Category: Seasons

Fall: mountain farmlet style

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Tired of working every time we go up to the mountain we decided to go up on Saturday and just enjoy the afternoon.

Bob packed the chainsaw, and I made fun of him for taking it along…

“We had that storm you know, and there are always a few downed trees on the trail!” he said.

You will have noticed the barbed wire in front of Miss Kitty?  As it turns out there was more of that barbed wire hidden in the leaves all along the edge of the creek.  How do I know this?

Let’s just say I’m glad my Carharts are made tough!  They saved me some serious damage!  Only a little scratch, and yes, I have had my tetanus shot in recent history!

We stayed until it was dark to look at the stars and then headed out to have dinner.  It was a lovely visit!

Fall arrives on the suburban farmlet

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I went out looking for fall color and I finally found it.

Autumn has arrived in North Alabama!

 

PS:  After Thursday night’s terrible wind storm I expected to get up Friday morning and find Fall on the ground!  How delightful that Mother Nature saved a bit of it for us after all!

And now for something totally different!

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I just saw this video on Gardening Gone Wild and felt the need to share it with you.

In honor of spring, and changing the bit of earth where you live, be it in the country, suburbs or the city;  I submit to you this encouraging video!   In all fairness I must warn you that he likes the “s” word, but he has some awesome thoughts to share!

“If kids grow kale, they eat kale.  If they grow tomatoes, they eat tomatoes!”   Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA

Now, go plant some [stuff]!

😀

Rain, Rain, Go Away…

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It’s been raining for seven days straight.  It started with temperatures in the seventies and as the storm pushed through it was closely followed by temperatures in the thirties!  The air at ninety-seven percent humidity suddenly becoming so quickly chilled causes it to condense on the inside of the window panes.*  Like a cold drink in summer it collects and runs over the panes and down to the sill.  The windows were wiped four times day before yesterday, and still it collected.

The wind blew, the rain kept coming, and it has just stopped raining as I type.  The heavy clay has become a mire, slick, slimy and dangerous.  It has rained so much that the earth could no longer take it in.  The rain fell and then lay in an inch deep sheet covering the surface of everything on the ground, then flowing to the lowest places it sat and produced puddles and ponds where none should be.

There is more rain predicted, ‘freezing rain’, ‘chance rain’, and ‘possible snow’ as the day continues, and all of it under leaden skies.

We needed the rain after all those summer days of drought, but getting it all in one go is hard to take.  These endless gray days seem to seep inside you, make you sad, dull your senses…

I dream of spring and a sunny day.

Today the sky is throwing little frozen snowballs down to earth.

Some the size of peas

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They collect in the crevasses, and pretend they are snow…

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In the meantime,

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I keep the little lights on to chase away the dark that lurks in the corners,

and Benny Goodman is keeping me motivated not to just crawl under the covers and sleep the winter away.

Benny Goodman Sextet, with Peggy Lee singing

On The Sunny Side of the Street

😉

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*The inside humidity would not normally have been equal to the outside  humidity, but for the smoking dinner in the oven three nights ago, which set off the smoke detector, thus causing us to open the windows and doors to clear the air.  The smoke cleared, but the open house let the hot, wet air in.  With the house then closed the outside temperature plummeted forty degrees in less than two hours and this caused the inside condensation to occur.  We learned our first year here, that too much moisture allowed to sit on the sills will cause mold to grow there.
😐