Musings

Haunting herbage

If I go down the front steps, I go by this healthy stand of herbaceousness. By typical North American yard maintenance philosophies and techniques, it should have been pulled and composted long ago. I’d better get going!

Lighting experiment

I experimented with stage lighting in portrait mode on this blooming beauty. Interesting, but only momentarily. Sometimes that’s enough…although I’m not feeling it today.

Floral organics

Single best visual find in months: the icy cap on these wee mushroom caps. What texture! What subtlety! What ephemera!

This, on the other hand, is mostly a color mosaic. I’m amazed how many leaves are still on the tree, and still colorful, with that blanket of the fallen foliar fragments.

Clue apples

This density of apples under the apple tree suggests they’re not tasty, as in: the deer are not eating this tree’s product. [Yet.]

Because the deer are sure eating apples with abandon. And browsing grass. They are piling on calories as the weather turns cool, then cooler.

Hypothesis: this tree was planted to be a pollinator. No one left to ask about this, meaning mostly The Botanist, I suppose.

Lucky you

You meaning my approximately five regular readers. And my guess is there are no, or nearly no, irregular readers.

Otherwise: multicolor maple splendor.

Oh, the lucky part? That I posted early. Woohoo! Rain and whatnot changes my rhythms. And rain just came in; it’s to last into the 10pm hour. Subsequently, the temps will drop into the 30s (The App indicates).

You would be right if you guess we’re scrutinizing the long-range forecast for a “nice” day for closing the cottage and skedaddling. Nothing locked in yet.

Autumn alley

Most of the day was windy and overcast, with spitting rain. Then, a miracle—sunshine as I was beginning to fix dinner. No, it didn’t last, yet it brought a glow to the evening.

When I walk or drive through this alley, I enjoy it every time. The yellow-golds are now (mostly) ascendant.

Crisp fall day

That’s how the phrase goes, no? And it was…crisp and lovely. Note that there’s still plenty of green in the tree leaves.

Different species, different patterns

Despite recent windy phases, the maples are doing a great job of hanging onto their leaves.

The birches, on the other hand, are dropping theirs and making a carpet atop the grass.

Somehow I manage to forget that many pine needles also come down at this time. Don’t fret; the tree’ll look solid green come spring.

Winter eats

Apple in sun

We are enjoying a string of gorgeous autumnal days, and the deer periodically parade through the orchard, and some even bed down in it overnight. They are staking a claim, I suspect, to fallen apples after the snow descends.

Complex, variable wholes

Barberry in red

While the weather is torturing Florida, here the sun arrived after a cool, clear, and brr cold night. It’s a weather upturn, good times for a while. And this barberry branch, down on the bottom of the plant, is sporting fall colors, while the rest is still in late summer mode.

The overnight cold was low enough that the roof of the garage (and probably the cottage) had a thin layer of frost, although the lawn was still green and untouched. Prediction is for a lovely weekend. We are lucky to be here. Outdoor chores await? What to begin with? Hmm?