haven't ridden roads at all this year because of *cars*, or rather inattentive drivers. But today I put on my safety light and high vis jacket and it was gorgeous.  I stopped off at the beach to just admire the lovely day. It looks like good weather will be in short supply for the coming week.   I love that this little slice of nature runs right next to the Main Street in town. One little problem occurred when I rode off the shoulder a bit, to let cars pass me. My handlebar hit a garbage can, causing me to wobble and nearly fall over. The adrenalin rush set off my vaso-vagal response and I could feel a fainting spell coming on. I dismounted and sat down by the road as fast as I could, and avoided a full on faint. I had to wait 10 minutes before the shaking stopped and I could continue my ride. This was not a big deal as I've dealt with this since I was a kid. The n...

  Pokeweed berry season means fall has truly arrived. Three days of constant rain meant I needed to amuse myself inside. The apples my neighbor gave me are now two loaves of apple bread and two jars of applesauce, all headed into the freezer.  Apple treats for the winter. I was going to make kale chips, but then it was just easier to chop, blanch, and freeze the kale for soups and casseroles in the future.  It's Tuesday now and I'm going to rant a bit. It was supposed to be a cloudy day and I had a bike ride planned. The forecast apps all confirmed this, but my eyes revealed light rain. I scrapped the ride because it's not much fun to get soaked as the back tire will spray water all over your backside when it's wet. I thought I might be overreacting, but it proceeded to rain all morning and even now at 3pm. I know why the forecasting is sh!t these days - funding has been slashed at the NOAA and the National Weather Service. You need data to forecast properly, not just o...