A coax of wind, and the leaves will fall as autumn reaches its glory.

As I look up from my front porch.

 

Dreamy…

Today is the expression of all that is good in this little garden.  It’s late in the year, but still the sun warms as an artic cooling has begun slowly sweeping the hilltops up north down towards us.  Today I’m watching a cheeky little chickadee drink at the birdbath, a bit leery, then poof, out of sight, off to another adventure.  Late autumn decided to become late spring, so here I am watering a parched garden to keep some of the fall colors from vanishing so terribly fast.

My podiatrist has given me until early November to find shoes that will help with all the cushion of fat that has disappeared from the bottom of my feet, especially my right foot.  It has turned out to be a task of what one might think purgatory has a hand in.  Impossible is not a word I embrace lightly, but I’m changing my appointment to sometime in January, when hopefully my mission will have been completed.

The flowers that are keeping the pollinators happy in this space are the aromatic and ‘paten’ asters and some tiny white flowered aster that came with the garden and has refused to leave.  The Swamp Sunflower is still going strong, and the tiny and larger pollinators love it.  Although garden books say it’s completely happy in a regular garden, we water it when it begins to sulk, which is often these days.

No mosquitoes, so fantastic not sharing my space with them today.  My deck is a carpet of leaves, mostly green, yellow and brown; but occasionally a red one makes an appearance.  I love it when a noisy chirper flies into the garden, but out of sight.  Since a bird can make so many different sounds, I’m often clueless unless I see it with my own eyes. 

Just a blur and it flew into the healthy Blackhaw Viburnum that is dripping with the darkest of blue berries, the viburnum that shares its space with the American Dogwood under the old White Ash Tree.  The sprinkler is beneath the viburnum, so it may be taking advantage of the shower of water droplets.

The rustle of leaves in the great oak trees that are beginning to turn yellow becomes quite noticeable when a wave of air rushes through the garden and on to the neighbors.  The smaller wind chime clanks away as it hangs from the umbrella handle on the patio. 

It wants to sing, but we are stumped as to where it may go to create that melody not too far away from us, but not to close to the bird boxes.  It was near the dogwood, but after many years the branches intertwined with it and quieted its song.  We’ll sort it out before Christmas.  I’m almost positive about that… almost. 

I smell a smoky barbecue going on with the neighbors behind us as they converse with each other loudly.  Perhaps it’s good that I don’t understand them, that they are just ‘talk’ to mingle with the road traffic. 

Time to move the sprinkler to the damp garden, but as I stand under this huge white ash tree, the breezes pick up and a light shower of never-ending yellow leaves begins to rain down upon me as I gaze, mesmerized.  The beauty is astounding.  I could stand here forever.  OUCH!!!  

What one sometimes forgets, I guess that is me, is that a white ash leaf is a compound of leaves attached to a stem called a petiole.  After each leaf has fallen to the ground, also must the petiole at some point in time. Mine hit my head like an arrow shot from the tree itself.  It still smarts.

Nature keeps giving and giving, as at this moment, the neighboring oak trees are being infiltrated with grackles, more and more noisy grackles.  If they are here, then they are mobbing my bird feeder as well.  Carpenter bees try to collect nectar from the crocus, but crocus only offer pollen… no nectar.  Sad watching them, trying over and over again.

This thing called autumn, dresses in its finest, which… in actuality, is leaves dying; and we can see that death has never looked so heavenly beautiful.  And underneath that blanket we sometimes call doom; that time when beauty has turned black, the earth is busy in regeneration.   Life is always getting along with business as usual.

I’m going to leave you here in this moment to be thankful that I have run out of words.  When I find an accent in time that begs to be photographed, I seldom turn away from the opportunity, unless I wish to soak it all up and selfishly keep it for myself only.  Naughty me. 

I’ve been naughty a lot lately 😊

Hover Fly in Crocus

Hover Fly on Swamp Sunflower

Bumblebee 

Crocus 'Goulimyi'

I have never seen this type of Hover Fly before.

Look at how long it's back legs are.

Maybe a Black-shouldered Drone Fly Eristalis dimidiata

Joe Pye Weed seed

Coral Berry, also called Buck Bush

The red leaves are from the dogwood tree.

'Sparkleberry' Winterberry

'Winterthur' Viburnum

Bumblebee on Aromatic Aster

It is on a fresh flower.  The flowers around it are aging.

Bumblebee on Canadian Goldenrod

Carpenter Bee and (I think) a Shield Bug

on Swamp Sunflower.

Carpenter Bees, Bumblebees, and smaller bees

on Canadian Goldenrod

Coralberry

Fothergilla gardenii (red leaves)

with 

Itea virginica 'Saturnalia', Virginia Sweetspire

Cardinal taking a bath in the sprinkler water

Lacewing Larva with the dried up bodies of its food 

carried on its back as camouflage.

If you look at the center of the flower,

you can see the groove where it was hiding before moving.

Leaf-footed Bug

Came out of hiding when I watered the potted plants.

This Post Is Linked To:

Saturday's Critters

My Corner of the World

The Season of Pumpkins and Little Goblins

Swamp Sunflower, Helianthus angustfolius

 with a type of Sweat Bee

A Spittlebug's Bubble Home

Nymph of a Leafhopper

Eaten

What's left of a female Cardinal.

'Winterthur' Viburnum

Carpenter Bees… quite a few of these large bees have appeared after the summer was void of them.  Attracted to the Canadian Goldenrod as a source of food, the same aggressive goldenrod we removed from under the oak trees and alongside the Ninebark shrub, I didn’t have the heart to remove the rest of the goldenrod covered with Carpenter bees among other insects in the prairie garden.  I have missed these gentle giants that pesticide selling companies call the enemy.  I have learned to modify things and live with them.

The carpenter bees also seem to be finding every bit of nectar from the turtlehead plants in the damp garden that the bumblebees deserted this week.  The woodland goldenrod in the shady areas on the backside of our house is attracting the tiny types of native bees, while the woodland goldenrod to the front of the house seems to have become a victim of a certain man’s gloved hand pulling them out as weeds.  (sigh…)

Carpenter Bee on Turtlehead Flower

If no white patch on the face area, then it is female.

We place 4"x4"'s of old cedar in different areas of our garden, 

so her only alternative isn't our house for nesting. 

This charismatic bee is often labeled a villian.

She's just living life, as she was intended to live it.

Purple Coneflower seed head

Looks and feels like a little porcupine.

Blue-stemmed Goldenrod, Solidage caesia

Paper Wasp drinking at birdbath.

Clasping Aster's airy stems cover the shady areas with blue flowers, and the aromatic asters bunch like puffs of lavender speckled clouds among the other perennials and weedy plants.  The skipper butterflies adore them.  Buds on the Swamp Sunflower are opening into bright golden faces, but I have not discovered yet what will be attracted to them.

Beauty Berry Shrubs covered in magenta lavender berries clumping in puffs along the limbs, bending them towards the ground, flirt with the mockingbird and cardinals.  Spicebushes are dropping their leaves gently in any type of breeze, as are a few of the other shrubs and trees.  It is a very slow move into autumn.  The change of season is never close one door and open the next.  More as if one glides through half-opened doors and half-closed doors.

Along the back fenceline (above photo)

Winterberry 'Sparkleberry' (both photos)

White and Purple American Beautyberrys

Callicarpa americana

Solomon's Seal growing under the beautyberries 

Pretty in pink, Purple Coneflower

American Redbud leaves

I sat outside just a bit this afternoon to calm my mind – what was I thinking!?!  The thoroughfare is humming (I say that kindly) with obnoxious noises of traffic.  I watched a grey squirrel navigate a twisty limb of the ash tree to leap onto a clump of thin viburnum branches, doing a catchy dance to find one that would precariously support him, and then begin dining on its berries that are ripening to an indigo blue.

This next morning is such a change from the warmth of yesterday.  It is a crisp 50 degrees F as I open the sliding glass door to be greeted by plenty of bird calls in the garden.  Charlotte and Austin become quickly engrossed with a chatty wren on the other side of the screen, while the heat register nearby keeps them toasty warm.

I let the outside coldness play havoc with the heat register for a few hours until all’s quiet and the glass door is slid shut once more.  I’m somewhat housebound these past few months, as how I feel anymore is never “Wow!  I feel so much better now.”  So much better never comes.  I confess, I let Gardener’s World play as background chatter in a house too full of silence.

Clasping Aster with, I think, a sweat bee.

Not the best quality...  it is what it is :(

Honeybee on Aromatic Aster 'October Skies'

Some type of little bee on a Clasping Aster

Symphyotrichum patens

This is called a Clasping Aster, because the base of the leaf 

wraps partway around the stem, as if it is holding on.

Yet another day has passed, and while I stayed outside without a sweater, I sometimes wished I had one on.  Vic planted the three aromatic asters left over from spring.  They were nicely rooted in their 6” pots making the transfer out of the pot to soil rather easy.  Although topsoil was added to the area fifteen or so years ago, it was basically a pickax type of soil, poor Vic.

It’s bedtime… my reservoir of thoughts about gardens and such has evaporated into the atmosphere so fast, I seem to be wordless at this moment.

Sweet Dreams.

Coralberry, Symphoricarpos orbiculatus

Green Stinkbug Nymph, Acrosternum hilare

I stayed about a foot away, and whatever direction I moved to, 

it would change its course to walk towards me.

Saw Greenbrier Vine, Smilax bona-nox

with parts of the leaf deteriating, leaving a web of veins

I think this is Common Boneset, Eupatorium perfoliatum

The flowers are old and will soon produce seeds.

Leatherflower, Clematis viorna seeds.

Wistful seed

It’s difficult to approach this last day of writing in the wistfulness I truly wish for without flipping into the deep, but here goes.  We’re in that part of the year of rollercoaster rides as far as temperatures are concerned.  I’m sitting on my deck chair I share with a very persistent spider, enjoying the cool breezes and occasional traffic of the thoroughfare one house up.

Mashed avocado with crackers is on the breakfast menu, with a warm cup of Irish Breakfast tea, and a few vitamins to round it out in this lovely seventy-degree F. weather.  A titmouse bathed in the large shallow birdbath I easily see through the deck railing, then to my surprise, a few goldfinches joined the party.

It is so heavenly here, with gentle gusts of cool wind to remind one it is indeed autumn.  Real autumn returns in four days, so now is the time to enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.  The noisy birds today, I think, are titmice, with a background chatter of English sparrows.  Although not native, they seem to come with the territory these days.  I have groups of the females now bathing in the birdbath, ignoring my presence, showing me who really owns the garden.

I’m thinking of giving my derriere a break this coming November, as the pinched nerve pain has reoccurred with a vengeance.  It makes working on my photos impossible, hence, what you see with my work may be cropped, but all else is left as is in this post.  I’ve spent more time taking in this beautiful October, and not worrying much about photographs, so nothing unusual is in the finished mix.

Neighbors behind me and to the left have had their big trees cut down, so I am grateful that as I lean back in my deck chair looking out over the landscape in front of me… sandwiched between my tabletop and the underside of the big umbrella; the neighbors’ huge oak trees, left in all their gigantic beauty, lay a blanket of serenity around me.

A few heavy gusts of wind and a shower of seed stems from the old ash tree noisily rain down upon the umbrella top and deck as if vengeance is passing through.  Autumn does get messy as she lays a layer of fresh mulch upon the ground; and as I sit here, sashaying my rocker chair back and forth while eating juicy red seedless grapes washed down by icy water, the traffic mixed with bird chirps is beginning to mess with my chilled-out mood like an invasion of piranhas in for the kill.

 
I’ve begun watering the parched areas that harbor fresh plump berries and late autumn flowers to slow down their demise, as this changing weather is not as nice as the days of old.  A group of blue jays has settled in and calmed down to a few cries here and there, and as I contemplate whether to leave or stay a bit longer… it’s so peaceful if only I could just get that %$#&! traffic out of my head.
 
As I’m reminded by my persistently chatty little buddy dressed in the feathers of a chickadee, just because some things may be out of reach doesn’t mean they still can’t be enjoyed.  I love my little patch of wild that I sometimes alter, and other times nature redesigns.  It is the best achievement of my life, but I say that knowing it is already reverting out of my hands and back to nature.  Its existence will fade as I do, and end when I end.  No matter… it is for my eyes only, and my eyes find it intoxicating.

Geodes from a friend, 

and collected lake rocks from construction sites.

Liatris aspera, Tall Blazing Star

The tall stems sometimes grow a little wonky if no support.

The phenomenon for this flower is called Fasciation,

where the plant grows elaborately contorted tissue.

It is also known as Cresting. 

Monarda bradburiana, also called Eastern Bee Balm

Great Blue Lobelia, Lobelia siphilitica

with golden-green sweat bee

Large mushroom is about 2" across.

Several days later they were hard to the touch.

Austin Daydreaming 

This Post Is Linked To:

Saturday's Critters

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day

My Corner of the World