It's a windy night tonight, steadily windy, with the occasional strong gust. You can hear the treetops rustling, dancing with one another in the dark. Wooden windchimes >bonk< against one another outside the living room porch and tree bells ring on the other side of the house. Acorns and smaller branches occasionally batter against the roof.

It's 68 degrees, so it's a nice warm wind, though. It feels good blowing in my hair when I stand or sit near the open window. There's power in the air, you can feel it. And the evidence to back up that feeling was found in the large tree limb I saw fallen on the road just up the street on my way home.

There's an official wind advisory posted, warning us that such winds could cause damage, but are expected to begin falling off around 2:00 a.m., as the cool front moves in.

Along with the wind, we're getting occasional bursts of rain, with a light spattering on most of the breezes in between. The pond and the ducks and the gardens will certainly benefit, since the rain is supposed to continue through the earlier half of the day.

After posting my wry little comment about the fall foliage of the poison ivy, I realized that there are some other bursts of autumn color on our predominantly brown and green landscape...and so I've tried to share a few more of those with you tonight.

The strangest of which is this orangey-pink fungi I found growing on a tree stump outside the kitchen door.

The Daffodil Parade

But first, I'm checking in with what's going on in our gardens today...and giving some love to the hyacinths, which are coming into bloom in waves at our place. Holla, Hyacinths!

These in the front of the house were an Easter pot from 2006 which I divided and planted out after the holiday, as I hope to do with this year's, tomorrow.

And in the back garden, I seem to have planted even more of them than I remembered...but it has been two autumns here now.

I loved looking at this picture and realizing I could see so many other things I'd also introduced to this place blooming in the background.



Here's a closer look at one of those great species tulips.

It's great to share these pictures with all of you who enjoy them. Ah, but there are things I don't, or can't, capture on film to share with you.

There's the wonderful cardinal song that goes on throughout the day (even if it sounds like a car alarm the first time you hear it around 4:20 a.m.). Or the bluejays I spy out the back window, picking through the winter's fallen pine needles for the right ones to line their nests.

And there are squirrels, usually running in pairs this time of year, chasing one another through the more distant woods, when they're not hanging off of some bird feeder or other. It's quite a show, no matter where you look.


Yes, the forsythia bushes are bursting out everywhere on the Cape, including our little bush by the pond, which is sporting something like twenty-three little blossoms along its mid-branches.

Under the bedroom window, an oranged-cupped daffodil stepped up to the mike, crooning over the do-wop of his yellow cousins.

In another part of the garden, Primrose and Pansy meet for some fresh gossip. Of course they are all smiles to the hapless passerby.




A singular pale daffodil nods along the path to the kitchen door, not far away from this spectacular little primrose, of the candelabra variety, which just opened its first buds this morning.


* * *

And now, yesterday I promised some daffodils.

They really are the dominant bloomer here this time of year and this is as good a time as any to remind you that the annual Brewster in Bloom festivities will be going on this weekend, if you are in the area.

Pretty often, you can find any variety of daffodils in these big, show-stopping chorus line numbers...and today, I found plenty of that abundance around Eastham's Town Center, starting with Windmill Green itself.

This was another day in the sixties for us...great days, indeed.

The actual sun was a little sporadic, slipping in and out of assorted clouds that passed over us here and there throughout the day, but that didn't make it any less idyllic.


Here's a real springtime paradise just a few steps north of the Green. This is a pleasant surprise for the passing motorist, as there's no long vista of this great display of daffs woven in long lines around the bases of assorted evergreens.

I've always dreamed of planting long ribbons of daffodils like this (though I've also always imagined I'd be partial to planting rivers of grape hyacinths...). Part of the joy of being a gardener is making these pretty pictures, hopefully long-lasting ones, that will bring a smile to the beholder(s) for years to come.


I'm a fan of the Eastham PD's plantings of rich dark purple hyacinths and bright daffodils.

I also enjoy this great wild hedge of forsythia that blooms in Orleans.

You see so many which have been unfortunately already pruned for the season (maybe in the fall), their blooms down low to the ground, like a damp firecracker...so I like seeing this one's unfettered display.

Eastham Windmill Green in the fog. 5:20 p.m.