YOU KNOW YOU HAVE IT WHEN...1) The rake in your hands looks like an instrument of torture, 2) Even though you put the leaf blower on low, it's still too damned loud, 3) Your garden gloves don't get dry overnight and are damp and cold when you put them on, 4) A cup of coffee and a sit down by the fire are even more appealing than usual, and 5) You can watch an entire NASCAR race without going outside even once! Yep, I have it big time. It usually stikes in November, just as I am facing the LAST leaf cleanup. So I do only the minimum clean up...getting the leaves blown off the patio...and ignoring them on the lawns or paths or even in the gutters. WHO CARES? I'll wait for that week of warmer weather (or "false spring" as it is called) in February to finish cleaning out the beds.
Now where did I put my slippers?
The article today "below the fold" in our newspaper hit me between the eyes like a dead mackerel! The "BIG DIGS" is a mansion under construction in the quaint gold rush town to our west...Jacksonville. It seems a couple from California struck it big when they sold 4000 acres of land in the coast range near La Honda, CA to some kind of land conservancy for 21 million bucks. So they did what a lot of Californians do...moved up to Oregon to build their dream home.
"Okay Kathy," you say, "just get over it!" I probably could EXCEPT THAT THIS DREAM HOME IS OVER 43,000 SQUARE FEET! Yes, you read that right...I don't have too many zeros on that figure...
Turns our the kitchen alone is 2100 sq ft. The "butler's pantry" is almost the size of my entire home. And no, there are no plans to make it a destination resort, or B and B or a maternity hospital. This is a home for one family.
To say that I'm appalled is putting it mildly. What are they thinking? Who needs 14 bathrooms? Think of what good they could have done with a small portion of that money and still built a "modest" 10,000 sq ft home! s
It's that time of year that reminds me of that Dr. Seuss verse: "Poor Ali Sard, he has to mow grass in his uncle's back yard. The faster he mows it, the faster he grows it!"
With us, it's raking, blowing, sweeping leaves from our two big maple trees that just about makes us go nuts! The faster we rake 'em, the faster they fall!
We grind some of them and dig them into the raised beds. This year I thought maybe I'd just skip the grinding part but my under gardener saved the day! Maple leaves are actually harder to grind because they are so thin and light. They also get soggy in a light rain, unlike oak leaves. So we had to get to the grinding before another storm moves in this weekend. Just the way to spend a nice sunny fall day!
Jack, my faithful under gardener, grinding away.
Most of them make it into the bucket!
The bin is almost full of ground leaves but the trees are no where near done. Me thinks we'll be doing this again next week. Hoping for lots of wind from the northeast to blow the leaves into the neighbor's yard but it will probably come from the northwest!
Time for a coffee break and a hot shower!
It seems like just overnight, things have gone gold. The maples are radiant and dropping leaves for me to rake up.
The Ampelopsis (Porcelain Berry Vine) is golden against the blue green fence.
The oak leaf hydrangea flowers have appropriately turned Halloween orange.
More yellow and orange maple leaves against the green groundcover...
And Izzy stands guard over 34 green tomatoes. I expected only half as many when I pulled out the vines today! We're sure to have a plate of nice red tomatoes for Thanksgiving! Yumm!
For the past couple of weeks, our mail has been delivered late. We're talking later than 5 pm and now in the past few days after 8 pm. I didn't know that the postal service worked that late! So we've been getting our exercise since our post box is up at the street and we're down a 150' driveway. We don't like to leave our mail in the box overnight since we've had some mail theft in the area. We made over 10 trips last night and we finally had mail by 10 pm! We were expecting a large check which the sender said was being delivered yesterday.
Maybe we are experiencing a new US Postal Service enhancement called "Starlight Delivery." We call it "Flashlight Delivery!"
Okay, so this is a ceramic pumpkin. Looks real, no?
But there is a pumpkin shortage here in the Rogue Valley thanks to an early hot spell this spring, just as stuff was starting to grow and flower. It also messed up the corn and tomatoes, which just quit doing their thing as temps got over 90 degrees in April and soared to over 100 in May.
"What the @#%$?" we all asked.
Now we know why...seems the weather experts predict that Medford will be the new Redding by 2050! Snow will no longer fall on the valley floor but instead the snow level will rise to 10,000.' No more 20 minute drive to ski at Mt. Ashland...which is only 8,000.' Water will be in short supply due to little snow pack. Start taking out your lawn now! Golf courses will be plowed under (that is already happening here).
I guess that means that Redding will become the new Yuma?
Meanwhile, start hoarding cans of pumpkin as I'm sure the grocers will take advantage of the situation and jack up the price of a can to $3.
The good news? Maybe I won't have to haul in my overgrown lemon bush this winter and the growing season will be longer.
The mini greenhouse is rapidly filling up with tender succulents and geraniums. Sonia the garden angel watches over them all with her sidekick bunny. Seems like I keep finding more and more pots to consolidate or dump out. I'm afraid to count how many pots I have.
But the race is on to get them all organized before Oct 15...the date when the storm door usually opens and we get cooler and perhaps wetter weather. Meanwhile the temp in the greenhouse can get to 100 degrees on a balmy fall day of 75 degrees, so I have to remember to open it up each morning.
I'm trying to fit most of the pots into the coldframe next to the greenhouse. Heavy big ones on the bottom...it usually takes a couple of times to get them all stacked right. Oops, there's another one I forgot about! The definition of insanity comes to mind...
And just when you're thinking about winter, a clematis goes and blooms its head off in October! Who knew?
