Tonight will be our first hard frost of the Fall… We will dip to 29. Days are shorter (11 hours). Fall has been gracious, but now it is time to accept that mild weather is ready to take a break… When we think of all the horrible weather different parts of our country have faced and many are still contending with, we have been exceptionally blessed…
I cannot believe it! We had visitors, well, more than “visitors”… friends! An old shipmate of Scott’s and his lovely wife, Jean Marie and Steve, came to visit last week. They were gracious enough to spend the whole day with us. We giggled and laughed over old and freshly made memories, yet I never took a picture of them. How we could spend all day together and not take a single picture? Only my incompetence accounts for that.
We took them up to the Adirondacks and took great pictures of fall leaves. They toured our cottage and saw all the projects that need to be done, but not a single picture of them! Then, just as they disappeared down the block on to their next adventure, I turned to Scott and said, “Oh my goodness, I didn’t even take a picture of them.” But, please know we had a fantastic visit with our friends… pictures or not…
Now to autumn trees… we did drive up into Adirondack State Park to see the glorious changing colors of our Fall foliage. We saw various shades of red, yellow, purple, black, orange, pink, magenta, blue and brown. We saw trees fighting to their last to hold onto their green leaves… relinquishing one here to orange, one there to yellow, and the occasional peak of a brown leaf ready to drift slowly to earth to begin its long journey to give back nutrients to the forest floor. We acquired a few lovely pictures to memorialize the shift of season from Summer to Fall. And a portrait of a magnificent birch, one of Scott’s favorite trees.
And… more about trees. Trees in our yard! Trees continue to turn up in our yard… our front yard and our back yard. At the moment, in our front yard we have, besides over thirty bushes, a hawthorn, a magnolia, a wisteria, a flowering cherry, a flowering pear, a dogwood, a flowering poplar tulip, a weeping willow, a birch, and a paperbark maple on its way to join our small front yard forest. Not counting the hundred daffodils, crocus, tulips, gladiolus, and iris we have planted.
In the back yard we have nine different varieties of blueberries, three cranberry bushes, three apple trees… a Macintosh, Granny Smith, and a Honey Crisp. Then,we have three kinds of cherry trees… a Bing, a Rainer, and a Bada Bing, plus two we bought last spring whose type has yet to be identified. Finally, we have three hazel nut trees, and a Keiffer pear tree waiting for a Bosc to arrive in the Spring for cross pollination, a Freestone peach tree, and a flowering plum.
By next Spring we should have the start of a lovely habitat for our feathered friends and little wild critters…
