YAY..!
My Purple Hyacinth Beans have finally started blooming!



I think I'll go back to Morning Glories and Moonflowers next year.



sow what you will...

endless...
just endless...
I just finished a six hour marathon of raking and hauling leaves from the grounds around Stately Sad Old Goth Manor and it's already covered with a fresh coating of leaves. It's a good thing I enjoy raking, I guess. And, it's a beautiful fall day, just barely in the sixties, a steady, moderate breeze from the Northeast and big puffy clouds. My closest neighbor on my side of the road, who is about two hundred feet away, has his wood stove going and it's scenting my yard. I love that smell. It's primal and reassuring, mysterious and friendly at the same time. Before we switched over to coal (yes, how very non-green of us, huh? I support the mining industry, what can I say?) we used to have a Vermont Castings Vigilant wood stove in our dining room and a small Jotul in the living room and during the winter, the house was filled with that wonderful wood fire smell. It was really great to come inside from the cold and cozy up the to stove. On holidays, I'd open the doors on the Vigilant and put the screen in and we'd enjoy an open fire. Nothing like it.
Coal is ok, it's cheaper and much less labor intensive, for me, anyway and it burns a long time and gives off a nice steady heat. It's the better choice for sustained heating, but gives off a horrible sulfur odor when you open the door to stoke it or feed it. Not very pleasant, but the benefits outweigh the occasional scent of Hades. The living room stove is on the way out, I'm adding an extra heating duct, with a thermostat driven fan to help draw air from the furnace into the room and I'm putting electric radiant heating under the new flooring, so I won't need it anymore. I think I'll move it to the workshop, if and when that ever gets built.
Well, I'm going to have a bottle of Sam Adams Black Lager and a few smokes and kick back for a while. Tomorrow is redoing the outside of our living room bay window. I'm redoing the trim and cladding under the window to give it a more traditional look that better fits the house. Gotta get stuff like that done while the weather cooperates.
I think if the wind dies down a bit tonight, I might get a fire going in the fire pit and spend my birthday eve with pipe and flagon and the waning moon.
Later, friends.


sow what you will...

you never know...

what you're going to find when you go mushroom hunting at night...




sow what you will...

out and about...

I'm going to be spending the day working on the current Albatross, the living room remodeling project, putting up furring strips to I can add a false sheet rock ceiling between the exposed, hand hewn beams that support the upstairs floor. But before I get started, I thought I'd wander around the grounds and see what was happening...



Mushrooms abound again...











The birds will have plenty of wild rose hips to snack on this winter...



He watches over the kitchen garden...



And our little Hobbit porch light, with pine cone wreath for the squirrels to munch on...



Couldn't you see that hanging beside the front door of Bag End..?

Well, to work, to work.
Enjoy your day.




sow what you will...

raking leaves...

I just got finished raking about a third of the grounds. It took me almost as long as it used to take me to do the whole property ten years ago. I'm not moving as fast as I used to, I guess. I think that's less do to age than it is to do with a different attitude toward that particular task, now that I'm a bit older. I used to attack that task as a necessary evil when I was younger, something that got in the way of doing other things, time wasted, energy wasted. I'd stew over things while I raked, getting into a bad mood that made the job seem longer and harder than it really was. As I've gotten older, though, it's become an opportunity for me to get outside, spend some time with the Autumn sun on my back and the breeze in my face. I'm a little more wont to observe things when I rake, stopping to look at the swelling hips in the rose hedges, wondering what's living in that new little hole on the edge of the kitchen garden, listening to the birds and the bugs while I casually rake away. I now look around the grounds and see how much I've accomplished with my old rake, rather than looking at what still needs to be done. Right now, the lawn is clean and the grass, which really needs another mowing, is laying in a pattern that traces where and how I raked. By tomorrow morning, it will probably be covered again and I'll probably go out and rake some more, but not with any urgency or haste. I've realized it's not a contest, it's just one more thing that you do in life because it needs to be done and it's fun to do. I might even chance burning a small pile tomorrow, rather than carting them away to the huge, ever evolving pile that borders one side of the wooded lot in back, my wild compost pile that takes care of itself. I miss the smell of burning leaves. When I was a kid, there was an old fellow who lived down the road who would rake piles of Sycamore leaves into the dirt road, light them up and stand there, resting his hands and his chin on the handle of his rake and just watch them burn. When I'd smell them, I'd wander down there to say hi and enjoy that special time with him. He was very old and always wore bib overalls and a green cap, both threadbare and stained, more a part of him than just clothing. He'd always say, "hey, there, young fella", and that was about it. I'd sit on his front lawn and watch the curls of smoke and bask in that delightful odor, while he'd just stand there, absorbed in his own thoughts. I didn't intrude. I guess I'm getting to be a bit like him. As I get closer to the end of my times, I make more of my times. I think I learned a lot from him, even though we hardly ever talked.


sow what you will...