season's greetings

 I love this time of year.  Hello, old friends!

I picked the first batch of pumpkins this week, mostly minis.  

It's a great harvest from just a few vines.  I will wipe these down with a weak bleach solution (1 teaspoon per gallon of water) to help them last until December.  I can't wait until the larger pumpkins are ready.  One of my favorites is the Long Island Cheese...

photo courtesy of Johnny's Select Seeds

...and I've got a few planted.  A single planted seed of a miniature variety will yield many pumpkins, but seeds of larger varieties will only produce a few pumpkins per vine.  I would love to get five of these this year, but I'll have to wait and see what happens!

It's been uncomfortably hot for the past week (summer's last gasp?), but I still make it out to the garden sometimes.  Strawflowers are shouting the colors of the season...

Zinnias are coming into their own.

Beautiful colors...

...and good hiding places for clever hunters (spider averse, skip next three pictures!).

Every single time I pick flowers, I hunt for crab spiders.  Sometimes tiny, and other times, big and bold...so to speak.

In reality, crab spiders are tiny, and they need to be, to hide beneath petals.  They wait for pollinators... and pounce.

And look who we have here!  So much milkweed planted, and at last...the face I've been waiting to see.

It's a monarch butterfly caterpillar, which feeds exclusively on milkweed.  

Hello down there!

It's the first (and only) that I've seen this year, but since I've suddenly started seeing a lot more monarch butterflies, I'm hoping to see these plants covered in caterpillars soon.

Hot days are uncomfortable, but combined with the cooler nights make a dramatic daily fog that we both look forward to seeing.

To help celebrate the season, I've done something that I don't normally do...purchase a quilt kit.  I love scrappy quilts and prefer to put together my own color schemes, but I've had my eye on this particular kit for two years...and decided to finally take the plunge.  It's always a gamble.  Quilt kits are expensive, and if you wait, you can sometimes find a bargain.  But they (and fabric bundles in general) are usually one-time releases.  Wait too long, and there's the very real possibility that you won't be able to find them for any price.  

I like this kit because it's Halloween-esque, but not Halloween patterned.  It's great for October and November, and for December, I can switch to another seasonally-colored quilt kit that I purchased last year (but still sits in its bag, waiting to be sewn):  Camille Roskelley's Patchwork Sky kit.

It doesn't SCREAM Christmas, but I think it's really cheerful for both December and January.  A nice bit of cheer during those cold, dark winter months.  I can't wait!

Have a great week!  

Veni, Vidi, Vinca

Our leaves aren't really changing just yet, but acorns are constantly dropping and leaves are starting to come down.

We have some slight change in color...

...berries too...

...which seems odd, with the random juxtaposition of early-blooming camellias and azaleas.

I always assumed that it was a temperature drop that caused leaves to start changing in the fall, but we're still in the mid-80s and I'm starting to see glimpses of color.  Apparently the length of daylight can also be a trigger for the reduction of chlorophyll production in plants.

Our vinca, too, is still going strong.

We have thousands of them.  Hard to believe that they all came from 2 or 3 plants, just 3 years ago!  They're rampant re-seeders and I let them do their thing.

Our evergreens are still as vibrant as ever.

Still, it feels more like fall when I see our empty birdhouses.

Our randomly-blooming gardenias are definitely done for the summer.

The turkeys have returned, although I've only gotten a few late-dusk glimpses.

When this recent bout of 99% humidity breaks, we can go back to sitting by the pond again. 

So peaceful, and even the many fallen trees contribute a little color and texture to the scene.

Our "goz" are really active right now, mainly in the early evening.  It's easy to see evidence of their presence.

I'm not seeing many insects, although they're still pretty active.

Where there are flowers, there are bees, butterflies, and skippers.  They may be the last to go!

It seems like the insects are hiding away, and we are too.  Until this weather breaks, we'll continue to find our fun indoors.

Have a great week!

Butterflies, Bees, and Lizards (near) Trees

When my sister-in-law was in town last week, we decided to go to Saluda, North Carolina.  Tucked into the mountainside, it's a tiny one-stoplight town that was at one time the steepest railway grade in the United States.

We shopped and visited the museum, which had some very dramatic trail-derailment dioramas.

A short drive away, we hiked over smooth stone paths...

...to see a beautiful 90-foot waterfall, Pearson's Falls.

Another day, we drove to Asheville, North Carolina to stand in author Thomas Wolfe's shoe prints...

...and see the interesting architecture.  Dog gargoyles!  :)

The Blue Hills are undeniably beautiful.

However, it's not too shabby around our house right now.  80s or not, FALL IS HERE.

We are having a bumper crop of acorns this year.  They crunch under your feet wherever you walk.

This is the front driveway, right before blowing.  A day after blowing, it looks exactly the same!

Our big camellias aren't quite ready to pop yet...

But some of our other ones feel differently!

This unseasonably warm weather has kept our marigolds and zinnias blooming, joined with fall asters and chrysanthemums.

And the vinca just doesn't stop!

I picked a nice bouquet to bring a little of that outside beauty indoors.

We still have butterflies, bees, and lizards in trees!  Well, on downspouts, anyway.

It's a great time to be outside.

Have a great week!