For Auld Lang Syne: Farewell 2010

Well, it's time to say goodbye to 2010. Some people concen- trate on how bad the "old year" that is leaving has been, but tonight I'm thinking of things I can be thankful for. Last January's snow gave Norm and Ava a chance to show off their bright red knits. I know Norm is thankful for the warm leather jacket. (Recognize it, D?)

We were grateful for the chance to travel a lot this year as well. February and early March found us on the beaches of Ft. Myers and Sanibel, where it was cool, but not snowy. We got to eat out, visit a wildlife preserve and a research farm, play with Sam the poodle and hang out with two of our favorite guys.

The spring was spectacular this year, and just as we enjoyed the flowers we had planted, we also gave thanks for those that were planted by someone before we moved here. Thinking of these daffodils always reminds me to look for ways to leave something beautiful for those who will follow me.

Memorial Day weekend brought fun in the form of the Gypsy Caravan. After two years of staffing a booth for our church in drenching rain, we decided not to have one this year, and guess what, the sun came out! Norm posed with our two main bargains we found: a rolling shopping cart that is lightweight and versatile, and a hand painted bird house. When he went out to take it down after the fall freezes, he found a pile of sticks inside. Maybe next year there will be a real nest!

June found us heading to Colby for the High School Reunion, which always ends with a picnic in Fike Park. This year it was not too warm, not too windy, and people enjoyed lingering. Norm, Don and Walter look serious here, but they soon reverted to their jolly selves.

Maxine and Harold liked the easy chairs. Harold had to take a short trip to the local hospital after this afternoon in the park, but he got well soon and we are glad. Larry didn't come to the picnic but we surprised him with a birthday party at his house the next day. I think he knew something was up.

John and Nan Sanders enjoyed Nan's class party, and we crashed it to say hi. Nan autographed many copies of her first novel, All Stubborned Up, during the weekend. We are so impressed by this achievement, and glad that she is recovering more mobility every day.

We dashed home from Kansas in time to pack and fly to North Carolina. I was so thrilled to get to attend the Quad- rennial assembly, which was held in Greensboro. When 2000 women sing, or dance, or listen intently to a speaker, it sends shivers. Norm was one of about 80 men who also attended.

Elsewhere on the blog I've written about our trip to the Blue Ridge and Linville Falls, as well as to some of the country where our ancestors settled for a generation or so in the late 1700s. We were so thankful to be able to see these places, to walk on these rocks, smell this air, and wonder what it was like for those who came before us. We bought a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle that pictures the falls, and we have been working on it since Christmas night. I think we might have 20% of it done right now. Those gray cliffs look familiar!

The Blue Ridge Highway's Linn Cove viaduct is suspended over some of the more fragile hillsides in this national park. This picture reminds me that we still have roads to travel in 2011, and that with planning and care, Americans can both use the wilderness wisely and preserve it for the future.

As we close out 2010, I also am thankful for FaceBook, although I spend more time there than I spend blogging, I fear. Through the social network revolution, I've been able to catch up with all 15 of the editors of the student newspaper that I advised before I retired, as well as other staff members of that era. These are amazing young people, and I am still proud of them. I also am thankful for finding or being found by college friends (Jan in Maryland, and others) as well as a dear long-lost childhood friend (Ann, now in Dallas.) Many of my high school senior class friends are there too, and we look forward to seeing each other again, 50 years later!, in 2011.

So, as I get ready to pour a small glass of wine (from Kansas, sand plum to be exact) and get out the brass bells of sarna to ring on the front porch, to all my old acquaintances, and friends and family, may you enjoy the happiest of new year's in 2011. Love you!

Did You Have a Good Christmas?

Going all the way back to my childhood, I remember the usual post-Christmas, pre-New Year's greeting: How was your Christmas? Or more likely, Did you have a good Christmas? The question is largely rhetorical, kind of like "hello, how are you?" as the ubiquitous greeting that no one really wants to hear a detailed answer for. The answer to "how are you" is supposed to be "fine." The answer to "did you have a good Christmas" is "oh yes," followed by a litany of fabulous gifts received, goodies consumed and perhaps relatives visited. This week I've been thinking about our Christmas, and how it was this year, and why it seemed so satisfying. For a couple without children or grandchildren, Christmas, at least the gifting part, becomes more about other people, sometimes people we have never met. It also becomes a time of remembrance of cherished family and friends we will not see again.

Every Advent, our church decorates a tree (photo above) in the sanctuary, but its ornaments are scarves, mittens and hats. By Dec. 19 it was loaded, and the next day it was "undecorated" and the warm knit items went downstairs to Isaiah 58 ministries for distribution to their clients. I like to think of a toddler wearing the cute tiny mittens I found, or a man wearing the driving gloves, or a student wearing one of the scarves knitted by a friend in our knitting group. This is one of my favorite holiday trees. Of course my other favorite holiday tree is ours, the one we put together every year, that Norm patiently strings the white lights on, that we carefully put the beaded garlands on before adding the ornaments. This year we didn't go with a theme, but put on the whole collection, from grandma Mc's german glass lanterns to the little sled my dad made to our newest item, a wooly lamb that I bought at Ten Thousand Villages during Quadrennial last summer. It came all the way from Peru! Our Christmas tree is what ties us to past generations and past holidays spent together.

Remember when you were a child and you waiting to see what Santa would bring? I was always impressed that Santa came every year, even if my dad was off to Dallas driving his bus, even though our 800-square foot tiny house lacked a chimney. Mother had a Santa set that she cherished and put out every year. I have it now, along with other Santas I've collected over the years. The little house and the short green trees in this photo are from Mother's set. The train is among the oldest I have that my dad made. Mother always said the red caboose was a car he made especially for her. He made them all by hand, from patterns in Model Railroader: no kits.

Now the 1923 Story and Clark upright that my grandfather Mc bought for mother on her 9th birthday is just the right width to display a length of track, the engine and four cars of Daddy's O-gauge masterpiece. At Christmas a lot of my Santas prefer to travel by train so they get to hang out here for a month or so. Daddy made the little gray house, too. It's a duplex, and there is a separate outhouse out back. If anyone cares, the doors do open and it's a two-holer. The sleigh from mother's Santa set was made by Daddy, too. And mother's reindeer, which are hollow and seem to be made out of some kind of hollow plastic, date from the late 1930s or early 1940s. Just like the Christmas ornaments, and the nativity sets, the Santa scene recalls those many good Christmases of childhood as well as those of my and Norm's years together.

No they aren't real. These are the porch poinsettias so they have to be of fabric to withstand our cold Missouri nights. These greet the mail carrier every day as they are just above our mailbox on a post.

I have the feeling that often "good Christmas" is a code for "did you get a lot of presents" or "did you get the presents you wanted." This year we decided not to get presents, but to give them. It feels good to know that someone in St. Louis has warm hands and head, that someone in Florida will get tutored in literacy, that a woman in a developing country will get sewing supplies or even a microloan, that children at a day care center in St. Louis that serves low income families will have new equipment to replace what was lost in a November flood, that an elderly person living in a retirement home in Tulsa will receive compassionate care, that some third-graders in a city school will get a new book for Christmas. These were our gifts to each other and others this year, and it was a very good Christmas indeed. We hope you received meaningful gifts, the gifts that you wanted, and we also hope that you had an opportunity to give good gifts-- perhaps the gift of yourself, your love or your presence to someone this Christmas. At our house we observe 12 days of Christmas, so we will be celebrating all the way to January 6, maybe longer. Feliz Navidad, Joyeux Noel, ho ho ho Merry Christmas!

Christmas Letter from Kim & Patrick Bentrott

Since the anniversary of Haiti's earthquake is a mere 3 weeks away, I'm posting this link to the long-awaited Christmas blog post from Kim and Patrick Bentrott. They were missionaries in Port-au-Prince and they had been sponsored by churches in the St. Louis area, so we had met them and were already following their adventures on Kim's blog. Because they were in the process of adopting two Hatian children at the time they evacuated to the US, they have been unable to return and resume their mission assignment. They must wait until the children receive citizenship, which is taking longer than anyone ever anticipated. But Kim fills us in on what they have been doing in this post. You can click on the title of this post, or on the link here to go to it.

Cherishing the Christmas Story, or Stories

This morning, Norm and I sat in our living room in front of our Christmas tree, lit our Christmas candle and read the story of the birth of Jesus Christ from the Gospel of Luke. In this account, Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem to be enrolled on a tax list, and while they are there, Mary gives birth to the baby and cradles him in a manger, a feeding trough for animals. Angels announce good news to some nearby shepherds, and they come to see the child. The angels proclaim "peace on earth" and "goodwill" to humankind.

The figures in the nativity set above that my mother first purchased over 60 years ago at a discount store portray this version of the story. There is a donkey, a dog, a couple of sheep, a shepherd, Joseph and Mary, and an angel. There is also a cow and a second shepherd, bigger than the other figures, that were added later. The original set also came with three Wise Men, including one who appears African in origin. The set didn't have any camels, so those too were added later, and they are a little larger. I'm not sure why there are only two. Perhaps the store ran out of camels that year, or maybe two were what mother could afford out of her grocery money.

The Wise Men, or Magi, aren't mentioned in Luke's account; they come from the version in Matthew's gospel. In that story, Jesus is born in Bethlehem because that's where Joseph and Mary live, and the wise men from The East follow a star until they come to the home where the baby can be found. They present three kinds of gifts and worship the child. Because there are three gifts, we assume there were only three wise men, although scholars today seem to think there could have been more, perhaps even some wise women, on that pilgrimage. We assume they rode camels because that was the transportation system in those times, but it is tradition, because the Gospels don't say. So my mother's nativity set puts these two stories together, and this is the mental picture most of us carry with us when we think of the Christmas story. Sometimes we are suprised when we go to the Bible and read the stories anew, because what they say, and what we remember of tradition, may not always be the same. Yet some themes endure: good news, wonder, and the angels' message "do not be afraid."

The second photo above is of the first nativity set Norm and I purchased, when we were living in Denver. We went to a winter festival at Georgetown, Colo., and the simplicity of the three gilt figures--Joseph, Mary and the Babe in the manger--appealed to us because it emphasized the central characters in the Christmas drama, without the extras. A year or so later we found the simple wooden frame at another craft fair. From time to time I may add a couple of other figures, usually a folk art angel as in this scene from this year. But this nativity helps us concentrate on the baby and his parents, the very human figures in this often supernatural tale.

Neither of the remaining Gospels has a narrative of Jesus' birth, but the Gospel of John brings yet another perspective: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....And the Word became flesh and lived among us." There it is. God became flesh, like us, and lived among us. That is what led the magi across a desert to see. That is what the angels proclaimed to the shepherds, who were the untouchables of their day. The baby who grew up to be known as Jesus of Nazareth often compared himself to a shepherd. And Christians today who dedicate their lives to serving the least of humanity around them will testify that the Word lives among us, still.

Merry Christmas.

No Need to Dream--White Christmas is Here!

It's a merry, snowy Christmas Eve in Bel Nor! I took all of these pictures a little before noon when Norm went out to scoop about an inch off the driveway. It's only about 30 degrees so as you can see the street is responding well to the ice melting chemicals the village provided. This photo is looking south from our front porch.


The view to the north from the front porch shows a neighbor's outdoor lights buried under a gathering blanket of snow on his evergreens. The glow at night will be awesome! We are planning to stay in tonight and have our traditional goulash supper, and listen to our Christmas music and maybe watch the Renaissance special on PBS. A spry little elf seems to have visited our Christmas tree, too. We'll have to see about that in the morning.

Out in the back yard, the birds are having a Christmas feast at two different feeders. It's amazing the quality of the zoom on my camera; this feeder is all the way at the back of the yard and I was on the back porch. We also have a bird bath heater so they have been dipping in and out of their "spa" today, too.

Norm plugged in the lights in the bushes along the driveway this morning, right before the snow started. It's kind of hard to see them right now. Our neighbor Barb and Ava have gone to be with her family in Illinois, so it's pretty quiet around here. Our neighbors on the other side have family visiting them, but for the most part, the village seems very quiet and almost deserted.

I've written before about dreaming of white Christmases as a child and not seeing one until I was 21. Our family in Oklahoma and Texas are having a rainy Christmas this year, but in some areas the rain may be welcome. Somewhere the sun is shining, surely. When it comes out here, I'll be sure to take a picture and post it! Meanwhile, stay warm and cherish the chance to be with your family and friends. Blessings to all, and a little bit later, to all a good night!

Visitor # 8700

My sisters-in-law, cousin and best friend are this blog's most faithful readers, and you all check in on average once a day. Visitor #8700 Wednesday morning was s-i-l Carol Ann, down Irving TX way. On Facebook she was saying she had finished wrapping gifts and washing the crystal and was getting ready to go to the store for some items she would need for the family dinner on Christmas Eve. Gee, Carol, I wish I could channel some of that energy! And you had time to check Home Stories, too--not once, but twice! I wish I had a good prize for the #8700 milestone but in the meantime, please accept my thanks for reading--even when there is nothing new.

This is a wonderful time of year...busy...exciting...sometimes tiring. I have a lot of thoughts and I will try to find time to write and post some pictures soon. Meanwhile, I hope everyone is enjoying this season!

Advent is here, and the Poinsettia is getting ready!

Advent begins today! When I was a kid, there was Thanks giving dinner, followed by the Thanks- giving parade and downtown decoration lighting on the Friday afterwards that brought Santa to town, and a month of singing Christmas Carols in church and browsing the Western Auto catalog and making out my Christmas list. I knew that out of my list of 6 to 10 wishes I would actually get three presents.... the ones that Santa had in his workshop and could fit in his sleigh. There was also the Christmas concert by the grade school choir (where I memorized all of the words to all of the verses of the carols we sang in church) and the school play, usually an adaptation of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens--I got to play Fanny, Tiny Tim's sister, one year. And a Christmas pageant at church in which I never got to play Mary--I was either a shepherd (we had a shortage of boys or else we were ahead of the times in bending gender roles) or one of the sheep. So when I first encountered Advent, during my college years, it was new to me. I was excited to learn about this tradition of preparing the heart and spirit for the coming of the Christ child.

In Denver in the 1970s Norm and I acquired an Advent wreath and a booklet with ideas for family reflection. We followed it for years, but then expanded with a bigger wreath and various Advent devotional books, including a series of them written for the three lectionary cycles by our friends the Dixons. For the past three years, our church and another Disciples church in St. Louis have jointly published a booklet of Advent devotions written by elders and other leaders of the respective congregations. (If you are interested, there are links to a PDF version and a Word version on the home page of Affton Christian Church's web site here. You are welcome to download and use them. And yes, Norm and I each wrote one of the meditations!)

So this morning our church observed Advent, and Norm and I were asked to light the first candle, the candle of Hope. How we all need to have hope in times that seem dark and threatening. One of the best signs of hope this morning was a group of eager children who gathered at the front of the sanctuary and helped set up a bare outline of a wooden stable. Then 9 of them, ranging in age from 10 years to 13 months, sat at our pastor's feet while she read them a story about the angel's visit to Mary. Three of the children had just joined the congregation as our student pastor's family had finally been able to move to St. Louis and join him at the seminary. Three were visiting their grandmother. Three were with their mom. Since our church has had a shortage of children in recent years, it was a very positive and hopeful moment in the service.

So what do geraniums and a poinsettia have to do with the first week of Advent? Well, they are in our house, in the sunny upstairs south windows after spending the summer on the porch. The two red geraniums came from the church last spring, when a whole bevy of them decorated the sanctuary on Mother's Day and then members were invited to adopt them. They are still blooming bravely in their new environment and every morning when I get up and walk into that room to do a few simple exercises and say my morning prayers, they greet me. Few things in life are more hopeful than flowers. And the poinsettia was a gift Last Christmas from our friends the Dixons. It was a lovely rich red and had decorated the church where Mike has been preaching. It spent a quiet summer on the porch and the leaves became green and lush. It has been in an upstairs closet window, and since mid-September it has been naturally getting the number of hours of darkness a poinsettia needs to start showing color. Never before have we had this happen, and so to me this, too, is a sign of hope. Maybe sometimes you can use a little darkness to bring forth something of beauty. I don't know how many leaves will turn red of if flower bracts will appear by Christmas, but even if they don't, this reddening blush brightens each day for me.

Of course, all this begs the question: but Judi, where is your Advent Wreath? Well, I am about to go get it out of the back closet and tomorrow I'll try to find some new candles. I may have to settle for semi-traditional blue if I can't find traditional purple and pink, but it will be out very soon. It has to be: the prayer shawl ministry group is meeting at our house this Thursday!

Thanksgiving Snow, Turkey and Blessings

As the cold front finally swept the rain and fog out of our part of the Mississsippi River valley on Thanks- giving afternoon, the rain changed quickly over to snow. We came home last night to about 1/2 inch on the ground, and this morning in the 10 a.m. sunshine it is still visible from our back door, looking over at Barb's yard.
Driving was not a problem on our way home from Edwardsville, where we were fortunate to join in the annual Myers family feast.

Gary and Karen have a wonderful view from their deck of their woodland garden and on into some common ground. I took this as we were waiting on the turkey, while the snow was beginning to fall and coat the ground.






One blessing was getting to see Lily, who is 18 months old and talking very plainly. One of her favorite words yesterday was "Pie!" And she put away quite a bit of pumpkin pie after an all-to -brief nap. Here she is with mom Michelle, grandma Karen and great-grandma Mary Ann in the kitchen while dinner was still roasting and bubbling on the stove.

Once the turkey was pronounced perfectly done, Gary prepared to carve the bird for the buffet. This was the best tasting, most moist and succulent yet.

Reflecting on this year's Thanksgiving, we were especially mindful of how much we enjoy "face time" with our friends, even though we are also grateful for the wonderful web of electronic connections we savor with cousins, nephews, nieces, their children, far-off friends, siblings, former students and everyone else who makes up our still-expanding extended family on Facebook. In this season when we celebrate abundance, it's timely to remember that even when we are worried about scarcity, we are blessed to have more than enough of love, memories, faith, and friendship.

Doris' Holiday Cactus Blooms Early

Our most venerable holiday cactus, started as a slip that Norm's Aunt Doris gave us many years ago, opened in a pink frenzy earlier this week. I didn't put it outdoors on the porch until September because the summer was so hot, and I thought maybe it would delay the blooming if it wasn't out all summer. Fat chance of that. But it has really brightened the dining room this week!


This week was less hectic than last, but still I was pushing to get some fabric cut to exchange at the Quilt Guild meeting tonight, and I have a lot to do tomorrow to get ready for the last Scrap Quilt Club meeting of the year. We will take December and January off, then start again. I hope I can take some photos of quilt blocks soon and post them. Also, I'm excited that the Linville Reunion Quilt is down to only 2-1/2 rows of blocks left. The goal of the Spanish Lake Quilters is to have it "out of the frame" before Christmas. I have enjoyed getting to know these ladies, even though we have different philosophies about some things. Quilting brings all sorts of people together.

Last night we had a steady, slow rain that amounted to only 10 or 20 points as Norm's mom would have said, but it was nice to get some moisture--October and also this month so far have been extraordinarily dry. Tomorrow is leaf raking day, and grocery day. Saturday is scrap quilts for me and book club for Norm. Sunday we will have a joint worship service with the Presbyterians in the neighborhood, followed by a carry in Thanksgiving dinner, so today I started looking at my recipe box to decide what I'm going to take. It is so hard to believe that Thanksgiving is only one week away, and we all know what comes after that. I don't think we ever quite finished putting away the Christmas decorations last winter, and here it is almost time to get them out and put them up again. Time does go faster the older you get.

Fall Colors III: At Last, The Maple

About a week ago, our sugar maple was getting close to its peak color, so I snapped a photo. On Friday, when you stood beneath it you were bathed in a golden glow because all of the interior leaves had turned as well. Yesterday, half of those leaves landed in the yard, and the ground glowed golden. Today was cloudy, windy and quite a bit colder, and the tree is beginning to show its branches. I imagine that by Tuesday, when the tree trimming guys arrive, only about 5% of the leaves will remain on the tree, making it an easier job for them. Of course, then it will be time to get the leaves raked! Norm has been sweeping the driveway and raking paths for Ava to use in the yard, but it still looks like the leaves are ankle deep. I wonder how much they all would weigh before they start to dry out?

Speaking of drying out, we are getting a tad dry in this neck of the woods. Several days last week it was windy and there was a Fire Danger warning posted. We were supposed to get a nice rain this weekend; then the forecast backed off to showers; last night they said we might get 1/10 of an inch, or "10 points" as Mom Linville used to say. I'm not sure we got anything except a damp spot on the driveway.

Today as I drove to and fro for our church Bazaar, it seemed to me that all of the late coloring trees were more intensely red, even almost purple, than I remember. Nature saved the best of the show for the last act, or maybe even the encore. At any rate, our Indian Summer seems to be over and it feels and looks like November now. Time to think about baking breads and looking for sweet potato casserole recipes, etc. At least I could find cans of pumpkin in the stores this year!

House Plants Showing Off

Most people have Christmas Cactuses (Cacti?) although they might bloom around Thanks- giving, or maybe even close to Easter. But beginning with its second year with us, this graceful white tinged- with- orchid cactus insists on blooming within a couple of weeks after we bring it in from its summer sojourn outside. Or, as it did last year when we left it inside all summer, at Halloween. This year it is a Veterans Day Cactus. A gift from a friend many years ago, it keeps on giving.

Another friend's gift (dear DH) from 5 or 6 years ago, the rubber tree was almost as tall as I am by the time I lugged it downstairs and out to the porch in July. It threatened to outgrow the porch, so some serious trimming was in order. After I removed 4 sturdy stalks, a bevy of shorter stalks remained for a more compact plant. (Will post photos of it later.) I had read that you have to air-layer a rubber tree to get its cuttings to root since the stems are quite woody, but I didn't have the patience (or the time) to try that. And yet I couldn't throw such obviously healthy vegetation onto the compost heap. So I stuck the four stalks in some moist potting soil and waited to see what would happen. (Norm says I never met a plant I didn't want to propogate, or a cutting I didn't have to try to save.) Three of the stalks rooted, so they have become a new plant, about 2-1/2 feet tall. When I took this photo I thought I would have to use it in an advertisement: Well Behaved, Resilient Rubber Tree Needs a New Home. As much as I would LIKE having two rubber trees, there is room in the sunny upstairs window for only one. Then my plant-loving friend Lola the librarian heard about it, and today it went home with her. I hope it continues to prosper, but she has a small condo, so I also hope it doesn't completely take over her home.

Our church is having a bazaar on Saturday, and right now I'm in the process of deciding which projects I have no time to finish, so I can concentrate on the remaining ones that are doable. Watch tomorrow for some preview pictures of it. If you are in STL on Saturday, drop by Compton Heights Christian Church, 2149 S. Grand Blvd., between 10 and 4 for some great ornaments, knitted items, Gypsy bags, Fair Trade coffee, chocolate and handcrafts, plus delicious baked goods and snacks (spiced pecans, or champagne jelly, anyone?) Oh, and some fantastic chili for lunch--the day is supposed to be showery and in the low 50s, so that sounds really good!

After the bazaar: the Maple Tree. Seriously this time.

Tim's Talk: Guest Post: Trusting God

This post is by the wife of Tim Graves, a seminary student we have known for many years, since he and his siblings were in the youth group at Florissant Valley Christian Church that Norm and I sponsored back in the 1970s. Tim went to college, married Maggie, and they had two children and a dog named Susie that they allowed us to adopt from them. Maggie went to seminary and was ordained first. She has been serving First CC in Wheeling, WV while Tim has being going to Lexington Theological Seminary. In this article, Maggie discusses their amazing journey to a call to a new kind of ministry, and what it means for a couple in mid life, with children grown, to set out on a major journey trusting in God.

Tim's Talk: Guest Post: Trusting God: "by Rev. Magdalyn M. Sebastian Maggie is Tim's wife. This column appeared in the Wheeling Intelligencer on November 6, 2010. Trusting the D..."

End of the Growing Season

We have had several predictions of a freeze, but each one seemed to miss us, and the flowers have just kept on doing their thing. I think geraniums, especially, get more beautiful in the fall when the hottest weather is gone. This porch box contains plants that spent last winter in our basement. My plan is to move them inside and trim them back this weekend so they can rest in the basement windows again until next spring. Tonight it is supposed to be 28 degrees at the airport, which is close to us. The plants that are still outside are tucked away next to the house at the bottom of the basement stairs, out of frost's way. It is about 7 degrees warmer there than out in the yard.

This salmon beauty is about three years old. I have already brought it into the house since this photo was taken, and it is in one of the upstairs south windows. The coleus has been magnificent, but strong winds blew it over and shattered the pot after these pictures. I have some cuttings in a glass jar to see if they will root, but the plant itself is going to meet its fate either tonight, or soon.

Another multi-year geranium, this apple blossom will spend the winter downstairs. I have a cutting from it that rooted, and it is in one of the upstairs windows. I hope we will have many new plants to enjoy in spring 2011.

Of course, some summer plants in the yard don't seem to know that their days and hours are numbered, so they have been going merrily on. There is probably a lesson there someplace. This is a seedling coneflower from this summer that burst into bloom in the fall, while its parents were all sporting seed pods and feeding the local flock of goldfinches. For some reasons our coneflowers love this south facing wall by the driveway. A little butterfly found a late season snack on this one as well.

Petunias are so hardy, I think they might survive a nuclear fallout event, like cockroaches. Except they are much prettier. We grew these purple ones for their great petunia scent. Twice they were decimated and defoliated by little green caterpillars, and twice they have battled back. Usually they will survive a light freeze...these are under the euonymous bushes out back, where we moved their planter after they were attacked the second time. If they won't give up, why should I? Thoughts like that are helpful when the news is disturbing or discouraging, and I guess that is one reason I am so crazy about plants. They just do their thing and don't think about it too much.

After a summer of dis- appoint- ment in the tomato patch, our two vines finally started producing in October. These are on the cherry tomato vine we planted. We also have harvested a lot of medium Jet Stars from the other plant, and just tonight enjoyed a nice ripe one in our salad. Fresh tomatoes...in November...in the Midwest. Gotta love it.

Next up: Fall Colors III: At last, the Maple has turned!

Fall Colors II: Mums Glow with Light from Within

Nothing says fall like asters and mums. For years I have looked at the gorgeous asters at our favorite garden center, and passed on getting them because, well, everyone knows they are hard to grow, they get the yellows, our soil is bad for them, etc. But this year I finally coughed up $5 on the first day of October and brought this specimen home.

Norm repotted it and placed it at the corner of the front wall in the midst of our luxuriant (and still growing, nearly 4 weeks later) sweet potato vine. Yes, that is one vine, and it's in a pot. It drinks like a sailor, though--we had to water it every day, sometimes twice a day, in the hot summer weather. One thing about a sweet potato vine, you don't have to guess when it's thirsty.

After two glorious weeks, the aster had bloomed itself out, so it is now retired and resting out back until we can find a spot to plant it. We rotated this bronze mum into its spot about a week ago and it is still going strong. So is the sweet potato vine. Our plan is to see what kind of tuber it has produced and if it looks healthy, we will keep it in the basement this winter and plant it again next spring. We did that a couple of years ago with another prolific vine. The mum will get planted in the flower bed in the wall, probably. Sometimes they survive the winter and sometimes they don't.

This is another bronze mum that has survived for about three years now. We planted it next to the front porch steps and I think this is its best year since we did that. I didn't pinch this one back this year because it stayed compact, and it also didn't set buds until sometime in August.I love these flowers because they seem to glow, even on a cloudy day!

Another hardy returning mum is this red one...I think it is an unusual red because most "reds" I see are really burgundy. this one occupies the far end of the wall next to Mr. Guy's property. For a while this spring I wasn't sure it had survived (this is its third year) but then some foliage poked through the mulch. This is such a vibrant color.

This white mum that looks like it is trying to pretend it's a Shasta daisy is actually one of two plants that we divided in their second year because they were overgrowing everything else planted on the wall. They bloom really early. They were keeping the aster company back at the end of September and early October. They are completely finished now, but they were our first harbinger of fall.

These pink mums hold the volunteer record...I think they have been out back under the lilac since at least 2006, maybe earlier. They spread out more every year; this is just one cluster of the entire sprawling group. Usually I pinch them back severely, but we were gone in June when I should have done it, and July was so hot they grew slowly. After the first fall wind, though, they really flopped over. This was a semi cloudy day with the sun wanly showing, and they still glowed. I can see them from the kitchen window and they are so cheery. They will persist until frost.

These sunny yellow flowers occupy the "welcome" spot beside our front porch steps and when they fade, they will get planted near the front door or in the wall as well. They were the third new plant I bought this fall.

Leaves are starting to fall from the oak, the maple, and all of the neighbors' trees as well, which makes it hard to keep the flowers visible, but we give it a try anyway. Soon enough the leaves will be raked, the plants will be heeled in to the ground for winter, the bird feeders will be up, and I'll be looking for where I packed my longjohns. Today it got to 75 degrees. Tonight we had thunder and the first rain in over a month...we got about an inch or more in less than an hour. Now there's a small stream flood advisory for North County. As my dad would have said, when it rains, it pours. But I'll take it.

Next up: Persistent Geraniums and other summer plants that don't know what season it is.

Fall Colors I: Trees

Fall officially started a month ago, but trees in our neighborhood are just now showing color, and leaves (except for the cottonwood, which started shedding in August) are just now beginning to fall. Today it is almost 80 degrees, with showers forecast for later, and a breezy south wind that is ringing the wind chime on the front porch. The doors are open, and we haven't thought about replacing the screens with the storm windows yet. It seems like summer wants to linger longer, and we can't really object. One of the first colorful trees we can see from the house is our backyard neighbor Mark's sassafras tree. Behind our garage, it looms up with fiery glowing branches.

Across the street, our neighbor Karen has two hard maples in front of her house. This one is blazing gold right now while the one next to it is still green. We look out the front door and see this glowing golden mass of leaves that shines even on a partly cloudy day, like today.
This week has been a sickly one, with one of the season's famous "two weeks no matter what you take for it" colds that included fever for a while, and now a racking cough that sneaks up on me. So although it is a lovely day for a drive, my leaf peeking so far has been at home. If I had more ambition I would start cleaning up the house plants on the porch, since surely they will have to come inside some time. Yet our highs will be in the 80s through Monday and even at the end of next week, on Halloween, the low will be only in the 50s. So, not yet.

A couple of years ago I posted a new photo almost every day for a month as our backyard sugar maple turned colors. I won't do that this year, but will note that on this date, there is just a tad of orange showing on the tips of the outer branches, and most of the interior is still green. One exception is a group of branches high up, as in 30 to 40 feet, that are becoming yellow. This tree needs trimming and thinning every 5 years or so, and this is its year. Yesterday the company we have contracted with called to say they would be out next Tuesday. We said, not yet. It's better to trim it after the leaves have fallen, and Sugar Maple isn't going to let go of all of its ton or so of little oxygen factories for a couple of weeks, I'm betting.

Next up: Fall Color II: Mums both new and volunteer