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I am surprised and delighted with how quickly i attuned to working outside. Yesterday i spent a good while after meeting puttering about the yard: weeding to expose mosses, exterminating some Autumn Olive and a few lanky trees damaged by honeysuckle. Honeysuckle: what a bully! Plans now focus on renting this chipper of 6" diameters sometime in September to chew up all the brush i expect to be cutting down between now and then.
This morning i awoke before dawn and stepped out into the moonlight. Stars were clear overhead and it was cool, cooler than inside. A quick check of the weather and the dew point was below 70°! Oh my heavens, fall may come! There have been breezes, too. It's made me appreciate just how incredibly oppressive July was.
I am so drawn out: the birds had quite the chorus this morning and now, with the blinds up, i see a humming bird and have watched cardinals. The cats were delighted with the open windows.
Indeed, i sit here and, instead of writing, look out, thinking of all the projects: planting an orchard of understory trees to replace the Autumn Olive and feed the critters (native crab apple, persimmon, paw paw, chinquapin - Castanea pumila), planting old Southern apples, and a fig, and a pomegranate. Sunflowers, native varieties and cultured ones.....
Saturday we spent driving around the northern piedmont visiting Christine's family. As i watched the roadsides rush by, i thought of how my eyes have been retrained by looking for wildflowers in California. Joe Pye weed and goldenrods and some white flowered plant create a haze of color that i have always just called weeds. But there's our native wildflowers on parade. I imagine a border of those tall purple blossoms, the cloud of white and the shots of gold and all the butterflies one can dream of -- i'm probably spoiled as this summer has been the summer of the tiger swallowtail butterfly. I see a half dozen at a time fluttering across the yard.
I'm not spending hours identifying flowers or plants, developing photos, or imagining trips. I can walk right outside the door into my own preserve and get my fingers grubby.
This morning i awoke before dawn and stepped out into the moonlight. Stars were clear overhead and it was cool, cooler than inside. A quick check of the weather and the dew point was below 70°! Oh my heavens, fall may come! There have been breezes, too. It's made me appreciate just how incredibly oppressive July was.
I am so drawn out: the birds had quite the chorus this morning and now, with the blinds up, i see a humming bird and have watched cardinals. The cats were delighted with the open windows.
Indeed, i sit here and, instead of writing, look out, thinking of all the projects: planting an orchard of understory trees to replace the Autumn Olive and feed the critters (native crab apple, persimmon, paw paw, chinquapin - Castanea pumila), planting old Southern apples, and a fig, and a pomegranate. Sunflowers, native varieties and cultured ones.....
Saturday we spent driving around the northern piedmont visiting Christine's family. As i watched the roadsides rush by, i thought of how my eyes have been retrained by looking for wildflowers in California. Joe Pye weed and goldenrods and some white flowered plant create a haze of color that i have always just called weeds. But there's our native wildflowers on parade. I imagine a border of those tall purple blossoms, the cloud of white and the shots of gold and all the butterflies one can dream of -- i'm probably spoiled as this summer has been the summer of the tiger swallowtail butterfly. I see a half dozen at a time fluttering across the yard.
I'm not spending hours identifying flowers or plants, developing photos, or imagining trips. I can walk right outside the door into my own preserve and get my fingers grubby.
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