THANKSGIVING DAY

THANKSGIVING DAY AND MORE COLOR!

Thanksgiving Day was an awesomely warm and beautiful day. In the morning, the leaves were at their peak. Everything seemed extra beautiful. I was so grateful to be able to see all that beauty, to see all the colors and to be able to walk out in the beauty and take pictures to share with you. Look at these camellias! Someone emailed me and asked me about the redbud leaves. They are about the same size as my hand.
I love finding the little surprises, Don't you? Like this touch of bright color in the middle of the jungle out back. Or the color combinations of the
Birch, spruce and Maple. All this gold is on the ground this morning. We had a bit of rain overnight and 40 mph winds.
I hope you had a beautiful day, too.

FINALLY FALL

Fall has finally arrived here on Possum Lane. For the last couple of days, the colors have been brilliant, or at least as brilliant as they get here. No, we never get the awesome reds of the maples up north and the bright yellows and oranges appear only sporadically here and there, but that makes them such a nice surprise when they do happen! A few trees lost their leaves a couple weeks ago so there are only a few leaves left on the biggest dogwood out back. This is from a week ago. The redbud is down to a few dozen big pale yellow-green hearts. The berries are “reddenin’ up for the winter.”
All the early fall camellias are in full bloom now, even Yule Tide has started to bloom though it seems a bit early. The frost got the coleus last week and the Strobilanthes next to St Francis has turned black. The Strobilanthes with the sweet potato leaves next to the carport (last post) is still beautiful, but who knows for how much longer.
It was in the mid 60s Thursday morning and calm. I went out to feed the cats wearing only a shirt (and jeans!) It was 65 and calm at 10 AM, but 52 at 10:30 with a good rain falling and winds between 20 and 30, gusts at 42 mph. Wow! By noon, the winds were clocked at over 60 mph at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and restrictions went up. As I was feeding Spook and Punkin, a big flock of Snows went over. If you watch carefully, you can learn the difference in Snow Geese and Canada Geese by looking at their formation when they fly. Then there are Brants – the sloppiest formation of all! If you get good at it, you can even learn which is which by the sound as they talk to each other as they fly along. Did you ever wonder what they are saying? Are they coaching the youngsters? Encouraging the old timers? Or are they pointing out the featherless bipeds on the ground and commenting on the plight of the earth-bound? Do they have someone who keeps track of the ponds and marshes along the way or which fields have corn that hasn’t been plowed under yet? Do they notice the tender wheat just coming up? Oh, that might be good for a snack!
As I looked up to see how many geese were flying over, I noticed the colors had changed drastically since yesterday. I grabbed my camera and walker and headed out to get a pic or two before the coming storm blew all the leaves off the trees. The brightest reds out there were poison ivy leaves going up a tree at the edge of the woods. I really did not have the energy to try to get out there, but it was a pretty red. I guess I will have to settle for this bush out front.
The Adirondack chairs are covered, the grill is in on the carport. I am starting to fill more birdfeeders each week as the winter crowd starts to settle in. the “butter butts” have moved on (Myrtle warblers,) and the winter robins have moved in.
Wednesday, as I sat on my walker in the sun enjoying the last of the 70 degree weather we will have for a while, one of my nuthatches sat in the bayberry bush and sang and sang. I was amazed at the range of songs that little fellow had. I had never paid much attention to their song before or I did not know who was doing all the singing.
The squirrels are planting pecans in my yard. My only pecan tree is just about 12 feet tall, much too small to produce any pecans, but I have pecans all over the place. Well, OK, so maybe I saw a dozen here and there, but still, that’s a lot for not having any pecan trees. I kept hearing a strange sound, one I was not sure about. It went on and on. I tried to move as quietly as I could to see who it was. The squirrel with a pecan in his mouth was probably saying some unkind things to Punkin who was on the ground ignoring him but watching the sparrows as they kicked up the leaves at the edge of the yard.

Ah, the sights and sounds of autumn. I think I enjoy it more than Springtime!

MORNING MEDITATION

The past couple of weeks have been hectic, if you don’t mind an understatement. But then, compared to what some of the others around me have been going thru, I guess it hasn’t been bad, unless you are a cat or a flea. We put the cats in the kennel to be “defleaed,” took ourselves to Rehoboth to the outlets (LLBEAN!!! YEAH!!!!) having set off flea bombs in the house before we left. Having a cat with serious allergies, we then had to scrub and clean every surface he might step on when he came home. Spring house cleaning in the fall! They say the fleas have been so extraordinarily bad this year because of the drought and I believe that is so. We do seem to have flea problems during the dry years. So, having to do serious cleaning inside meant ignoring the outside chores, sigh. Soooo, the last few days have been spent trying to get many of the yard jobs done and finish getting all the house plants in as it has gotten down to the upper 30s. The croton and tropical plants have been in for a month or more as they can’t take temps below 50. Saturday I got the greenhouse cleaned out and finished putting in the geraniums, aloe and some cuttings. The greenhouse is tiny, so that means climbing on my hands and knees to reach the back of it, but it gives me flowers all winter when the weather does a number on the camellias or pansies outside.
This is Fino’s grave – World’s Best Cat – I had her for 21 years.

I keep pansies on her grave all the time. She is buried in the center of my Prayer Circle. The rocks around the grinding stone (for my ancestors) and shells are from friends who wanted to be remembered in the Prayer Circle. There are also some marbles in there, placed by some of my real young friends. Since stones are not naturally found here on the shore, some people bring shells.
Soon I will be doing my morning meditations in the house. Spook will have to do his all alone. The Buddhas have been enjoying the fall azaleas. I tried to take some pictures yesterday before we got any frost. Good thing I did as I can’t walk very well today. But, then, that will give me the time to sit here at the computer and finally get something on here, right?

Have you ever grown sweet potatoes as an ornamental plant, just for its beauty? A friend gave me this one in a pot of Persian Shield (Strobilanthes.) It has grown along the edge of the carport. I think it looks so cool.
The fall camellias are looking great. Some of the bushes are now over 10 feet tall. They look pretty good with the impatiens. I am so grateful for the beauty around me… I know I don’t have the mountains, hills, rivers and waterfalls down here, but I do have flowers that I could not have up there.

I do want to thank all of you who emailed me to see if I was all right. It is nice to be missed. I did try to keep up with many of your blogs, but half the time I could not get on to leave a comment, or someone was having a crisis and I had to go (see sentence 2.) It has been a hard couple of weeks physically and emotionally, but if we can’t be there for our friends in their times of need, who will be there for us? Enjoy the beauty of my flowers…

COOLER DAYS

The cooler days of fall are here. No, they are not cold, but the air conditioner is at rest, plug is pulled, breaker switch box turned off. That, of course, means yard work time. Groan! Actually, I love working in the yard – I just don’t know how to pace myself as well as I should. I got another 2 tons of mulch dumped out front the other day, and I am grateful, but it is a chore for me to move it all. I am also grateful for the little tractor and wagon as I would never be able to walk all that much mulch to the places that need it.

I have another wagon – the best $50 I ever spent, though that was years ago – 15 at least. I often sit on it to do my weeding, but it has been known to tip over when I get too close to the edge. It will carry 3 flats of pansies, gardening tools, gloves, water bottle, you name it, any place I need those things and then give me a place to sit! The new ones cost a bit more and are 1/3 the size of my wagon. ONE THIRD! I saw them unloading a couple cartons at the Garden Center the other day with the words AMES PLANTER WAGON on the big box – the box was the size of my wagon and I got all excited. I thought it would be great to have a new one, the old one is, well, feeling its age… Can you imagine my dismay when the girl cut the box open and there were three wagons in that box instead of one? That was when I headed up to the John Deere place and bought a BIG wagon to go behind the tractor/mower I got from them this summer. The old wagon can carry some heavy loads. It helped me move my new Buddha I got for my birthday from my van to its current resting place until I figure how to get some rocks to give it a better place in the woods. We don’t have rocks here. I have had to bring all my rocks down from Pennsylvania. This is one of the stone walls up back behind our house in PA.

It will seem very strange to buy a pile of rocks and pay someone to bring them to my house. The Old Buddha still sits out back. I will probably have to move him next year as his stump is really deteriorating quickly.
Anyway, I over did the wood chip/mulch shoveling and planted 8 flats of pansies all in one day. Not real smart. So I am finishing the weeding and planting from the walker.

It, too, has a seat. And wheels, and seems to be pretty tough. It hasn’t dumped me yet. I have learned to use it when I watrer the garden rather than stand for an hour or two. That has been a big help tho it probably looks a little silly from the street! Well, who cares?!?!

TODAY'S INSPIRATION

I read this article today and was so impressed.... I think we need all the inspiration we can get.
Have you read any of her work? I am going to have to get a copy of something - it all sounds interesting. She is 87 - so hey, there is hope for the rest of us, eh? j

Doris Lessing wins Nobel for literature
By MATT MOORE and KARL RITTER
British writer Doris Lessing won the 2007 Nobel Prize in literature, the Swedish Academy said Thursday, citing her "skepticism, fire and visionary power" in dozens of works, notably her classic "The Golden Notebook."
Lessing, who at 87 is the oldest person to win the Nobel Literature prize, could not be reached to be told of her award, the academy's permanent secretary Horace Engdahl told The Associated Press. Lessing's agent, Jonathan Clowes, said she was out shopping in London.
"We are absolutely delighted and it's very well-deserved," Clowes said.
Lessing was born to British parents who were living in what is now Iran. The family later moved to Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe. She dropped out of school at age 13.
She made her debut with "The Grass Is Singing" in 1950. Her other works include the semiautobiographical "Children Of Violence" series, largely set in Africa.
Her breakthrough was the 1962 "Golden Notebook," the Swedish Academy said.
"The burgeoning feminist movement saw it as a pioneering work and it belongs to the handful of books that inform the 20th century view of the male-female relationship," the academy said in its citation announcing the prize.
Other important novels of Lessing's include "The Summer Before Dark" in 1973 and "The Fifth Child" in 1988.
Lessing is the second British writer to win the prize in three years. In 2005, Harold Pinter received the award. Last year, the academy gave the prize to Turkey's Orhan Pamuk.
"When you look at my life, you can go back to the late 1930s," she told The Associated Press in an interview last year. "What I saw was, first of all, Hitler, he was going to live forever. Mussolini was in for 10,000 years. You had the Soviet Union, which was, by definition, going to last forever. There was the British empire — nobody imagined it could come to an end. So why should one believe in any kind of permanence?"
Lessing's family moved to a farm in southern Rhodesia in 1925, an experience she described in the first part of her autobiography "Under My Skin" that was released in 1944.
Because of her criticism of the South African regime and its apartheid system, she was prohibited from entering the country between 1956 and 1995. Lessing, who was a member of the British Communist Party in the 1950s, had been active in campaigning against nuclear weapons.
The literature award was the fourth of this year's Nobel Prizes to be announced and one of the most hotly anticipated given the sheer amount of guessing it generated in the weeks leading up to award.

THE OCTOBER "GARDEN"

OCTOBER.... sigh..........

If they gave an award for weeds, I am sure I would be in the top 5. My modesty won't allow me to claim first place, but it would not surprise me! It is a good thing I live on the very edge of town with a tenth of a mile of woods separating me from the folks with perfectly manicured lawns. That way, maybe the rest of the town won't notice. On the other hand, I have more flowers blooming at any time of the year than any of the rest of them. People come up to me in the grocery store or Post Office, strangers have even pulled in my driveway when they see me working out front to compliment me on my yard or to ask what this or that flower is. Not many people are used to the fall blooming azaleas, and actually, I haven't seen any others in town. It is a small town... just under 500 population. If we have a moderate winter, I can have something in bloom every week out of the year, generally camellias and pansies. The earliest camellias have started to bloom, the rest are budding up nicely. I have had to remember to water them; it has been so very dry. It is easy to remember to water things that are blooming or veggies, but we ofter forget about the trees, shrubs, and bushes we tend to take for granted. My neighbor has purchased a chipper and while he is learning how to use it, I get his practice piles! I have had 3 truck loads dumped out front at the end of my turn around. The top of that pile is over 4 feet high! I bought a wagon to go on the back of my new John Deere and that has been a huge help compared to walking one wheel barrow load at a time around the property. Truth is, walking down to the furthest end (1/10th mile) and back, let alone push a load of mulch down and back, is very difficult for me. Not whining here, honest, as long as my wheelchair stays in the barn, I am reasonably happy, I am just being honest with my limitations even tho my brain still thinks I can do what I did 20-30 years ago. Anyway, I planted a new fall azalea yesterday. Can you believe I have some digitalis in bloom? Are they confused or what? See the dead leaves on the ground? If you look real hard you can see that same old pansy in bloom right behind the digitalis. See that bit of purple? See that spot of white?The English Daisy plant has finally opened. This was just one plant in a 4 inch pot about 4 years ago. It is real tall, too. Punkin had a flea emergency. One of the fall azaleas next to the daisies. These are volunteer tomatoes, cherry and plum, growing out of the compost pile! The window boxes are looking a bit sorry, but the camellia is coming along. This one is over 8 feet tall now. Gee, thinking of all the work I have left to do is making me tired. Maybe Punk has the right idea, but I will find a softer place.

FIND JOY

I was always taught to try to find some joy in every task I had to do. Sometimes it was not easy. Yesterday, I cut the grass. My birdbath is on ground level because it is sometimes the only water some of the critters who live in my little corner can find. So, it needs to be accessible. Unfortunately, it means I need to change the water and clean it out whenever I cut the grass, even if I just cleaned it out the day before. A yucky job for me, but a good thing, really, since I might get lazy about keeping it clean. I got real busy yesterday and kept pushing long after my body was sending me signals to STOP! So when I finally did call it quits, the birdbath was filled with grass cuttings. I remembered it around 2 in the morning, and put it on my mental list of first things to do this morning. I no sooner refilled it than a pretty yellow leaf floated down and landed right in the middle of things. A big old bumble bee hurried in to get a bit of nectar and I stopped to get a look at the beautiful colors surrounding St Francis. And I thought I would share that with you!

THIS MORNING'S GIFT

When I went out for my morning stroll, I noticed a bit of color on a piece of driftwood. I just had to share it with you!

May you notice all of nature's treasures and know that you walk with beauty all around you.

MY NEW HAIR STYLIST

HAIR WASHING TIME.........

While trying to answer some email this morning, Ratty, whose real name is Rascal, decided to grab my head, pull it back, and wash my hair. Even when I tried to pull away, he pulled my head back and kept washing.

THE NUTHATCHES

I have had a pair of nuthatches visiting this week. My, but they are fast! Add to it that many if not most digital cameras are really slow by the old SLR standards... anyway, the shots are not good but again, they are thru the front window, and this camera does not like telephoto adjustments... in order to keep the flash from going off, I have to use some setting that I don't understand. Oh, well... one of the shots is of the local wren, the rest are of the nuthatch - one goes to the "cage" feeder, the other to the longest feeder, but I was never able to get them both at the same time. See camera too slow comment above...

The other pics are of the nuthatches, but you really have to know what they look like in order to tell. The pic above (#1) is the only one where the markings are clearly identifiable. The wren is clearly brown (#2)

Looks like somebody has been bird watching instead of doing their work, doesn't it? OK, shame on me.

And to all my fellow bloggers, I have been reading - I just have not had time to do any comments... this computer has gotten so slow, it is not funny... and I have been so busy - ditto!