Sunday Stroll - Farewell to August

On this last day of August, suggestions of Autumn hover over these fields, like... well, like a bumblebee over thistle. I began my stroll today in the front garden, snapping another photo of the swallowtail caterpillars congregating on the fennel, and the tiny emerging leaves of a poppy that I bought this year and thought I lost to heat and drought. I noticed, again, that some industrious gardener ought to get a shovel and/or some heavy gloves and pull this "picker" so the orange mum can stretch out a little more.

I headed around the house and down the hill to the butterfly garden. I took a photo of the blue balloon flowers, but it was the masses of bright goldenrod growing behind the undefined edges of the garden that caught my eye. The wild edges called to me then, and soon I was down in the field surrounded by bees, and butterflies, and whirring grasshoppers.

I noticed so many things changing color and form at nature's pace; the seasons turning like an impossibly slow pirouette in a wild ballet. The berries on the viburnum are deeply blue, and the autumn olives vividly red. The cattails, like a bold exclamation point at the edge of the pond, are making an autumn fashion statement in brown velvet.

Through the windows of the Quiet Country House one sees both Summer and Autumn, briefly intertwined, before the season changes and we bid farewell for another year, not just to August, but to Summertime.

photos by Aisling, August 31, 2008 1) bumble bee on thistle 2) orange mum, cult. warm igloo 3) blue balloon flowers and wild goldenrod 4) Joe Pye Weed 5) Honeybee on wild Boneset 6) wild purple asters 7) Autumn Olive 8) cattails 9) the southern gable end of the Quiet Country House

Sunday Stroll Invitation

"The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." ~ Marcel Proust

After so many weeks of strolling on Sunday, one might suspect that there is nothing new for me to see. Somehow, that is never true in the garden. A few short months ago, I was seeking signs of spring... waiting for the first blooms. Now, I am seeing the early signs that autumn is just around the corner. It is the same garden, but it is both familiar and new each time I walk there.

If you have time this week for a Sunday Stroll, please post about about it on your blog and then come back here with a comment and a link to your post. You may use the Sunday Stroll button at the top of this post on your post or side bar if you would like. I will add participant names to this post so other strollers can walk through your garden too. I'll check back often and try to keep the list updated.

Look who's strolling:

Abbie at Farmer's Daughter

Ruth at Everyday Woman

Margaret at Periodic Pearls

Diana at My Quiet Place in the Country

Amy at Embracing Change

Joyce at Tall Grass Worship

Me, here at The Quiet Country House

Nan at Letters from a Hill Farm

...

Pickles

The guys in the family are camping (locally) this weekend. I am coming and going from camp, but also playing taxi-driver to my daughters. When I am at home, it is business as usual which at this time of year is canning, laundry and housework, and homework. As I write this, I'm downloading audio files for my Spanish Language course.

The last two days I have spent many hours picking and pickling veggies from the garden. Yesterday I made 6 pints of bread and butter pickles and four pints of dilled green beans (which I love!) Today, I made some basic dill pickles (6 quarts) out of cucumbers that got too large before I got to them. So I cut them into spears short enough to fit neatly in the jars. These will be very, very dilly dill pickles... Each jar has dill seed, dill weed, and still-yellow dill flower heads, all from the garden.

I'm also taking time several times a day to peek at the caterpillar nursery in the front yard, otherwise known as a patch of bronze fennel. I have about 10 swallowtail caterpillars, in various instars, feeding on the fennel. The three or four that were there last month seemed to vanish, and I never noticed any cocoons. I'm afraid the likelihood of making it from caterpillar to butterfly is pretty slim, but I'm giving them food sources (for adult and caterpillar), and habitat, and hoping it helps at least a little bit.

The local farm stands are offering lovely plums, apricots, and nectarines right now. . I sampled a pretty yellow shiro plum at the market, gobbled up two delicious nectarines (one on the ride home in the car) and then stood over the sink when I got home to eat a fragrant, incredibly juicy nectarine. Yum. Just-made pickles on the counter, fruit juice running down my forearms, a breeze blowing in through the window screen... It's been a good day here in the country. I hope it has been a good day wherever you are too!

photos by Aisling, August 29, 2008 1) tiny cosmos in garden trail 2) bread and butter pickles 3) two swallowtail caterpillars

A Haiku - Nightfall

finally rain falls

filling the darkness with sound

the sweetest music

~ a haiku, by Aisling, August 28, 2008

I took my children to a travelling display at a museum in a nearby city that focused on the pop art of Japan. After that, we headed to a mall to purchase just a few school supplies. As much as I resist "conspicuous consumerism", I can't quite resist stocking up on a few notebooks when they are 10 cents a piece. This is the time of year that I get a little bit nostalgic for those really thick "back to school" fashion magazines that I once loved, though I haven't revamped my wardrobe for autumn since I was a school girl.

In the late afternoon, with one daughter at work and the other getting a new hairstyle at a salon, I took my sons home. They played, getting dusty in the dry August afternoon, while I cut broccoli in the garden and made dinner. Limerick, my husband, has a lunch BBQ at work tomorrow and asked me to make a dish to pass. I opted for pasta salad with farfalle (bow ties) noodles and lots of fresh veggies (including carrots, basil, broccoli, and little yellow tomatoes) from the garden. As I ran out to the garden for a couple of red onions, I felt the first drops of rain. Ah, finally rain falls...

photo by Aisling, Summer 2008

The Lay of the Land

My friend Nan expressed curiosity in a comment the other day about the way things are laid out on our property. This post is for her. If I divide my 3 1/2 acre property roughly into ninths, the first "ninth" in the northwest corner has our driveway, house, and pole barn. The house and barn sit atop a hill, and you can walk out of the basement through a door wall into the "valley" backyard. Our house is Cape Cod style, but without the cute dormer windows on the upper level (yet!) A garden, currently attracting many butterflies and bees of all sorts, runs across the length of the front deck. I walked out my front door to the front of my yard and faced slightly southwest to snap the photo above.

Turning slightly more to the south and looking down the hill, is our veggie garden, with the playhouse nearby and a tiny orchard of two semi-dwarf apples, two semi-dwarf pears, and a young peach tree. Four 4 by 8 foot beds are lined up in front of the playhouse. Currently, two are herb beds, one is a veggie bed, and one is home to about 32 wild-strawberry plants transplanted before we cultivated the soil for the larger vegetable garden in the left of the photo. Behind the playhouse, in an area that doesn't show clearly in this photo is the start of the berry bramble, currently home to 14 blueberries and 3 raspberry plants. Some "odds and ends" of vegetables are also planted there in a place that we will eventually plant with grapes (we're taking some time to improve the soil through compost and natural additions first.)

Turning toward the southeast, the fire pit is in the center right of the photo (though you can't really see it) and the rest of the photo reveals some of the wild edges I write about sometimes. The whole property looks a little bit like a "wild edge" right now. Our mower is in need of repair, and without much rain, there is little necessity of cutting grass anyway. Though the grass is brown, thistle and chicory and Queen Anne's lace spring up everywhere. Also in this photo is an area of low-lying marsh, complete with wild mint and cattails. Though it doesn't show much in the photos, a Weeping Willow that Senryu, our 18 year-old daughter, planted a few years ago thrives with its thirsty roots in this wet, fertile corner.

Turning more to the central part of our property, looking toward the back property line is a small pond, home to frogs, turtles and small sunfish and resting place for migrating wild waterfowl. The past few years of drought have left the water level low and the cattails are taking over the pond, so rather than water you just see reeds in the photo. Behind the pond is the lower slope of the "back hill." Wild roses grow there, amid apple trees that time has planted. The apples look and taste like Macintosh or some similar orchard escape, and this year they are thriving more than any of the apple trees that we have planted ourselves.

Turning finally toward the northeast, is the Chinese Elm tree and the little butterfly garden. You might be able to make out, way over on the left, the pale blue trellis, re-purposed from my children's crib, that I've shown in some of my close-up flower photos. This garden used to be in full sun, but as the Elm has grown, there is more shade and the garden is changing, evolving into a haven for shade-loving plants, as well as shade-seeking gardeners. The hill rises again behind the butterfly garden, and a dry-in-the-summer creek runs through the low place that divides the cultivated yard from the wild edges. This little creek runs behind the pond, widens out into the swampy marsh, and gathers itself back into a stream, before spilling over the rocks at the property line in several joyously musical mini "waterfalls."

Behind the creek, the back hill rises above the garden. Early in the morning, the sun rises over this hill hinting softly, to those flowers which close their petals at night, that another day has dawned.

...

photos by Aisling, August 26, 2008

Sunday Stroll Invitation

A storm rolled through our region yesterday and wiped out some electrical and phone service. As a result, I am unable to access the Internet from home. I am posting this note from the coffee house at which my oldest daughter is employed. I hope to have my Internet service restored at some point today, but have no assurance of that happening.

With so little rainfall in the last month, perhaps more, our grass has been dry and harsh on bare feet. It was so nice to go out barefoot after the storm. The grass, though still brown, was soft and welcoming. My flowers looked beautiful drenched in rain, and the air had a sweet freshness that hasn't been there for quite some time.

If you have time this week for a Sunday Stroll, please post about about it on your blog and then come back here with a comment and a link to your post. You may use the Sunday Stroll button at the top of this post on your post or side bar if you would like. I will add participant names to this post so other strollers can walk through your garden too, though I may be a little slow to update today with my connection problems.

Look who's strolling:

Dee at Red Dirt Ramblings

Diana at My Quiet Place in the Country
Nan at Letters from a Hill Farm
Margaret at Periodic Pearls
Me, here at The Quiet Country House
Joyce at Tall Grass Worship

...

Sunday Stroll - Continuity

Gathering Nectar & Delivering Pollen

Beginning to Bloom

Still Blooming

Blooming Again

photos by Aisling, August 24, 2008 1) bee on purple coneflower/echinacea 2) Physostegia virginiana, aka Obedient Plant or False Dragonhead 3) Wild self-sown mullein blooming in the butterfly garden 4) Sedum, cultivar Black Jack 5) purple coneflower and butterfly bush 6) re-blooming carnival Weigala

Heart Pictures

This is just a quick note, during a busy week. With my camera not working, I am forgoing "Wordless Wednesday" for the second week in a row. We have company this week and so I am finding only small bits of time to play on the computer. This is, in essence, my last week of summer vacation for this year. Next week on Monday, I return to college classes. For the first time since my freshman semester when I was 18, I will be a full time student. Wish me luck!

Also on Monday, my oldest daughter begins her freshman semester of college. I almost ended that sentence with a question mark. How can this be true... that my freckle-faced sprite is a college freshman?

The following week, my youngest child begins kindergarten. I will be in classes myself that day, and so Limerick will take the day off to accompany Tanka to his short orientation. I will at least be home to snap a couple of "first day of kindergarten" photos. It will be another "how can this be true?" moment, for sure.

Last week, on Tuesday, I took my sons to a minor league baseball game in a city nearby. We arrived early and were stopped by a young lady planning a between inning activity. She asked if my sons could participate in an activity sponsored by a Mexican food restaurant. I read over and signed the appropriate forms. Between the fourth and fifth innings, this young lady came and got my boys and escorted them to the edge of the field. Dressed in taco costumes, my two boys provided the between inning entertainment. They raced from first base to third, meeting one of the team mascots at the finish line. Nine year old Sijo beat his five year old brother, whose little face was hidden beneath folds of "lettuce and taco shell." Tanka fell twice during the race, tripping on the costume, but he got right up and kept on going. He ended with a big grin on his face. A fine example of perseverance! Sadly, I did not have a camera with me, so I took more of those "pictures with my heart" that I wrote about recently.

photo by Aisling, August 2008, color enhanced with photo editting

Sunday Stroll Invitation

"Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste." ~ Shakespeare

We had quite a bit of rain earlier in the summer, but now it is dry here and the rain falls in the other gardens. The weeds seem to thrive despite the drought. The flowers still grow, but slowly. Against a blue summer sky, the tops of the poplar trees begin to show their autumn gold. Brown patches sprawl through the green lawn. The soil is dry and sandy and every breeze that moves through the garden, tosses dust into the warm August air. The dust comes in through the window screens and lays about the house as if it has nothing better to do.

Meanwhile, the gardener has plenty of better things to do. There is broccoli to freeze, cucumbers and green beans to pickle, and weeds to pull, among other things. I tend to leave the weeds which please my aesthetic, so you will find ajuga and self-heal thriving between the slates in the trail, wild strawberry winding its way through every available nook and cranny, and the pure white blooms of campion peeking out between the orange-red blanket flowers.

If you have time this week for a Sunday Stroll, please post about about it on your blog and then come back here with a comment and a link to your post. You may use the Sunday Stroll button at the top of this post on your post or side bar if you would like. I will add participant names to this post so other strollers can walk through your garden too.

Look who's strolling:

Linda at Vulture Peak Muse

Ruth at Everyday Woman

Nan at Letters from a Hill Farm

Margaret at Periodic Pearls

The Crafty Gardener at The Garden Side

Joyce at Tall Grass Worship

Me, here at The Quiet Country House

Abbie at Farmer's Daughter
...

Sunday Stroll - Growing Like Weeds

Self-Sown Beauties

I grew annual trailing red verbena last year in the front garden, but this year opted for pansies and lavender petunias. The verbena came up from seeds from last years plants, and has just started blooming.

The Queen Anne's Lace is blooming amid the mums, which are blooming a bit early this year. How can anyone call it a weed? A wild flower, definitely, but a weed?

I have pulled ragweed, and quack grass, and even some dandelions in the vegetable garden, but I've been leaving the wild mustard. The yellow flowers look cheerful and bright amid the rows of veggies.

Still Blooming

The leaves of many of my early bloomers have browned and withered and I will not see them again until next year. The iris are patches of sturdy leaves with dark pods, and some of the orange daylilies, which have finished blooming, have already been cut back in the first steps of cleaning the garden up for summer's end. The yellow hyperion lilies are still blooming, though only a few buds remain.

Night Beacon has exhausted its buds, but these Autumn Red Daylily are still blooming. Many of the pansies planted in the cool days of early summer are still blooming and colorful.

Final Touch has been blooming for a week or so now, but this is my first picture of it here. This was a bargain bin daylily, purchased for a dollar, that did not bloom the first several years after it was planted. Our patience is rewarded with these lovely flowers.

In the butterfly garden, the balloon flowers are still blooming, though the brilliant orange butterfly weed nearby has gone to seed.

Just Beginning to Bloom

The zinnias at the end of each row of the vegetable garden are in full bloom.

Two little sunflowers came along for the ride when I transplanted some white lilacs given to me by a neighbor. The lilac in this spot did not survive summer's heat, but the petite sunflowers are are thriving in the country sunshine.

photography note: All photos by Aisling, August 17, 2008 These were taken with my daughter's Nikon CoolPix L4. The macro photos have a slightly different quality than my usual close-ups. I'm saving for a new camera, because my old one "gave up."

Sunday Stroll Invitation

“Gardens, scholars say, are the first sign of commitment to a community. When people plant corn they are saying, let's stay here. And by their connection to the land, they are connected to one another.” ~ Anne Raver

I am away from home this weekend. If I had not left my camera at home, you would be seeing photographs today from my mother-in-law's garden. As a gardener, it seems that I am always interested in other people's gardens. I notice the flowers in the median as I drive through a town, or the flowers dripping from store-front window-boxes as I shop in a village. I kneel down for a better look in a friend's garden, and share plants with other gardeners, just as I share images of gardens with my fellow Sunday Strollers here each week.

If you have time this week for a Sunday Stroll, please post about about it on your blog and then come back here with a comment and a link to your post. You may use the Sunday Stroll button at the top of this post on your post or side bar if you would like. I will add participant names to this post so other strollers can walk through your garden too.

...

Look who's strolling:
Linda at Vulture Peak Muse

Joyce at Tall Grass Worship

Margaret at Periodic Pearls

Abbie at Farmer's Daughter

Nan at Letters from a Hill Farm

The Crafty Gardener at The Garden Side

Diana at My Quiet Place in the Country

Ruth at Every Day Woman

Dee at Red Dirt Ramblings

...

Wordless Wednesday - Quiet Country Visitors

For more Wordless Wednesday fun, go here.

photos by Aisling, late July & early August 2008 1) monarch on galliardia, or blanket flower 2)black swallowtail caterpillar on fennel 3) inchworm (look closely!) on an orange gazania 4) a really good picture of a really ugly slug 5) monarch on Royal Red Butterfly Bush