Intoxicating...this time of year when gardens and gardeners give each other breathing space to just be themselves.

In the quiet of a laid-back chilly afternoon, I force my shoes off with my toes, one foot, then the other because...well, because I'm too lazy to bend over and exert some extra effort to unfasten them.  Dried leaves wet with an earlier rain seem glued to the soles after my quick adventure into the gardens to evict fallen leaves from the cast stone bird baths with a torrent of gushing water from the garden hose, and scatter a handful of sunflower seeds on the ground for the baby squirrel hell-bent on adopting me earlier this week.

He was a force to be reckoned with as I tried to bury my bare root wild flowers into the front yard gardens.  Relentlessly he was underfoot, grunting, scampering up my leg, shaken off; grunting, scampering up my leg, shaken off; grunting...well, you get the idea.  I had to escape to the back yard for a breather.  The next morning he found the back yard and paradise was lost.  Hissing loudly while clapping hands set him about face to scurry up the nearest tree, so hissing was in my future - to the point of overkill, perhaps.

Anyway...back to the now, back to dreading the arrival of the American Turk's Cap lilies and Marjolettii tulips in the post because the Clusiana tulips, Dutchman's Breeches, White Henryi lily and Byantine gladiolus are still sitting it out in the pantry waiting for the rains to take a hike into oblivion and planting to begin.  Capricious autumn...one week temps in the 70's, then its freeze baby freeze!

This year has been a bit rough re-inventing the gardens to not kill this slightly older gardener.  Of course, this kind of work is best done before one's in the purgatory of working as an older gardener; but then, when have I ever approached my outdoors knowing time will eventually began to work against me?  Never!  (Sigh...)  Now it's daily sabbaticals after just a few hours.

Look at the close-up and discover a spider-in-residence

First to go was the pond, an obliteration I still grieve.  It exists now as a rain garden filled in with a ton of good earth.  Grabbing hold of an overgrown clump of sweet flag with a rusty garden rake, jerking it from its hold at the pond edge and flipping it over my shoulder with a splat to the concrete patio behind me...that pleasure no longer exists.
Hooray!!!

Next was butchering the grapevine from a lengthy sixty feet to a shortly twenty feet and lowering its height to shoulder level...a work in progress.  Ripping vines out of the blackhaw viburnum on their journey to the ash tree, the neighbor next door, and the moon, no longer exists.
Happy, Happy, Happy!!!

Last were the raised containers on the patio with the ten foot high rebar trellis enveloped in passion vines and clematis.  I'm a bit blue with their demise.  In place now is a drainage system to keep the earth from swallowing up our house, which is a good thing, isn't it? 
Joy, Joy, Joy...pooh!!!

My property strikes me as the biggest rock garden east of the Rockies and west of the Appalachians.  I created this vortex of pitfalls to older age, which in my younger years appeared quite harmless,  Felt like three summers worth of work this year making the grounds more avant-garde in the stumble proof department.  I think I've succeeded.  I hope I'm right as another load of boulders to the landfill will be the final straw that breaks my husbands back, or so I've been told in a bit of a wearisome voice.

Don't get me wrong...this creation is still rock city when it comes to the neighborhood of grassy plots all in a row, but it's my masterpiece, for better or for worse.  I can live with that as long as I don't stub my toe planting those dang Turk Cap lilies when one of these days they should arrive.

So...

Here's to an autumn in high spirits whether coat or short sleeves, rain or shine, blustery or peaceful, toe stubbing or light-footed...enjoy!

Bye!