Changing Weather, Holiday Cactus, Reblooming Iris

Out on the Hill this morning it was really quite nice for this time in Novemeber - somewhere in the upper forties. The wind was still but there seems to be a chance of some rain moving into our area along with some much cooler air and there was the mention of a snow flake or two on Thursday. Brrrrrrrr!

Saturday was a gorgeous day which I spent cleaning up the flower beds. The lawn guy picked up leaves and cleaned out the gutters on Thursday so on Saturday I did the flower beds-Last and final cleanup until spring, I hope.

Last evening I went out and cut all of my reblooming Iris. I wanted to bring them in before the weather changed and there are still several unopened buds on them that I hope. My Thanksgiving/Christmas cactus are blooming also. I hope the blooms are all open on the Sunday after Thanksgiving since that is when all my family is coming for dinner.

I did my menu last evening so I have to go to the grocery later this week.

So What IF IT's Friday the 13th

Saturday morning the crew all showed up at my house to help clean up the back section of my yard and load all the limbs, brush and whatever else I had cut earlier in the summer, into the dumpster that I had rented. There were stacks of cinder blocks from the foundation of an old building that burned long before I bought the property and other old junk that someone had piled at the edge of the woods and over time had become overgrown with vines. The guys pulled out a couple of small metal tanks and then another two and another two (six in all). We discovered that they were not tanks but old water heaters and they were all stacked on top of a cistern. In the spring I will see if I can get someone to come take down the few small trees that grow along the back of the yard and a very dilapidated old building that seems to be defying gravity in the fact it's still standing. All the stuff below was gone when they finished. WoooHooo!

I have to get out and make some more pics of the cleanup area. Maybe this weekend.

Sunrise on the hill

This is a view from my driveway at about 7:20 this morning. Sunrise out there is almost always breathtaking.

This one is taken about five minutes after the above picture. Amazing how fast the view can change.


It was a chilly thirty eight degrees this morning but the afternoon has been in the sixties. We are looking forward to a beautiful weekend.

Fall Cleanup and Found Things

It's in the low forties here this morning, gray and drizzly, but not a bad November day. The weather person was talking about it going to be cold but for me when the temp get up in the fifties it's not really a cold day. It appears that we will have clouds all day but...we are, after all, approaching winter.

We were talking the other day about how the winters have changed over the years. As a child I well remember my Dad picking corn in October and it being very cold, bitter even. Thanksgiving Day was a day for hunting rabbits and quail and invariably there would be snow on the ground. These are all memories that go along with the ones of going to my grandparents house for Thanksgiving dinner. Good memories of times spent with folks who are mostly all now gone.

Hopefully over the next couple of afternoons I will be able to get some more fall cleanup done. I have help coming Saturday to really do some major cleanup around the property such as getting rid of limbs and things that I've discovered as I clear away the undergrowth. I keep thinking that maybe I'll find a pot of money buried somewhere up there but so far I've only found an old bathroom sink, a stack of very old cinder blocks, a tub of glass window panes (the tub of window panes was tucked away under a large lilac bush). There was an old plow who's wooden frame was decayed, a hay fork and some other things I can't identify, not sure I'd want to know what some of them were. We will see if I find anything of interest up there this weekend.

Colours of Autumn

Out on the Hill the flowers are really winding down. I need to harvest some of the sage.

The reblooming Iris just keeps on blooming. I'm really surprised at this one but for sure I'm getting more.

We had temps in the mid-thirties one night. The banana plants just could not deal with that. Guess this is a week-end chore that I will have to get done - Dig them up and store them in the cellar until next spring. My neighbor at the florist has some that he just leaves in the ground to overwinter. A little mulch and they come back in force the next spring. I inherited this one when my Dad died a couple of years ago. This thing has probably been in my family for close to fifty yeas. I just feel I'm obligated to keep it going, IF I can.

Trees are really beautiful this year. It's suppose to rain tonight so that will probably bring a lot of them down.

I made the above picture in the morning and

About twenty-fours later I made the following one.

Yep! the leaves changed overnight.

Take a look at that beautiful blue sky!

Saturday Morning Ramble

At six- thirty here on the hill it's a chilly forty one degrees but it feels more like low thirties. It's a dreary and morning here on the hill with the high to be only fifty today. I have been forced to turn on some heat here in the house. I had hoped to get more of the brush and yuck cleared from the edge of the woods this fall but now I don't know if I will get that done until the spring. The leaves are turning and we have lots of reds and yellows in the woods behind the house. On the drive home from work yesterday some of the streets that are lined with the huge old trees were really beautiful arrayed in their reds, yellows, gold and green. I have some banana plants growing that I will need to dig up and take to the cellar in the next few days. I tried mulching one of them a few years back and leaving it to over winter outside. It did not survive and since these have been in my family for forty plus years I just kinda feel like it's my job to keep one around as long as I can.

Along with the gardens and the renovation of my log home I have gone back to my first love which is sewing. I hope to soon have some of my repurposed deimn jackets and other items on Etsy. Right now, as my grandmother would have told me, I have too many irons in the fire, but things will all work out and it will all get done, eventually. Adding to the chaos contractors will probably be at the house one or two days next week. Over time one learns to live around them and you soon become on a first name basis with them. They bring me pumpkins and other decorations for my front porch and have taught me how to chink the logs in a two hundred year old house. All these things sometime make life a little hetic but it also keeps thing interesting and the garden is where I go "to stop and smell the roses". It's the place of peace and quiet in a hetic life.

Snake Picture

Compliments of: www.montgomerycountymd.gov/.../herps/snakes.asp

I found a picture and a name for the Snake. Known as a Worm Snake. I've never heard of one but he is aptly named. Guess I should have left him alone and been thankful that he might have been one reason I have very few slugs. That statement, so far, has been true.

I did find a toad in the Blackeyed Susans the other day. First one I had seen on the hill. I will have to post pictures of the "craw dad" holes that I find but thus far I have not seen the creature venture forth from his hole. If one were to step into those holes they could break an ankle or leg.

Fall Cleanup - Surprise Visitor

I haven't been around lately but have been really busy inside. Did manage to get out and do a little fall cleanup Saturday afternoon. While I was pulling weeds I found what I thought was a huge night crawler. This big old worm is very common in my flowers. I only had a glimpse of one end as he wriggled beneath some weeds. I grapped an end and pulled. He was quiet strong so I pulled harder only to have him get away from me. By now, it's a matter of getting him. I wanted a picture. Well, there is no picture and there was no night crawler. When I finally yanked him from under some weeds that I had pulled earlierI discovered he was a baby snake. Needless to say he is no more. I have no idea what he was but he was about eight inches long, kinda taupe or light brown in colour with a white underside. When I finished with him there could be no pictures to post. I'm not afraid of snakes, in fact, I have a resident black snake that sometimes lives in my cellar and he is welcome so long as I don't find mice around the place, but I don't like to have the unknown kind slitthering around my flower beds. If he was a "good" snake then I am sorry I smashed him, If he was a "bad" snake then, Oh well! I'm aware that if you find one small one there are usually more. I tried to look him up on line but didn't find him. There were no markings at all on him.

In all that excitement I did discover that I have a balloon flower blooming. I will try to post a picture and more later this evening. Also, my reblooming iris is still blooming. The temperature has been down in the forties here at night but tops out at around sixty in the daytime.