The Earth Turns

And so a few days pass and it's been a week suddenly. I figured I'd check in and let you all know what's been going on, more or less.

We had a little rain this evening, perhaps in sympathy for those standing in the face of Hurricane Ike's arrival along the Gulf Coast this overnight, but generally, it's been a week of lovely days and pleasant evenings...and when possible I've snuck off to enjoy little bits of nature here and there throughout a week filled with other things.

I've now got telephone, cable and internet service at the Nest, which is fun, but the blogging could cut into my actually accomplishing things, too, so I beg your patience with sporadic posting. I'll try to make the wait worth your while.

Thanks to some regular watering, the recently potted up annuals seem to be recovering nicely from such late-season treatment.


Most of the paint has arrived now and I've even made a bit of a start on that, getting a nice solid two coats of Cape Cod Gray (which as you can see has a nice blue cast in most lights) onto the walls in the bedroom...as a base for things to come.

I sort of enjoyed this tribal-looking mark I got on my palm in the process...looks like the sort of cool representation of the sun you might see on a cave wall somewhere, eh?

I really like the way the Cape Cod Gray plays with the green that was in so many rooms here. Much of the green will go away, partly because there's been some spackling work and it'd be too tricky to try to match the color. Fortunately, some green walls are spackle free and I'll be preserving those as accents of a sort.

I know this next photo isn't especially clear, but I could hardly resist teasing you with the image of what I found myself sketching on one of the living room walls the other evening. It should embiggify for your straining eyes' ease.

In between applications of the blue paint the other night, I took a break and found myself over at Nauset Beach, on the ocean side. It's about a five minute drive from the Nest, especially with the minimal traffic we're seeing out here now that September's here for sure.

It was after dark, but the sight and sound of the crashing surf in the moonlight was pretty amazing and I just sat on a bench and enjoyed the show for a while.

Another night, I found myself at First Encounter Beach, watching the sun sinking in the west, spreading its saturated colors across the sky in its wake.

All the colors of the rainbow were there in the sky, starting at the horizon and climbing toward the violet heavens. In the center of it all, a sailboat moved silently across the bay, perfectly silhouetted, making it postcard perfect.

That night I forgot my camera, naturally, so you'll have to trust me on that.


As the sun's light faded from the sky and the moon rose in the east at my back, I heard a thrilling sound from the marsh behind me, as the Coyote Revival Meeting got underway. They were far enough away that I wasn't concerned, most likely on the far side of Bee's Creek, but it's funny how the sinking sun and the ebbing tide take away so much sound from an evening, making the cry seem all the louder.

First it was just a single howl, and then the call and response of a second...and then a third...and then all of a sudden there was a great howling frenzy of them, all greeting the moon as she took the sky above.

Someone wrote recently to ask if the Monkey Slippers were still around and yes, they most definitely are. As the season turns and the days cool a little, they are becoming pretty popular again.



We bachelors are managing pretty well, but since it's a landscape of boxes and milkcrates and such still, it's really a cat's playground and Badum's been zooming through the night, or slinking through stacks of boxes and books, or batting around catnip mice to his heart's content, when he's not lying around on his back, admiring the ceiling.

He's almost always met me at the door when I came home, not just here. But it's fun at the new place, as I can hear him talking to me from inside the door as I climb the stairs after being out. Well, until we got television...and now I've caught him snoozing a time or two.

Last weekend, during the move, a misplaced half-packet of cat grass seed appeared and once we'd settled in a little here, I got the seeds planted...Sunday night, I think. Already, it's begun to sprout and will be something to make my buddy feel a little more at home. Plus it's fun to have something new growing.


On the way to the bank this morning, I spotted this pair of birds soaring in the sky above First Encounter Marsh, sometimes just hanging in the air on the breezes from the bay.

Although they look like big seagulls in this particular shot, I did get a much closer look at them before the camera was ready and the wingspan here was truly impressive. I wasn't able to actually get out of the car (there's really no place to pull over), tho fortunately a lack of other vehicles coming along allowed me to stop and get a few snaps.

I still can't say for sure if they were eagles or hawks...I've seen both in that area before...and I suppose it's possible they were ospreys, whom I'm really not familiar with. No matter their identity, they made an impressive sight on an overcast morning.

Just Another Day

The annuals really own the garden this time of year. Most of the big ticket perennials have come and gone. Of the fabulous lilies only green leafy stalks remain. Just a few of the former multitude of daisies are still showing their cheery faces. There is still some phlox to tease the eye and scent the air.

But the day belongs to the hardest working residents in the garden: the allyssum, the marigolds, bachelor's buttons and sulphur cosmos.

The other cosmos still have not joined the show yet, though there are buds forming. I can't believe they are waiting so long this year. I think there's some reason behind that I've not quite figured out. The seeds were certainly sown early enough. Perhaps the soil is too rich for them. The plants are tall enough, some of them topping off at nearly four feet.



I hadn't thought I was going to show you any morning glories this morning, though there were plenty in bloom. And then I spotted this bumblebee tight-rope-walking along one of the twining stems, clambering over tomorrow morning's flower buds.

And this pale pink morning glory was a bit of a surprise, since I've not seen any this color before today. At first, I thought it was actually a bindweed flower, but a closer look showed it to be another color of glory heard from.

Pretty, eh?
Here's something for the Big Book of the Minorly Weird: at work today, one of the waitresses was cutting lemons and discovered this lemon with another lemon which had grown inside the first.

Hardly a sign of the coming apocalypse, but vaguely interesting nonetheless.

We heard of a severe storm warning around 1:00 this afternoon, and within minutes it was swirling in on us, thunder echoing in the distance to the west.

In a matter of minutes, the clouds billowed out of nowhere to obscure the sun and the sky grew very dark. It was sort of amazing how quickly it happened. I learned late tonight that there was actually a microburst causing lots of tree damage not far from the Cape Cod Canal at about that time, which explains the speed with which everything was moving.


As the thunder continued booming and lightning flashed across the sky, the gusty winds arrived first and then the rain. At first, it made a sort of fog as it came in contact with the hot pavement and evaporated.

Then suddenly it was falling in sheets and making visible the great gusts of wind that were blowing in a variety of directions.

I understand there was golf-ball sized hail connected with the microburst, but we didn't see any of that in Orleans, just lots of that heavy, heavy rain, sometimes blowing sideways, helping us feel a sort of kinship with our friends and family in Florida who were braving the battering wind and rain of Tropical Storm Fay.

I did download an impressive radar map of the storm's track and another detailing the frequency and location of the lightning strikes...but sadly, I've misplaced those files, so you'll just have to trust me when I say it was a big, unexpected storm.

[EDIT: 8/20/08, 8:20 am: here's a link to more coverage of this storm, if you're interested.]

After work, I stopped by Rock Harbor for a look out across the bay, where it was cloudier than I'd expected, since we'd ended up having a pretty sunny afternoon following the storm. It wasn't until I got home to Harwich that I discovered that they were having a second storm about that time.

It's much cooler this evening, with temperatures dropping down into the low sixties...and now, after midnight, we've slipped down into the 50s. Definitely a nice night for a sweatshirt. I think I'll sleep well for a change.

There's still some fast moving clouds passing by overhead, and I didn't find the right setting to capture those crisply on the new camera yet.

But really, I wasn't so into photography tonight and mostly just sat in front of the TV and enjoyed some more Olympics coverage. Men's diving, women's gymnastics, BMX bike racing, more running and hurdle-jumping.

It's all good, though I am often a little disappointed that, in trying to make sure we see as much of the games as possible, some of the "lesser" contenders don't get their televised moment of glory. We see all those countries' athletes enter the stadium on the first night, and many of them are never seen again.

Succeed or fail, they are all part of the beauty of the Olympic experience.

Sunday Garden Report

I have completed the Dragonfly Trifecta!

In July, Patrick danced with dragonflies and Joe had cocktails with one. Today, one of these garden visitors decided to stop teasing me and posed on the faded head of a plantain flower. And what a chance to see what the new camera could do.

Do click to embiggen and admire those wings!

Yes, there's a new camera. It's been a tax-free weekend here in Massa chusetts and I'd been saving up some money saved from not smoking (30 days today!!) and such since my old camera went on to its reward back in the spring.

So now I'm experimenting with something new, an Olympus FE-310. So far, I'm having a great time with it, though I'm not sure I'm interested in the photo program that came along with the camera...my PhotoPlus 6.0 does all I need it to for developing purposes.


The first tentative photos were taken at that house party I visited last night. To the left are Vera and Chicao, two of our hosts...and down below is the whole bunch of us.

There had been other guests earlier, whom I unfortunately missed, but it was still fun to hang out for a while with everyone who was there when I arrived after a long night at work. Good tunes, a little dancing and Vera's special Brazilian potato salad!

Mmm mmm.


Here's me with Maria Paolo, Rocio and Katerin, who are all here on work visas from Columbia this summer.

By day, they are working as chamber maids, but in the evenings, the make the best team trio of dishwashers our restaurant has known in years! Plus, they're funny and sweet and great to party with!!


Despite the late night (it was around 2 a.m. when those pictures were taken!), I was up pretty early this morning, since I couldn't wait to get the new camera out for a spin in the garden.

A fresh round of bachelor's buttons provided some nice camera fodder. These little flowers - each one's about an inch across - just keep coming and coming...and in a great assortment of colors.




I just love the blue ones, but there are many of them up and down the fence garden. Naturally, I'm being won over by the purple ones in the color range, which were part of a range of about five different colors, so they are fewer in number.


The dappled sunlight behind this pair of purple pals is pretty delicious, too.



There's lots to learn about the new camera, so eventually I will have to sit down and have some quality time with the manual, to make sure I'm making full use of everything.

But I'm happy to say that its also pretty intuitive, and I've been having fun exploring some of the different settings.

As you might guess, my favorite, and one of the most appropriate to the Midnight Garden, is the macro-focus...and this camera also has a super-macro focus, and to celebrate I managed to stalk a few bees who were visiting the border this morning for your entertainment.


As you can see, sunshine made a full return to the Cape today and it really felt like summer. Looks like that'll be staying with us a for a few days, which is a comfort, since it's clear now the summer season is in decline.

In a moment typical of the sort of Charlie Brown-y moments which punctuate my life, last night I finally discovered my official cocktail for the 2008 Summer Season.


It's light and refreshing and mellow enough to enjoy more than one without falling down on my face. Being a frozen drink, the only real danger is a brain freeze from speedy consumption.

And no sooner did I victoriously hoist that Midori Colada in the air than leaves began falling from nearby trees, signalling the end of the season.

; )



Howdy, pardners! Life brought a straw cowboy hat my way this afternoon at work, when we hosted the annual un-birthday celebration of a local family.

This year's theme was cowboys and they were all appropriately attired, a wonderful Cape Cod mix of cowboy boots and flip-flops...and there were hats for all the staff who worked the party, too!

And just in time for Carnival Parade.

As I tried out the zoom feature, I caught this sunset-illuminated jet plane high overhead. It was flying east, out over the ocean, so I assume it was an international flight, though it occurs to me it might just have been circling around to approach Logan Airport in Boston from that direction.

In between pictures, I managed some serious dead-heading of the garden tonight. As always, lots of spent marigolds to remove, some more allyssum to trim back...a few faded bachelor's buttons here and there.

More of the daisies had gone past, so they were taken out and some of the coneflower rudbeckia was thinned a little, to encourage some late season reblooming.

I also took shears in hand and addressed the business of the now- tower ing spikes of evening primrose, pruning them back to something lower growing.

We'll see how well they respond to this sort of treatment; my suspicion is they will get bushy and stay a little shorter--I wish I'd thought to cut them back earlier in the season.

Once again, I unwound a great many morning glory vines around the re-captured flags on the fence, so for at least the next few hours, they should be able to flap with abandon on the occasional sea-breeze.


With nightfall coming just a little sooner, the deadheading turned into lighting candle lanterns in the garden and before long it was dark, leaving me free to head inside to sample that first Early Girl tomato.

There were two, actually, but I discovered that the second one had a nasty patch of mold growing on the bottom of it, so that one was jettisoned, but this one sliced nicely and was very tasty.

It would've made a nice tomato sandwich - the kind I've been craving all summer - if I had remembered that we had no bread in the house. But it was yummy just as it was...and tomorrow I'll make sure I'm stocked up to make a proper sandwich with the next couple in the harvest schedule.

It's not quite a full moon anymore--that was last night, but that just means I have a whole month to figure out how to take a great moon photo (no wisecracks, you lot...oh, ha ha...cracks...yah, whatever...) with the camera.

This one's not bad, but you can't see Jackie Gleason's face.

Bachelors Blue

Wow...the color on this bachelor's button just sort of knocked my socks off this morning. Somehow, it's both invigorating and calming all at the same time, and look how it plays so nicely with the yellow coreopsis and the orange marigolds!

Every summer, there's this moment where I feel I've lost a little control of the garden, like that's anything more than an illusion. Usually it's as it was this week: with rain a semi-regular occurrence, there was less need to water, which usually involves a nice close examination of things. Being July, there's also usually something else going on to distract me and well, there was a little of that this past week, too.

I have discovered now that the morning glories have completely escaped any illusion I had of being in charge and are now running wild. Really, considering we're talking about morning glories, it's not that much of a bad thing. But it does appear that there'll be less of the whole thing of flags flapping in breezes if they have their way.

I spotted this moth chilling on a nice big sunflower leaf in the sun this morning. I don't know the species, but I'll send a copy to BugGuide.net and see if anyone there can identify it for me. I'll edit here later with anything I learn.

[EDIT: 7/27/08: Seems this is actually a butterfly, possibly of the sulphur variety. They are distinguished from moths, apparently, by the clubs at the ends of their antennae. Who knew?]

[An additional update: the good folks at Bugguide.net have enlightened me further. This is a Small White butterfly--I know, it sounds so simple--couldn't I have guessed that?! But that's its actual common name, also known as the small cabbage butterfly. It's official name is Pieris rapae, and you can learn more about them here.]

Down below, in front of that sunflower, the harebell has wasted not a day more since being discovered yesterday to begin the inflation of its delicate blue flowers.

I hadn't recognized this plant at first. I only grew them from seed just last season before the move, so I hadn't really had much time to get to know them very well before having to start making Sophie's choices about who would be coming along and who'd stay behind.

To be honest, I can't recall if it was a conscious decision. I know there's a columbine seedling down there nearby. I wonder if some of the seeds were just in the soil and have taken advantage of the sunny location.

Here's what the moon looked like when it rose very late last night...technically early this morning.

I really had no business being up to see it, but since I was, I didn't hesitate to snap a photo or two to share with you all. I won't be waiting to see it again tonight. It's my suspicion that I could really use some extra Z's.

Hope you all had a great Saturday and that you enjoyed some low humidity sunshine like we did here.