Sunday saunter

I could be floating today, I suppose.   It would be a beautiful day for it.  The sun is out in a partly cloudy sky, there is almost no wind, it is ridiculously warm for the second week of November.  Right now it is 72°F (22.222222°C)  (I’m sorry, that is what my calculator said and I just had to put that in.  What a magical number.)

However, it is also a beautiful day for sauntering about the garden, documenting what is happening in The Havens today.   I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that there is a lot going on.

I have been contemplating the Gardening Gone Wild “Picture This” subject ever since they announced it a few days ago.   “The End of The Line” has so many connotations, I have been meditating on how one could include those different connotations in a photograph.  Some ideas translate, some don’t.   One of my “pretty good” connotations involves the worn-out work boots I have planted with sedum that sit on the front steps.   They are at the end of their line — no longer work boots.  And they sit at the end of the path.   And the re-blooming irises in the shot are waiting on the brink of the hard freeze that is sure to come soon.

That’s a pretty good picture, but the trouble is that the dead foliage, which I included to bring in the end of the season feel, makes everything too brown and same toned.

You would not believe the amount of primping that has been going on in the vegetable garden in honor of this shoot.   That is another thing that has been going on at The Havens.   I have decided that I need a gardener and a photographer’s assistant.   Fortunately, Jim was there to assist in the removal of the pea trellis.  Over the course of my forays into this subject, it became painfully obvious that the pea trellis was screwing with the light and perspective something fierce.   At the risk of seeming to have only one subject for GGW, which would be swiss chard, this picture is supposed to indicate the end of the year in the garden, the end of the line of swiss chard that made my bathtub full last month.

That trellis needed to be put away for the winter anyway.   After all, next year it will be in a different bed, due to the rotation plan.  I have also found over the years that putting the trellis up away from the ground where it can be scoured by the winter winds and rains, and the hungry birds, is a good way to get it sterilized for the next year’s use.

So after the pea trellis was gone, I started playing with the idea that even though this is the end of the season,at the same time this is just the beginning of the next cycle.  After all, in this garden, the beginnings of the next year are already in place as the old year comes to a close, due to my wonderful cold frames.  (These were built by Jim according to the plans in Eliot Coleman’s book “Four Season Harvest” and presently house the winter garden of salad and stir fry greens.)   So now we have the end of the line of chard coupled with the beginning of our abundant winter harvest.

I didn’t really like that picture.  I didn’t think it was getting my point across.  The light was wrong, the cold frame glass was obscuring the fallow garden bed behind the cold frames, blah de blah blah.   After taking several dozen more pictures in quest of the Right Shot, I went for a stroll back around front to see what the pollinators I had noticed earlier in the morning while I was trying to capture “The End of the Line” (boots version) were up to.

Well.   The marigolds are still going strong even after several frosty mornings, and for some reason the rue decided to put on a fall bloom, probably because of the rains we have been getting.   And there were literally dozens of pollinators out there enjoying them.   I counted at least five different sorts of butterflies, including this sulfur, which was out on the salvia in the stroll garden.

There were also three kinds of bees, at least half a dozen different varieties of wasp, flies and tachnid flies.   

I admit there were  bean beetles but I’m afraid I conscientiously killed every one of those I saw.

Now the next pair of shots happened within seconds of each other.   I was lining up on the little butterflies sharing the branch of flowers and just as I tripped the shutter a bumble bee flew into the picture.

Without waiting an instant, I told the camera to shoot again and this is how the participants re-arranged themselves.

I have no idea where the little skipper butterfly wound up, but I guarantee it wasn’t far away.

I’ve been watching the hostas on the back side of the house as they die back to their crowns.   This one caught my eye today.   The fall change that is occuring just before it dies has turned this variegated beauty into a watercolor delight.

Now, I ate almost half my total daily calories for breakfast this morning, so now, before the scent of the bread that is baking right now turns me into an eating machine, I am going to saunter on out to the gardens and start working on removing the henbit that is trying to take over the bed where my Japanese maples live.   That henbit has a lot of company:   chickweed, dandelions, grass, poke, grape, cherry, bluets, and violets are vivaciously and visciously volunteering over there too.

Enjoy the end of autumn, y’all.   Try not to come to the end of your rope.  End of the line.   Whatever.

Photohunt: Veterans

Today’s photohunter theme is veterans.   Today, I honor three veterans:  my father, my husband and my son.

My father served in the Navy during World War II.

My husband served in the Navy for 21 years, beginning his term of service during the Vietnam War and including service during the first Gulf War.

My son serves in the Army.   He chose that branch of service ultimately because, as he said, “I just couldn’t wrap my head around all that water.”  He is a veteran of the ongoing conflict in Iraq.  This picture was taken while he was in theatre, arrayed in what the Army refers to as “full battle rattle.”

He’s not always so grim.   Here he is with his beautiful wife and her son.

May God bless and keep him safe.  He is back over there.

For other participants in today’s Photohunt, check it out here.

A Dog’s Life

Ruby has had an interesting week.   Some weeks are better than others, obviously.   For example, if your people are traveling, then the dog sitter comes by to feed you and you get to smell all the things that she has been in contact with, plus her cat.   But there is no Mom to play with you, and the three to four mile walk every night doesn’t happen.   And of course it is worrisome because you don’t ever really know how long They are going to be gone — sometimes it is forever and other times it is only half of forever.

Sunday was good because her Mom went hiking with a friend and even though she was gone All Day, when she came home redolent of foreign places there was a lot of information to process.   Mom’s friend stayed to dinner and so there was a lot to smell (she has a cat!   she goes to thrift stores!), plus the friend is a nice person who rubbed her ears and threw the ball for her.

Monday was REALLY GREAT because there was a lot going on.   Jim was digging the foundation footings for the next installation, which will be a platform for a wood fired bread oven combined with a barbecue pit.  We have a rather subversive book on the subject:  Build Your Own Earth Oven by Kiko Denzer and Hannah Field.  Right now this is only a hole in the ground, but very soon it will have the road base foundation in it, and then we will start building the walls, which will be just like the ones that make the strawberry bed.

When Jim was digging that hole there were lots and lots of rotted maple roots plus just as many elm roots, so those were thrown off to the side as the hole progressed.   The dirt that came out of there went into the new strawberry bed.   Once the bed was about three quarters full of dirt, a yard of sand was procured and worked into the top layer.   Then we spread ashes and charcoal from the heating stove on top of that, and Jim filled the bed the rest of the way with dirt from the oven hole.   Then I spent about an hour doing aerobic soil mixing, which I can testify involved a lot of my core muscles as well as my shoulders and thighs (they are a tad bit sore this morning).

Okay, so I got a bit off subject there.   All those roots were very interesting to chew on and you could also tote them around the yard and play with them.   Plus the people were out there and since they weren’t really doing anything very important they had plenty of opportunities to throw the ball.

I discovered during that activity that Ruby is intelligent enough to understand that a rule that involves one place in the yard also applies to new spots.   She is not allowed to go into the garden beds, which is very good because I never have her trampling new plantings or worse, digging.   She understands the concept of “The Edge of the Bed” even when there is not a rock border.   Dug up dirt with mulch is very different from grass.   So when I threw the ball yesterday and it landed in the new hole for the earth oven, she was unable to retrieve the ball because it was not on the lawn.  She was uncertain whether she was allowed in this new hole as it was now bare dirt and “not grass”, so she bounced around at the edge and made her “Help, Mom, I can’t get the ball it is out of my reach” noise until I realized what had happened and rescued the ball.

Another thing that was really great was the meter reader came, and she loves him because he has Cookies.  Also, the Animal Control Officer stopped by (on our behest) to discuss the skunk problem with us.   We had already decided that we would try trapping the skunk ourselves and had obtained a proper skunk trap from the Department of Conservation for the purpose.  The ACO was quite relieved that he was not going to have to deal with the issue, and spent some quality time with Ruby, who found him Extremely Interesting seeing as how he was carrying the scents of dogs and cats too numerous to mention.   Plus he was an expert ear rubber.

Yesterday we had the interesting experience of talking with Jay and Jeri (our friends that moved to Costa Rica) on Skype.   Ruby heard familiar voices and curious, walked into the video feed.  Jay and Jeri immediately started talking to her.  It was very confusing, because she could hear her friends just fine, but apparently a picture on a computer unassociated with a smell does not translate into anything meaningful to the dog brain.   After she had looked under the computer desk for her Other Mom and Dad, she came over to where I was sitting and laid her head on my lap, looking up at me as if to say, “This is very confusing for me.   I hear them but where are they?”   So I consoled her with a good ear rub, and things were a lot better then.

Our walks have been very good lately also.  The deer are unsettled because it is rutting season plus the hunters are out there during the day (it is bow season right now).   Coupled with the full moon, there is a lot of early evening deer activity, and this makes our walks a whole lot more interesting.   There are still possums and skunks and armadillos rummaging around, and the other day we came across a covey of quail too.   Lots of moles tunneling means there are spots that need digging up.   Oh yes, the walks are excellent right now.  And when she gets home, she gets a good ear rub from Jim.

I think it could be pretty good to be a dog, where your life consists of looking for good play opportunities, enjoying interesting smells, and every problem can be solved by a good ear rub.

Almost blew it already

It has only been four days, NaBloPoMo just barely under way and I almost blew it already.   I was stretching, getting ready for bed, when I realized that I haven’t posted yet today.

We’ve been terribly busy.   Jim got busy and laid out the new barbecue pit/wood fired oven installation and dug the foundation.  This provided us with enough dirt to fill the strawberry bed.   There is also some stockpiled back by the compost area for use in building the actual oven.   Turns out our dirt is almost perfect building material for mud clay construction.

That being the case, he also went off to the local purveyor of building materials and brought home a yard of sand, which we spread over the new bed and worked into the clayey soil so that the strawberries would be happy.   I’ll plant them in there tomorrow.   You should have seen me, balanced on the wall of the bed, working with my cultivating fork to mix all that wonderful sand into the soil in the bed.   I’m going to be a little sore tomorrow.

I also got the materials together and started production of a batch of fruitcake.  I know fruit cake has a bad rap, but this is an old family recipe and I have a very interesting (and probably fictional) tale I tell to myself of how this recipe arrived in its present incarnation.   I have modified it quite a bit, because I refuse to use “fruitcake fruit” (that candied and dyed mass of citron) in any way shape or form.  Sometime when I have more time I might tell it.

Anyway, I’m beat and I have an early massage appointment tomorrow, so I’m going to call this a post and go to bed.   More tomorrow.

Full moon

We were treated to a beautiful sunset yesterday.   A cold front is moving in from Canada, and so in spite of the fact that we are enjoying rather lovely weather, the upper atmosphere is full of ice crystals.   So there was a sun pillar as the sun set.

I turned 180° and caught the moon coming up through the plum trees at the back of the lot.   She was about three hours past full.

After I admired her enough, I turned around and found the sunset had developed further.   One of the clouds started to emit moisture, but the upper level winds caught the rain and blew it into interesting zigzags.  These showers that do not reach the ground are called virga, but I’ve never seen them blown into patterns like this before.