The Beginning of Fall Report

We had a long Indian summer this year. September had some record temperatures, and we're still waiting for the rainy season to begin. The garden looks tired. Today's temperature is predicted to reach 80 degrees, unheard of in October. A headline in the Guardian yesterday read "Scientists stunned by planet's record September heat", so it seems it was nothing special to our region. One of the scientists described this beginning of fall as "Gobsmackingly bananas". Well put!

Despite that, the back garden continues to grow and look rather beautiful in it's ragtag kind of way. Our morning glories are going everywhere except for up the trellis provided for them. They're into the nasturtium bed, along the path, over the herb garden, around the tomato patch, and up the wisteria structure. I didn't even plant them this year. In fact I tried to rip the ones I planted last year out to make room for my sweet peas in the spring. Those never could get going, but the few overlooked morning glories, left to grow in the sweet pea bed, became almost mutant and seem to hope to take over the entire vegetable garden.

I have several varieties of sage that do very well in the garden, none better than the red and white hot lips. Rick keeps threatening to cut it back as it's covering the pathway beneath it and you have to bushwhack your way to get past, but so far its been allowed to overextend itself. It's so attractive! The bees can't resist it.

While our friends David and Martin were visiting, they put together a very attractive model of our "dependence," otherwise known as the barn. It's a really a nice undeveloped building next to our garage at the far end of the property. One of the reasons we bought the house in the first place was because of the potential of this building which we imagine developing into a guest house. When the funds are available, we have a very nice set of plans to follow and a beautiful little scale model to demonstrate the concept to the building planners.

The fish pond yard has become a little over grown. All the fish in our pond, with the exception of two very small ones, were devoured by a heron last spring. Apparently the two survivors were a male and female, since they have, between them, managed to repopulate the pond. I might even say over populate. We must have 50 new little ones in there now, orange, gold, yellow and black. They will make a nice snack for the migrating herons next spring, I suppose.

We have about 4 apple trees on the property, all of which make lots of fruit, but in all cases are barely bigger than a golf ball. The ones in this garden are the tastiest, I'm told. I myself grew up on an apple orchard and consumed one too many of them in my youth, so in general I don't eat them at all any more. However, Rick has his apple a day without fail.

The birds also enjoy the ones he leaves on the tree. We have been watching the sparrows picking at the fruit. See if you can find one in the photo below. They live in this part of the garden, which has lots of places to hide and nest in the shrubbery.

They also visit the pond and use it not only to quench their thirst, but as a big bathtub. They stand on the waterlily leaves and splash about. It's hard to get photos of these activities as the birds are very shy and sensitive to my movements, so all I can offer is my description. When there are half a dozen or so, it makes for a charming sight.

In the garden we also have several pear trees. Last year they were completely consumed by insects, but this year we watched them more vigilantly. Like the apples they are smaller than the fruit you would buy at a market, but we harvested at least twenty and they were very nice. The other day Rick discovered our very last one hiding behind a leaf on one of the trees. It's yellow, and normal size, but not quite ripe. To celebrate its uniqueness I took a little still life photo to share with the family.

We had the last part of our bathroom remodel completed last month, when our mason came and enlarged the window opening, making it about twice as high as it used to be. We bought a simple window at a local supplier and he popped it in for us. Even if we have lots of other things we could do in our house, our budget and enthusiasm have more or less run out at the same moment. We intend to wait for both of them to recover. In the meantime we do feel as if our bathroom and kitchen, at least, are about as nice as they could be, and that's worth a lot.

This is a great time of year for some kayaking, and since the weather remains pleasant, we have been taking advantage of it. Rick shot this video the other day from his little red water craft, doing reconnaissance. The river Serein provides miles and miles of calm waters to explore, and that is only one of several rivers in the local vicinity. Even the Seine has its source our region, just a few miles down the road.

https://youtube.com/shorts/RTIQ3-05WPA?feature=share

I will not be publishing the blog for the next two weeks, as we're leaving town. When I return I hope to have a very nice report for you from an exotic location that we will be exploring for the first time. Until then...