money, money, money

this is the money plant (aka lunaria) down by the sitting spot at the end of the yard. i blogged about it last spring and how it had suddenly materialized after being gone for about ten years. it has since bloomed then formed seeds in flat green pods. now the pods have dried and withered leaving silver dollar disks so starkly white they are visible clear across the yard. looking closely though i now find evidence of all three stages of growth on this one single plant. and in november yet.

frosting

early morning frost lines the top edges of this makeshift fence. if i were taller i'd have gotten a more beautiful shot.

17p/holmes

big astronomical news these nights. a comet previously visible only by telescope has recently exploded for reasons unknown to science. the expansion of the gas cloud has the comet fast approaching the size of jupiter with the result that it is suddenly visible to the naked eye. with binoculars tonight i saw it within the constellation perseus. amidst the pinpoint pricks of light a large fuzzy ball suspended in the night sky right over my head. and right in my own backyard.

november II

time was when i hated this month. i know lots of people do. dead cold and bleak, the only good things about november were that it was a short month and there were two federal holidays in it. but about twenty years ago, i read "november light" a story by my writer friend gretchen. a wonderful piece full of beautiful imagery and heartfelt emotion. it so changed my perception of november that over time its become my favorite month. so every november at the beginning of the month i plan the night when i ritually make a cup of tea, remove the manuscript from its place in my cupboard, and read it. and it touches my heart all over again.

november

the quietest month of the year. by now gardens are turned under, fallen leaves are composted, and wood has been stacked and waits for the woodstove. in the forest, leaves litter the floor and you can see deep in through the trees. dark comes early these november nights with brilliant stars and later moonlight that will illuminate the bare landscape. one still november afternoon snow comes silently drifting from a steel grey sky. november brings frosty mornings, clear chill nights, and a time for peace and pause before winter sets in.

halloween

i had planned on blogging my feet again. my nod to halloween was festive orange green and purple striped toe socks and black birkenstocks (any excuse to wear those!) but then i happened upon a friend who incredibly had more elaborately decorated feet than mine. so im blogging hers instead.
happy halloween.

world series

a sweep!
the red sox have won the 2007 world series!
mike lowell is the mvp!
let the party begin!!

serendipity or coincidence?

of late things have happened so serendipitously that its eerie. earlier this week i was counting a large amount of money and counted $710 in bills and $7.10 in coins. wednesday morning there were two emails in my inbox that made reference to, of all things, thistle. and this most recent event: as i was placing a runner on the table trying to make a decision about thanksgiving napery i saw movement outside the window and looked up to see a lone turkey in the yard. in my disbelief i missed the shot of the turkey. so here's a picture of the runner instead.

new wheels

a new car in the driveway tonight. the purchase finalizes months of shopping and pondering and procrastinating. it is not yet comfortable, not yet fun to drive but i am confident that this will come with time. it does smell good however! this picture taken at the onset of the maiden voyage home when a lucky ladybug landed on the windshield as i turned the key in the ingition.

uh-oh

my little camera, the one i keep with me all the time, has broken. its been acting funny for a while now. but today the zoom lens heaved a sigh and stopped zooming. the camera wont even turn on now. who knows when ill ever blog again.

mums the word

chrysanthemums. autumns quintessential flower. one of the best things about the cooler weather. try as i might i cannot grow these. fortunately someone else can - so every year i buy three or four big beautiful plants. this white one is this years favorite.

goin' to bed happy

and dreaming dreams of the world series.
go red sox!

more leaves for hannah

more foliage photographed on a fine october saturday. hannah, this is right across the bridge behind your house. heavy rain last night has muted some of the color and taken down some leaves. this will probably be as good as it gets.

local color

this one's for the readership in europe and central america and all points south. lest you forget, its the brilliant red of a typical fall afternoon in new england.

eureka

last summer i had a series of unfortunate vacuum cleaner events that began with buying a hoover wind tunnel online from amazon.com. on the day it was to be delivered i waited and waited and finally collected it from the ups guy who was broken down by the side of the road about five miles away. once unpacked i found the unit was faulty - no wind tunnel action. finally it took me about three hours to return the thing to its original packaging so i could ship it back to amazon and get my money back. so do i want to deal with vacuum cleaners any more? i think not. the happy ending is this yellow plastic eureka bagless tool. i bought it used at a yard sale. it works slick. and as testimony to the entire saga, i leave the price tag affixed to it and smile at my resourcefulness every time i use it.

ground feeding

lately hundreds of small birds have been foraging for seed in the tall grasses. they hide in the weeds and are visible only when the grass rustles as they hop from one blade to the next. walk by on your way to the compost pile and they suddenly fly en masse, more birds in one place than you would ever think possible.

feels like fall

and it looks like it too. splendid saturday sunshine with chilly winds and peak foliage color. a good day to go to breakfast, take some pictures, and test out the woodstove for the upcoming heating season.

portrait

a while ago i bought a tiny little frame for a few bucks in an antique store. the baby girls picture will look sweet in it. but this is the portrait that had been in it for years and i dont know why ive not thrown it away. who is this woman? is she someone's wife or mother? an aunt or grandmother? if so how could the photo end up on a dusty dark shelf in a musty old store? or could this be a stock photo, one routinely placed in every frame for purchase back in the old days? rather than discard the photo i ponder these questions and study this face. i wonder who she was and where she was and why she was being photographed. and mostly, i wonder if anyone remembers her.

anniversary

oh my gosh - look!
ive been blogging for a whole year!

autumn morn

the sitting spot at the edge of the yard as the sun rises and commences to burn off the fog on the first morning of this long columbus day weekend.

pumpkin shopping

a quick shopping trip this afternoon yields pumpkin bread for snacks, pumpkin candles for color and scent, and pumpkins themselves to grace the front doorway. i passed on the pumpkin pie and the pumpkin potpourri. buying all that might have been pumpkin overkill.

fall grasses

grass in the midst of the now overgrown garden. look closely and you will see more webbing around the seed head. where do those webs come from, do you suppose? are they part of the plant? or put there by something else? either way its appearance surprised me on a misty fall morning.

free to fly

out my window i glimpsed this monarch butterfly hanging on the bridal wreath bush. she had just emerged from her chrysalis which hangs transparent up and to the right from this spot where she is drying her wings in the late september sunshine. it was warm there amidst the dying milkweed plants. i hope she soon gathered her strength and flew.

brahms lullaby

these are some of the figurines on my best music box. made in germany and at least thirty three years old. great detail in these figures and the others atop the rotating platform. and marvelous timbre as the lullaby plays. i spent some time cleaning it up and reglueing angel wings and sheep ears in anticipation of passing the music box on to the girl and her baby.

more morning glories

at the risk of boring you here's one more picture of the morning glories on the trellis in the garden. why the heavenly blue flowers are now blooming as snow white is not only a shocking surprise its a mystery.

cleaning out

a big weekend of attic cleaning with lots of memories and many trips to the dump. among the finds - ancient wall art from the girl's nursery, a bridesmaids dress from a family wedding, boxes and boxes of toys and books, music boxes packed away for twenty-five years, and this lovely crewel artwork from the seventies, begun when eyesight was much better than it is at present. too bad i didnt finish it while i was still able.

alls quiet

early hours this morning were still and quiet as they have been for several days now. no rustling of leaves in the wind. no sounds of animals in the woods. no calling of birds not even crows which are often so vocal in late summer. slowly waking up early this saturday morning the only sound herad was the faint scritch scratching of some small creature trying to move inside as the air chills down.

sweet annie

this is sweet annie an annual artemesia. i harvested most of it and have it hanging in the house to dry. its scent is heavenly. when touched it will smell like summer all winter long.

a lost sole

a tiny pink shoe sitting on a fence post apparently lost by some youngling. it remains unclaimed still. how can someone not miss something thats part of a pair?

swamp maples

maples are just beginning to turn color as witnessed by this stand of trees at the edge of a calm and still pond nearby.

woodsmoke

driving down the road tonight the occasional smell of woodsmoke drifted in through the window. cool day today between two cold nights. last night was chilly enough that i picked all the tomatoes and some of the remaining flowers. i brought in some plants. i put an extra quilt on the bed. and it was in fact a bit frosty this morning. chilly enough to turn on the heat.

first apples of fall

an afternoon trip on back roads and up hills to the local orchard for the first time this year. early macs and an apple pie still warm from the oven. the proprieter suggests a walk through the orchard and up the hill to photograph this spectacular view. absolutely worth the trip and a lovely way to spend a sunday in september.

fashion faux pas

this is what happens when you get dressed too quickly in the morning. good thing i looked down and noticed before i got too far out the door.

the other corn

every summer i lose weight. every fall i gain it back. its work i always convince myself. its stress eating i decide. its my body adapting to the colder temperatures i think. in fact the culprit is right here. its indian corn. this confection marks the beginning of a long list of fall delights which ends with eggnog at christmas. no lectures please. perhaps posting this information will do for my snacking habits what the sidebar list of books has done for my reading .

remembrance

six years ago it was passing this display of yellow edged leaves that made me turn around and go back to get my camera. only when i looked through the lens did i fully realize what a spectacular morning it was - bright bright blue sky, still cool air, brilliant sunshine. a glorious early fall morn. i quickly shot half a roll of film. grasses and insects with the macro. trees leaves fields and the river with the telephoto. good shots. yet some days later i again took the camera and purposefully exposed the film negating the photos forever. the memory of how perfect that morning had been was by then just too painful to recall.

wooly bear

found on a weed over the weekend this is a wooly bear caterpillar the larvae of some common moth. in new england theres a myth that you can predict the coming winters weather by the width of a wooly bears brown band. a wide stripe means it will be a mild winter and a narrow one signifies a harsh season. knowing that the just published farmers alamac forecasts above normal temperatures and precipitation im thinking maybe this caterpillar is not yet grown up enough to predict anything.

a double whammy

a double birthday celebration here this weekend but thats not the reason for two cakes. in the cake on the left the water was inadvertently omitted from the assembly rendering the resulting cake incredibly dense and dry. a quick trip to the grocery store for a second mix for the cake on the right which was too hastily removed from the hot pan so that some of it came out and some did not. hmmmm. which one to frost and decorate? its a real toss up as both cakes are equally pitiful.

heavenly blue

out the back window the brilliant blue of this bloom was astonishing. up close it was even better. in pajamas and bare feet i photographed it before the flower opened completely in the early morning sunshine.

tgif

a no maintainence dinner for the end of a very long very tiring work week. i dont know what ill do next week when i have to work five days instead of four.

a visit

apple trees at the home of a friend taken as evening approached. shes lately had marauding bears at her fruit trees. but even though a small group of us sat and visited on her porch until well after dark, even though we talked in quiet hushed tones and had long periods of silence as we unwound in the midst of the surrounding night noises, even though we were very still, we did not see a single bear.

tiny tomatoes

lots of green tomatoes remain in the garden on leggy september vines. with cooler nights now who knows if they will ever ripen. the only variety still red are these little cherry tomatoes shown here sitting in the afternoon sun on the back windowsill.

full circle

the crabapple that s&s planted last fall to mark their wedding day has passed through three seasons and is again bearing fruit. looks like its going to make it after all.

last weekend of summer

i was going to go to work today. i really was. but who could work on such a glorious day? in church this morning we sang:
sing to the mountains sing to the sea,
raise your voices lift your hearts
this is the day the lord has made
let all the earth rejoice.
so i did rejoice. and marveled at the beauty of the day. and took pictures. and walked. and read. and sang. and did not work.

note to self

this is a magnificent vining plant with huge stunningly beautiful pink flowers. i spotted it climbing a wire support in the middle of a half whiskey barrel in front of a pizza shop in a cheesy strip mall. before next spring find out what it is. you need to grow it yourself.

all ears

native corn has no equal. its sweet kernels are worth the summer long wait. in mid july i start to watch for the roadside signs that signal the arrival of the local crop. in anticipation of its coming ive made and frozen chunks of dill butter to spread over steaming ears. when corn finally comes in i eat it every single night. one ear sometimes two. a family run farm stand nearby supplies most of our community and becomes a late summer place to chat with neighbors and friends as you stock up on tomatoes and pies and jams. but when i stopped there for tonights corn there were pumpkins decorating the hay bales and mums on the counters. a sure sign that corns remaining days are numbered.

purple haze

a busy work week complete with photography withdrawl. some days i pass this field on my way to and from work. from a certain angle it looks like a haze of purple hovers just above ground at the edge of the woods. but try as i might i dont think ive captured the best angle.

lunar eclipse

this is not my photo. because early this morning while the earths shadow was busy eclipsing the full moon i was busy sleeping. i slept not because i was tired which i absolutely was. i slept not because i was disinterested which i definitely was not. i slept because i had no reason to get up. i slept because i thought the lunar eclipse was this coming thursday night. so i missed it. the next total lunar eclipse is 21 february 2008. please call me to be sure im awake.