I was looking at my big fat beefsteak tomatoes the other day and it struck me how very green they were, so I thought I would do a photo essay of summer ending – by color. Color my world – just like we used to back in grade school, with the big 64 pack of Crayolas. I just happened to have a box with my craft supplies in the basement and they have the same waxy smell I remember.
The Crayola company first began selling crayons in 1903 and since then they have made over 200 distinctive colors. (Wikipedia link) Although many of the original colors are still around, I believe they are a bit more inventive with the names now, so I’ve decided to help them out, (see brackets).
The very green tomatoes. (Lean Green Tomato Machine, because what tomato plant isn’t this time of year)
The purple clematis is blooming. (Purple Rain, as in the Rock Star Formally Known as Prince).
The neighbors yellow Black-Eyed Susans nodding hello over the fence, (so very Mellow-Yellow).
The orange tones of fresh summer fruit – melons, nectarines and peaches. (Fruit Salad Palette)
Ripening tomatoes. (Red Hot Salsa)
The Last of the Pinks. This Dipladenia was the best plant I bought this summer, water and drought resistant (we had both) and no deadheading. It’s still hanging in there as if it was in the tropics, which it felt like some days. (Caribbean Dream Pink).
The first bouquet of fall flowers – yellow and green and pink.
White for the clouds of late summer, towering and cumulus, but looking fall-like. (Cumulus Cloud White)
Blue for the water and sky and sailboats. (The original Sky Blue can’t be beat).
And beige for the sand and the last trip to the beach. (Sandblaster Beige)
Let’s say goodbye to the last (Psychedelic Sunset) over the lake.
The first signs of fall are already here – the sound of crickets at night, sometimes on the hearth – the first drift of wood smoke in the air – the maple tree with it’s leaves dipped in paint – that first chilly morning when you have to reach for your chenille housecoat and it’s not because of the A/C – and that dreadful/wonderful/your pick pumpkin spice which saturates the season!
Class dismissed – put the crayons away and go outside and play while the sun is still high in the sky! (Sky High Blue-Green)
PS. Red for the apple for the teacher and for the harvest coming in at the farmer’s market. Speaking of farmer’s markets, I’ll be doing a restaurant review soon on a locally sourced Harvestfest Dinner (link) – so get your forks ready to join me. I hear there will be pie – as in (Very Cherry Red)!
Heathcliff is dead……again. This is the third time I have tried to grow heather, but alas, it was not meant to be. I have resigned myself to the fact that you can not grow heather in North America, there is a reason it is only to be found in abundance on the windswept moors of the UK. Here is a photo of Heathcliff (the-Plant-formerly-known-as-Heather), from last June, all healthy and blooming and alive.
And here is a picture of him in September at his funeral.
I arranged a few red maple leaves around his skeletal remains, for a more poetic look, otherwise he might have been mistaken for a stringy birds nest which had fallen to the ground. I had planted him in the same kind of poor rocky soil I imagined on the moors, and basically neglected him for the rest of the summer. Heather likes full sun, (see care sheet), but the days were cloudy and melancholy and he took up drinking and drowned his roots in sorrow, (kind of like Branwell). I must console myself though, that while we were not meant to be, he died young at the end of the rainiest season ever. It was nothing personal, he just did not like our Canadian soil or climate.
While doing some postmortem research, I discovered too late that heather likes well-drained acidic soil, and mine is clay and clumpy, so once again I had been lured in by a pot of pretty flowers. I had thought they were more hardy souls (like lavender), who would grow anywhere. Apparently there are many different types, and this Better Homes and Gardens article says anyone can grow heather and heaths……well perhaps not the truly heartbroken gardener like myself who may never fully recover.
I have occasionally seen heather for sale in nurseries here in early spring, sometimes with pinkish flowers. One July I bought some half-dead half-price specimens from the bargain bin. I knew when I bought them they were probably beyond CPR, but they were only a dollar. I planted them one week and dug them up the next. My other futile attempt involved a specimen which the nursery clerk told me was the only heather they stocked. It lived one short season, spread out a bit, produced 2 or 3 purplish blooms, then died off never to be seen again. I knew it was not real heather because the foliage was too soft. A friend who used to visit Scotland regularly, brought me back a piece of heather once as a souvenir – lucky for him the plant police did not catch him as smuggling plants is generally against the law. I was surprised by how coarse it was. I had expected from the pictures that it would be softer to the touch.
The moors must be beautiful in the summer and early fall, with all that heather blooming and the sky a bright blue, very Wuthering Heightish.
Before Heathcliff, my only exposure to heather was from the window of an tour bus in a downpour. I was in Ireland in September where it rained every day – so why did my poor heather not survive? The Irish heather (which was near a bog where they were cutting turf), was not nearly as stunning as the English heather in Downton Abby, the last episode of Season Five where they pack up the whole household and go grouse hunting at a castle on the moors and Mary and Edith meet their future husbands. (You see, heather does inspire romance). That was a beautifully filmed scene and inspired my mother to paint a picture called The Moors, which she included in her last art exhibit, (but then she has been known to paint shipwrecks from Poldark too).
The Moors
Victoria magazine is one of my favorite sources for inspiration, and in this past September issue they had a feature on Exploring the Bronte Legacy and the village of Haworth where they lived. (September is always the British issue and there was also a Susan Branch picnic party in the Lake District for any Beatrice Potter fans).
Here are some of the pages, including the famous heather.
We have Emily to thank for the popularity of heather, as we will forever associate it with her descriptions of the moorland in Wuthering Heights, as this quote attests, “I have fled my country and gone to the heather.” Although I have never been to England, I hope some day to put those words into action, as a literary tour is definitely on my bucket list.
No wonder the Bronte sisters wrote such wonderful books, having that lovely vista to gaze at during their daily constitutional on the moors. (Although no matter the scenery, I find that after a particularly fruitful writing session, a little walk can be beneficial for mulling things over).
Below, the steep cobblestoned streets of the small village of Haworth.
Here’s the dining room table where they wrote their works of art and paced and plotted how to find a publisher, and no doubt discussed what to do about Branwell.
The magazine article mentioned the 2017 PBS movie, To Walk Invisible, the story of the Bronte’s, which I watched and was somewhat disappointed in, although it is certainly worthwhile for any Bronte fan. In truth I found the movie as dark and dreary as the moors must be on an overcast winter’s day. There did not seem to be much joy in that household, but maybe I am confusing their rather bleak existence with that of the moors.
I thought Charlotte and Anne well-cast, Emily miscast, and Branwell just plain annoying. The movie ends with them walking on the moors after Branwell’s death, so it is not as depressing as if they had ended it later after they had all died. But then their story is not a happy one. I wonder if they would have traded their fame for more happiness and a longer life.
This year is the bicentenary of Emily’s birth in 1818. Here is Emily’s small and cozy room with a wonderful window view, as befitting a genius at work.
Emily remains the most puzzling one, so reclusive, yet the creator of such a stormy and passionate tale. No doubt she drew inspiration from her beloved moors but perhaps it’s very wildness was a reaction to their isolated existence. She had a lot of time to think and imagine. Her novel was considered dark and disturbing and somewhat shocking at the time, while Charlotte’s more conservative Jane Eyre was the more popular. In the movie there was a scene where Emily was talking about where she got the idea for Wuthering Heights, but she spoke so quickly I could not follow, and I have since tried to research it to no avail. Although googling did reveal plenty of theories about Asperger’s syndrome, as it seems popular these days to slap anyone the least bit anti-social with that label (think Doc Marten). There are plenty of books about Charlotte, (see postscript), but not so many about Emily or Anne (who I think of as the forgotten middle child). After seeing disheveled, weak, whiny immature Branwell it seems unlikely he could have been the muse for such a strong character as Heathcliff. (But would any sane woman want a Heathcliff in real life? All that anger and rage and jealousy just creates a whole lot of drama and angst, and wasn’t he a bit too possessive? Somewhat stalkerish? Better to marry someone more stable and level-headed if you want a happy home life, but I suppose if a wild passionate affair is your aim, then Heathcliff is your man).
The movie contained nothing new, if you have already read such bio’s before, including the usual dose of family dynamics. The ending was well done, three bright suns who were expected to dim their literary lights and walk invisible, in order to prevent embarrassment for the male heir of whom much had been expected, but little produced. As for the issue of addiction so rampant in our modern world, that too is an age old question. Their clergyman father could not decide whether to give in and supply his feckless son with drinking/opium money or just say no – the parent’s universal dilemma, to be an enabler or an enforcer of tough love? In the end, it didn’t matter anyway – TB won out. Tuberculosis caused by a drafty old parsonage and those windblown moors. Unfortunately, he took his two sisters with him.
I have to admit the part I found most disappointing in the movie was the cinematography of the moors. They must have filmed the outdoor scenes in winter for there was no heather to be seen, just a bleak and brown landscape and overcast skies. Perhaps they didn’t have a choice, or more likely they wanted that gloomy depressing atmosphere, for it all looked as dull and dreary as a November day.
Now that we are in late November, the weather has grown chilly and darkness descends early, and tonight the winds are howling and there is sleet against the windowpane. The perfect night to settle in by the fire with a cup of tea, and re-read Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte’s masterpiece. Although, I noticed that her name is not even on the cover of my 1984 copy, one of those classic editions with the fancy gold edging that are hard to find anymore.
I must confess, it has been a long time since that high school book report, and I cannot recall much of the story, other than it was a sad tale with a layered multi-generational plot. But I do remember the descriptive imagery of those famous windswept moors, and the tragic ending of Cathy and Heathcliff, two star-crossed lovers who were never meant to be, but who remain immortalized forever between a marble and gilt cover.
Postscript: Most likely Charlotte, Anne or Emily never dreamt at the time that their books would still be bestsellers over 150 years later. I wonder how those classics would fit into the Best Seller Code, which I will be blogging about next week.
Postscript: A goodreads review of Charlotte Bronte: A Fiery Heart
This latest 2016 biography of Charlotte Bronte is well worth the read, even if I do wonder why Charlotte always gets all the attention. I enjoyed it so much, I bought a bargain bin copy. A good choice for fans, both old and new.
Autumn is very late this year – the trees are just starting their annual decorating. I remember gazing out at this tree when I was in grade eight, as my desk was close to the window. While the teacher would be droning on about some uninteresting subject, I would be rejoicing in the glorious fall colors. We used to play soccer in the field after school, kicking the ball around under a canopy of orange and gold. It is still standing, although the other trees are gone, made way for a parking lot. I still get the pleasure of looking at it when I walk, I think of it as my tree, even though we are both a bit the worse for wear after forty plus years.
Chestnut trees are also a fall favorite of mine. My grandmother’s farm had chestnut trees in one of the fields and every Thanksgiving (Canadian, so mid-October), my little brother and I, brave but ready to run at the first sign of a big dumb cow, would gather them up and then use them to build fields for his barn set – what fun we had lining them up as fences for his toy animals. As a young girl who was horse-crazy, their glossy finish always reminded me of a chestnut mare or the sleek racehorses we would see at the fall fair. We have two giant chestnut trees in front of our library so when you go inside to pick up your books, you’d better beware lest you be boinked on the head by a falling chestnut. Last year one of the librarians displayed a chestnut wreath she had made on the checkout desk. She emailed me the instructions, but I was too late, so this year I was prepared and gathered up several baskets after the first windstorm.
First I shellacked them with a coat of acrylic varnish to maintain the shine, as they will dry out quickly. I raided my mothers art cupboard and used a spray can, which was quick and easy but you might get a more even application by painting it on. I did this a few days ahead of time to let it dry.
Next I took a ten inch straw wreath, (but any size would do, I started small to experiment, but hers was quite large and impressive), and wrapped it tightly with some nice decorating tape. Make sure any loose ends are secured with straight pins, as you don’t want it unraveling after the glue is on.
Then using the trusty old glue gun, attach the chestnuts in any pattern you wish. I mustadmit my first attempt was not perfect, as I have too much spacing between some of them. When collecting it is better to find chestnuts of different sizes and some with flat bottoms for odd spaces. The librarian had filled in the holes in between with Spanish moss, but after googling I found others have used small acorns to fill up the spaces. I prefer mine having the pretty decorating tape showing through.
It could be hung up with wire, but is fairly heavy so a table wreath with a candle in the middle is a nice option. I decided to place mine on a wicker tray and added some bows in the corner and some fairy lights.
You could use this for a centerpiece for American Thanksgiving, and then swap out the bows for something Christmasy. These are not the kinds of chestnuts you roast on an open fire however, as these are horse chestnuts, which are toxic to humans and animals. (The difference is in the shells, smoother vs spikier and the point).
horse chestnuts
Total cost – around $10 – $4 for the straw wreath, $4 for the ribbon (with Michael’s coupon), glue sticks, chestnuts free for the taking. All told it took me less than two hours to make, so this would be a nice idea for hosting a tea/craft afternoon.
Since the weather is cooler now and more conductive to baking, I made Date Nut Loaf, using the recipe from my farm cooking bible.
This is a quick and nutritious tea bread – buy the bite sized dates to save time.
Date nut loaf
If you are interested in more fall decorating on the cheap, check out last years (unpublished) blog, Autumn Decor, for some dollar store finds.
Book of the Day:
For more decorating ideas and recipes, see the Susan Branch book – Autumn from the Heart of the Home (published in 2004), for typical New England (Martha’s Vineyard) fare, or check out her website and sign up for her free monthly newsletters….they are always a cheerful read.
As a big fan of anything Susan Branch, this book one of my favorites. I re-read it every year to get in the mood for the season, for the inspiration, the decorating tips and the yummy recipes. Let the leaves fall….it’s time to get cozy.
After the Harvest – An Update on the Potager plus what to do with a twelve pack of snakes.
I had high hopes for The Potager back in June, but there may have been a reason my dad planted his garden in the corn field where it could sprawl among the rows of corn. Sprawl is the key word here. My potager was a testament to good soil, it was so prolific, but then it was a hot humid summer with lots of rain, ideal conditions for a rain forest.
Where are the monkeys?
It rained every weekend, and during the week, every few days in fact. This made the mosquitoes plentiful, and some new species of tiny black bug called no-see-ums appeared and left bites which itched for days. I had never seen a no-see-um before, but they left a lasting legacy of scratch marks. I gave up and refused to go out. Luckily, I did not have to water as Mother Nature did it for me, even as she left us bereft of any beach days.
The romaine lettuce was bountiful, and after the first crop, I replanted and it was bountiful too.
Three cucumbers sprouted from the small-garden plant, just the right amount for a Greek salad, with some tomatoes if only I could find them, and when I did find them, many had split from too much rain.
The tomatoes threatened to strangle everything so in early August I gave it a haircut. By mid-Sept it had grown back, requiring a regular trim every 4 to 6 weeks.
I untangled the sole squash, mistakenly uprooting it’s lifeline, and leaving the fruit to wither on the vine. Not deterred, it re-blossomed, producing a final harvest of five smallish orbs.
I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the multi-colored carrots, and so were the bunnies. We were both disappointed.
While the tops were luxurious, the carrots were sparse, spindly and white, (and maybe useful for the Simply White Dinner). They say you reap what you sow, except I planted three seed potatoes, and got two.
In mid-October (no frost yet, leaves barely changing), I dug up the rest of the russet gems. Not bad for a first crop, but hardly enough to get me through the winter like my Irish ancestors.
Luckily the orange carrots were plentiful, if somewhat deformed from being crammed into too small a space. The bunnies were delighted, as God is my witness, they would never go hungry again. (Scarlet O’Hara – Gone with the Wind). Due to the intricate web of netting I set up, the birds didn’t get as many of the strawberries, but then neither did I – it was too much of a hassle to open and re-close all those wires to pick one or two berries. While reading about another bloggers garden adventures, she recommended rubber snakes be set among the strawberry plants and moved every few days in order to fool the birds. Thank god she told me Walmart sells them online, because I don’t know where you would buy a twelve pack of snakes, and also thank god, those birds aren’t too bright. I’ll keep that in mind for next year, or maybe I’ll just freeze some of the carrots. I also wish I had put spacing and gravel around my boxes like Empty Nest Adventures did, for easier access.
Next years orange snakes?
After the Harvest is a time to reflect on lessons learned….next year plant less, no matter how much you may anticipate the early specimens being carried off by nighttime woodland creatures.
Plant one of everything, one squash, one cucumber, if it’s something you don’t want to breed like rabbits or possibly two like Noah and the Ark, two tomatoes, two potatoes, but no zucchini – ever.
Or just buy more boxes……the New England Arbor charity sale is coming up…..
After the Harvest
PS. There is nothing so wonderful as a golden field of wheat being harvested, or so awful as After the Harvest when you would have to bale all that straw into small bales, with a baler which was forever breaking down, and then load them into the hayloft, a process which was hot and dusty and took hours. Now every time I pass a field with those really big bales that are scooped up by a front end loader, I wonder, why didn’t someone think of that sooner?
If you have ever dreamed of packing in city life and moving to the country then this book is for you. Canadian author, Brent Preston turned fantasy into reality in this account of starting an organic vegetable farm and ten years of trial and error and back breaking labor before finally achieving a profitable outcome.
A must read manual for city dwellers and lovers of the organic food movement about a family who chose to leave the rat race and follow their dream of running a profitable organic vegetable farm. Dust off those fantaseeds and learn the gritty reality of where your food comes from.
Although he might have started out with a simple plan in mind, by the end of the ten years he had mechanized his operations, hired agricultural co-op students for summer labor, perfected a delivery service and marketing campaign, and ended up specializing in just three crops, one of which was lettuce. One of the things he did initially was to participate in the local farmer’s market every Saturday morning, but after a few years of this he packed it in. If you think about it, never a weekend off for you or your kids, up at 4 am to load up the truck and then later in the day unloading the unsold produce. Plus, while he said while he enjoyed the social aspect with the regular customers and the other vendors, there just wasn’t enough profit in it to continue. Better to cater to the fancy restaurants who would pay premium for anything fresh and organic.
There is no doubt we are what we eat and organic food is in – food in it’s natural state. Ask a person who has been lucky enough to live to be over ninety and chances are they grew up on a farm. So farmers markets are booming because organic food is so popular, but are the farmers doing well? I grew up on a farm, 100 acres, so I know how hard it is to make a living on one and how much work is involved. We had a dairy farm with Holsteins when I was a child and my dad had a small herd, three milking machines and a cream contract. He got up at 4:30 am every day to milk the cows, then he would come in, shave and have breakfast (bacon and eggs and perked coffee), as we were getting up for school, by 7:30 he would have left for his other job, home at 4:30, early supper, then milk the cows again, and he would be in bed by ten or falling asleep while reading the paper. On the weekends there were all the other chores to do. Even back then you couldn’t quite make a living on a farm without a second job, and with a growing family, he finally switched to beef cattle instead and cash cropped corn, soybeans and wheat, and while that was a lot of work too, we were finally able to take a family vacation without being tied to the milking schedule. Now farming is big business, a thousand acres or bust. There was an article in the local paper recently about the International Plowing Match which listed a combine as worth $500,000, and a tractor with GPS the same. My dad’s first tractor in 1948 cost $1000 and had a side seat upon which we kids would ride – heaven forbid, no one would let kids do that now. My elderly grandfather who died in 1951, was against the new-fangled modern machinery, as they had to sell his beloved Clydesdale horses in order to buy it. The last tractor my dad bought came equipped with air conditioning and a few years after he died, they had CD players, now they are steering themselves. While farming may be mostly mechanized now, organic vegetable farming is still labor intensive, especially during the harvest. It’s not a job many people want to do, and often the farmers must hire seasonal workers from Mexico or Jamaica to help out.
September is the best time of year to visit a farmer’s market as it is bursting with the last of the summer produce and the early fall harvest. While the peaches and berries may be almost done, the plums, pears, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, new potatoes and onions are coming in.
Our local market is open Wednesdays in the summer and Saturdays year round. Even in the winter, the inside of the old building is full of root vegetables and cheese and butcher shops, but in the nice weather the outside stalls see the most action. They really need more space, but it’s been in the same place for eighty plus years and you don’t mess with tradition. Located in an older residential part of town, there is one small parking lot and you have to drive round and round waiting for someone else to leave. With about 50 spaces for 200 people it’s kind of like musical chairs for grownups. Luckily, no one lingers long. While you can get a pour over coffee with freshly roasted beans, there is no cafe to sit in or cooked food available. We don’t see a lot of homeless people here but one day a woman with her cart piled high with all her worldly possessions asked me for some money, and with my hands full I shook my head no, but then after putting my produce in the car, I went to find her, and gave her ten dollars, which I suspected might go to drugs but who knows? A friend of mine keeps Tim Horton’s coffee shop gift cards to hand out for this reason, but there is something so very sad about begging in front of a place with so much plenty.
Even in the winter I will visit about once a month, because there is still cheese, and apples and oranges to buy, but I’ve often wondered why they open at 6 am. All the vendors are yawning by noon, or closing up early as they have been up since four loading their trucks. Wouldn’t 8-2 be more civilized hours? If they are supplying restaurants do they need to buy that early? If I don’t get there by 11:30 (or I’m still playing musical chairs), I may miss my favorite cheese stall or they might be out of Gouda.
The cheese wars can be fierce. There are two cheese vendors, right across from each other, and the Battle of The Gouda got so bad last year, they both decided not to post their prices. They will glare across the aisle if they think you have abandoned camp, but if they have run out, what is the alternative? My grandmother was Dutch, so I grew up on Gouda, the mild form, not the spicy seeded variety she bought from The European Shop.
Dutch Inheritance
The market cheese is better than at the grocery store and they will give you a sample if you are undecided. Even if you know you will like it, a sample will often tied you over if you got up early and missed breakfast. Buying cheese at the market is also much cheaper than in the grocery store so I usually stock up on aged cheddar as well as the Gouda. The one cheese vendor has recently retired and been bought out by the egg lady beside them, who I don’t think has gotten the hang of the weigh scale yet as she is very generous with her pounds, or kgs. I don’t buy eggs from her though as I can’t stomach those brown eggs with the bright yellow yolks. It reminds me of the eggs growing up on the farm, but I know free range chickens are all the rage and I am sure they are full of omega-3’s.
I like to look at the flowers, the glads are out now, but I seldom buy as I have lots of flowers at home.
I have my own semi-successful potager, so I don’t feel the need to buy tomatoes, cucumbers or lettuce, but one whiff of the dill brings back memories of my mother canning dill pickles. You can get a free bunch of dill with every large purchase.
The early apples are starting to come in, which will soon mean spies and pies. I can smell the cinnamon now.
My favorite time of year is when the summer fruits are available, the strawberries and peaches. You can get a bushel of overripe fruit for ten dollars and make a whole batch of jam for what you might pay for two jars. There is a jam vendor also, for when you run out, who also sells homemade fruit pies. So definitely there is a cost savings, and the food is so much fresher and better tasting, not to mention not loaded with tons of preservatives and artificial ingredients.
Not everything is better at the market though. Sadly, it is home to the world’s worst bakery which sells the most tasteless bread ever baked, not to mention tarts with uncooked dough and a scant quarter inch of fruit filling. The next time I walk pass, the owner asks if I want something so I venture a tactful complaint – I figure if no one tells him he can’t fix it. He tells me he hired a new baker so I bought butter tarts this time. Same thing. I gave up. There must be an art to making play-doh like that? Butter tarts are a national institution in Canada but I have a fine recipe inherited from my mother. We have much better bakeries in town but I suppose once a vendor has tenure in the building, it’s for life, and so many people don’t know what good pastry tastes like. But the bread – there’s simply no excuse. Bread is the staff of life, but so is good nutritious food. If you ate today, thank a farmer!
Please join me while we take a last peek at summer and enjoy the first signs of fall….no pumpkin spice or mums involved!
Let’s say goodbye to the flowers first.The petunias fared well with all thatrain.
The dinner plate hibiscus are always late to the party, but they are like Beyonce, they make such a statement when they finally arrive that nobody minds.
The Rose of Sharon was so full of flowers it bowed down to Mother Nature.
But the morning glories were not so glorious, lots of foliage draped over the back fence but no buds in sight.
They were very late last year so I still have hope, but here’s a link to last years (unpublished blog), A Glorious September Morning, plus a bee having his last drink of the summer.
The nectar of the gods
My mother always grew glads and zinnias in the farm garden, but this year my glads were a disaster both in color and form. My vision of them lining the back fence like little pink soldiers faded into the sporadic appearance of a spike of pale lavender or orange. Lavender is okay, and peach I could handle, but I dislike orange, and pale orange is even worse. Is it too much to expect the color on the box is the color you get?
glads
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Next year I’ll just buy some at the farmer’s market.
I have never had any luck growing zinnias but my neighbors were prolific,
Zinnias
and the water lilies in their pond finally bloomed.
The sunflowers are drooping but are decorative enough for a vase.
Sunflowers in a Vase
The lavender was late as I replanted it all in the spring, but it still bloomed if not extravagantly.
The hot humid rainy summer produced a rain forest jungle of a vegetable garden which desperately needs sorting out. More on the potager in another blog, after the harvest.
Where are the monkeys?
The monarchs have all flown south, except this little guy with an injured leg/wing who I rescued from a parking lot. He was able to crawl a bit so I brought him home to lie among the lavender.
This year I have seen more monarchs than I have in years. After the township sprayed all the ditches, they almost became extinct, but now that gardeners are planting milkweed again, they are slowly making a comeback. They tend to congregate in Point Pelee Park in southern Ontario on their annual migration route, before crossing Lake Erie to the US and eventually Mexico. Tens of thousands cluster to rest and wait for the right wind conditions to cross the 40 km stretch of lake – the park posts the daily monarch counts on it’s social media pages. One picture is of a friends backyard near the lake, and one is a weather-watcher picture of Point Pelee. I wonder how such a small creature can make such a long journey? For more information on monarchs, check out garden blogger Invitation to the Garden‘s wonderful post on The King of Butterflies. She also has posts about the different kinds of milkweed you can plant to attract butterflies.
just dropping in to say goodbye
Rendevous at Point Pelee Park
Our last look at the beach, and my favorite photo of this summer.
Beach Day
Our first look at fall, the maple leaves they are a changing….
The chestnuts are starting to fall from the trees near the library. Chestnuts always bring back memories of gathering them on my grandmother’s farm at Thanksgiving. Last year one of the librarians made the nicest wreath from chestnuts…..nothing I would attempt as I’m sure it involved lots of glue.
The crab-apples are ripening and getting ready to drop and annoy all the grass cutters.
The first of the apples are being harvested. We stopped at an orchard last week and they had Galas and Mac’s just picked that morning, a bumper crop.
The scarecrow festival has started with a large party in the town square.
The crunch of dry leaves underfoot and the smell of wood smoke reminds us summer is winding down. The days are growing shorter, it’s getting dark by 7:30, time to go inside, light the candles and welcome fall. And if you are in the mood to feather your nest check out last years (unpublished) Autumn Decor blog for some cozy fall ideas.
Fall Flowers
There will be a harvest moon on Sept 24, so here’s some music for a fall night. This song is about as jazzy as I get but it has great lyrics and it always reminds me of my student days and walking home through a park after pub crawling….not sure anyone would do that now in downtown Toronto, they’d probably be mugged or shot.
“Well, it’s a marvelous night for a moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
‘Neath the cover of October skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling…”
Remember all the fun stuff about back to school when you were a kid, before the reality of homework set in? Please join me for some arts and crafts and some back to school shopping in pursuit of classic plaid. Sorry this is so tardy, I know it’s mid-September already, but the dog ate the first draft…
When I was a kid in the sixties, art class was a rare treat, saved for special occasions when the teacher was too frazzled to do anything else. I recall making mothers and fathers day cards but that was about it. I was never a Brownie or Girl Guide. In older grades, I got a C in art which nixed my dreams of becoming a fashion designer. I can’t draw a straight line or paint. But today I am a regular patron of Michaels the craft store. Their 50% off coupons lure me in every time.
I ran into someone a few weeks ago and she was looking for plants for her parents grave-sites. We started talking about those hideous purple and yellow gravestone wreaths, and I asked why are you buying those when you can make your own much nicer and cheaper, with a green wire hanger from Michaels and some flowers from the dollar store. She thought that was an excellent idea, so I hope someone else might find some of these ideas inspiring. Here’s a link to last years (unpublished) post Arts and Crafts 101: (As I recently explained in my one year anniversary post, my blog was private last fall for the first three months).
I had a quick look through the mall recently and the stores are full of plaid flannel tops, despite the fact that the forecast this weekend is for the same hot and humid weather we have had all summer. You would think we were a country of lumberjacks, but then plaid is a perennial fall favorite. Here’s a link to my blog from last fall, Mad for Plaid. Enjoy!
(I bought a new pencil case at the dollar store for old-times sake – it might be good for stashing makeup in or all those small things which fall to the bottom of your purse).
Even though we have just turned the clocks back to daylight savings time and are savouring that extra hour of sleep, I am planning ahead for spring. Every fall I ask myself why do I work outside in the freezing cold to plant bulbs? Yes I know, it’s good exercise, there is the satisfying crunch of leaves underfoot, fresh air is good for you and you can work up an appetite for a hearty bowl of homemade soup, all of the above are correct, but the main reason is this.
Okay, so that is not mine, it is a property along the water which has an old mansion in need of updating and a large wooded lot, but someone in the past planted daffodil bulbs among the trees and they have reseeded themselves over the years so that we could have this glorious show every spring.
This is mine. Certainly, reseeding has never worked for me, but maybe you need heirloom bulbs. I bought mine at the grocery store as by the time I got around to visiting the nursery the selection was sparse, although I did have good luck with this hot pink tulip bulb last year.
Whatever I plant looks nice the next spring, then eventually thins out and disappears, and I can’t blame the squirrels as they don’t like daffodil bulbs.
Squirrel Gathering Nuts – 2010
They have great fun relocating the tulip bulbs however, (and munching on my Thanksgiving squash), although this year I am going to outsmart them by throwing some human hair, courtesy of my last haircut, into the hole as a deterrent.
I have a few crocuses scattered here and there too, always the first sign of spring, but I don’t have much luck with them either. Maybe the squirrels save them for desert.
I saw this display on one of my walks last year and loved the mix of colours – so cheerful looking on a rainy spring day.
No matter what you think about climate change, the seasons do seem to be shifting. It’s hard to know when to plant now that the falls are so mild and extend well into December. If you plant too early and we have a mild spell in January the bulbs are pushing up through the ground and then are deluged with a foot of snow and two more months of cold weather. The first week of November I still had lettuce I had planted late August, and some strawberries although they had not ripened.
A few roses were still blooming, while the trees were changing colour.
Even the geraniums were putting on a late show.
I don’t do much in the garden to prepare for fall so I really can’t complain. My thirty or so rose bushes (most of them easy care Pink Double Knock Outs) are better pruned in the spring, and I just let the lavender, hydrangeas, and hibiscus die off, as protection for the roots over the winter. Once the patio furniture is put away and the last of the leaves mowed up, the yard looks bare, but somehow it is a nice sight. If it’s a warm day you can sit outside and read and catch the last rays of sunlight, and not feel guilty that you should be doing something gardenwise – watering, weeding or raking.
The garden bench and birdbath have been brought into the garage,
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and the birdfeeder set out ready for the winter and the cardinals to arrive.
To everything there is a season…..as lovely as autumn is, it will soon be the season for soup and hibernating, because one of these days we are going to wake up to this!
Song of the Day: Turn turn turn – The Byrds – music link
It’s apple picking time…. which means apple pie season, my favourite time of the year. I don’t actually pick apples, (I’m lazy), but instead buy them from the farmer’s market which is supplied by a local orchard. Although on a nice fall weekend we might drive down river on a leaf tour to a place where you can pick your own but which also sells to customers from a small stand. They always have spy apples there, which are the best for cooking, despite what people say about all those new varieties. (I once had a grocery store clerk tell me you could make a pie with Macintosh, and I suppose you could if you wanted applesauce). Spy apples are always later in the season, but well worth the wait, their tart taste cancels out some of the sweetness of the sugar.
When this farmland was first settled everyone grew apples, and stored them in root cellars for cold storage. From my genealogy records, according to the 1860 agricultural census, they had to record how many acres of orchards they had, so it was an important crop, and a symbol of prosperity at the time. It was also their main source of vitamin C over the winter, and I wonder if the expression, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” came from it’s prevention of scurvy. Both the homeplace and my grandparent’s farm had the remnants of the original apple orchards from over a hundred years ago. My dad’s farm had mostly crab apple trees, and a few eating apples, but the trees were so old the fruit was basically inedible, although the blossoms did have a heavenly aroma in the spring. The orchard was right beside the house and during my teenage years pity the poor sibling who would have to cut the grass in the orchard with a push mower and run over all those hard little things, which made for a very bumpy experience. (A riding lawn mower was the best thing ever invented). My grandmother’s orchard had better tasting snow apples, and on Thanksgiving my younger brother and I would climb the fence and brave the field full of large but rather dumb cows to pick some, and also to gather chestnuts, which my brother used as fences for his farm animal set. My grandmother lived to be 96 and every year she went apple picking with my uncle to the orchards down river. Her old farmhouse had a little unheated vestibule beside the kitchen where she would store the apples in bushel baskets, so when you entered her house you would always get a lovely whiff of the smell of ripe apples. Someday soon my house will smell marvelous from the cinnamony scent of warm apple pie, in the meantime I’ll just have to light some apple scented candles.
Artist of the Day: Helen McNicoll (from time to time I may feature a new artist I have discovered, unless otherwise specified all the other paintings are by my mother).
The Apple Gatherer – Helen McNicoll – 1911
Last month I went to a talk on the Group of Seven at our regional art gallery. The speaker showed a slide of a painting by Helen McNicoll, called The Apple Gatherer which was painted in 1911. She was a contemporary of the Group of Seven, but being female, not considered part of the group. I think I much prefer Helen’s painting, as it is full of colour and light. Maybe next spring I will plant an apple tree…
Quote of the Day: “I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony, grow apple trees and honey bees, and snow white turtle doves.”
Song of the Day: I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing – by the New Seekers – click here for music link
Book of the Day: Apples to Oysters by Margaret Webb has a chapter devoted to apple orchards.
An interesting read about Canadian farmers, starting with apple growers and moving across the provinces…..oysters, cheese, vineyards, wheat etc. I found the stories fascinating and being from a rural background could relate to the appeal of the farming lifestyle, as well as the uncertainty of the farming business as most of the stories involved smaller generations-old family farms. If you ate today, thank a farmer!
Mother Nature is starting to decorate for fall. Despite the warm days, the tips of the maple trees are starting to turn red and gold. I love to decorate for fall inside too, mostly with dollar store finds, but you can get very creative with dollar store finds if you weed out the tacky ones, the plastic pumpkins and fake looking wreaths. Every year I haul out the same things from the basement storage area and spend an enjoyable hour or two making the house look cozy for the cooler days ahead. I put away the seashells and the starfish from the fireplace hearth, string the mantel with fairy lights, and switch out the floral pillows for plaid. The days are getting shorter and soon it will be dark at five pm and time to hibernate inside, because as lovely as autumn is, winter isn’t far behind. Enjoy it while you can. In the words of Anne Shirley, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” (Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery)
I put two $4 swags from the dollar store around the lantern on my dining room table and strung fairy lights underneath ($11 at winner’s with a 40% coupon) for a romantic fall centrepiece.
A $3 garland of fall leaves lines the mantel, with small bittersweet wreaths decorating the candles at both ends.
Add some fairy lights – and it’s magic!
More fairy lights in urns on the side, and a bowl of apples on the hearth.
I bought this bunch of Indian corn at the grocery store last year, and the bouquet of autumn leaves is another dollar store bargain.
More bittersweet wreaths around the candles…(you can see I still have wallpaper….it is an old house and I have not finished renovating it inside, but I kind of like it….it’s very B&Bish)
Even the cat gets into the act….
Now it looks as colorful inside as it does outside. Happy Thanksgiving!
Tom Turkey – 2013
Farewell to Summer Song: Chad and Jeremy – click here for music link
And here is a picture of him in September at his funeral. 
Due to the intricate web of netting I set up, the birds didn’t get as many of the strawberries, but then neither did I – it was too much of a hassle to open and re-close all those wires to pick one or two berries. While reading about another bloggers
The last tractor my dad bought came equipped with air conditioning and a few years after he died, they had CD players, now they are steering themselves. While farming may be mostly mechanized now, organic vegetable farming is still labor intensive, especially during the harvest. It’s not a job many people want to do, and often the farmers must hire seasonal workers from Mexico or Jamaica to help out.
thehomeplaceweb 