Well, the rain that was supposed to come overnight arrived around 6:30 this morning, which made the morning a little lazy, at least as regards the actual garden project. As it turned out, a few other things popped up that needed my attention, so it's all good.

I'm definitely going to miss that view (above) out the back of the house here. Living in this sort of secluded woodland setting has been really terrific, and now we're moving to something like the suburbs, with plenty of neighbors incredibly close. I'm sure that will be fine, and maybe even fun, but its sure to make for a different experience than we've had lately.

I did get back to Harwich and "the Project" this afternoon, and made some pretty decent progress. It's not photogenic work, nor particularly interesting. Just the business of beating the upturned clods of grass and such to loosen all the good dirt that's hanging on the roots and then discarding the "empty" clods.

I'm also actually laying the rock edging of the garden, too, though, which is a little more interesting.

As I worked, there was the crow to listen to. He perched high in the tree behind the house and seemed to narrate my efforts to the bird community. After a while a few of his fellows showed up and they squawked together for a bit, before taking wing.

Distantly, I can hear a clock bell sounding the hour. I love that; it's one of the things I missed most about moving out of Provincetown. I know there are plenty of "city folk" who move into a town where there's one, and they petitioned to have it silenced. I think this is wrong. It's nice to know the hour without having to carry your watch/cel phone/pager/blackberry/camera thingy.

And those neighbors are appearing here and there, wandering over to "satisfy their curiosity" or letting the walked dog drag them over for a closer examination of the work. It seems like a nice neighborhood, if no Wisteria Lane (actually, I believe I'm seeing a lot of wisteria growing in people's yards there...). All the more reason for a nice floral barrier between us and them! ; )

Late in the afternoon, a church carillion played for a few minutes. I didn't recognize the tune today, but yesterday was Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

Just before dark, a squadron of Canada geese honked to announce their descent overhead, as they made for the pond at the end of the street. I watched them disappear over behind the treetops...and then heard the annoyed quack of ducks disturbed.

I was happy with the progress I made today, nearly completing the front of the garden bed (I worked until dark after taking this last photo, so made more ground than shows here.), so that its actually starting to look sort of decent.

This installation will take a little longer than I'd planned, and I may end up abbreviating the effort in order to get all the plants moved in good time...though I'll try to get as much done as possible these next few days.

Breaking Ground

Perhaps you're noticing a few changes to the "Midnight Garden". Despite a crazy work schedule, I found a few minutes to give the blog a bit of a facelift. I hope you'll enjoy the addition of the Moon Phase clock. Down below that, you'll find my usual assortment of gardening-themed links, but now also another set of links which will guide you to some other places I'm fond of on the internet. Be sure to check them out!

Today was a day off, and with temperatures "soaring" into the forties, I used the day to take another load of rocks to Harwich, where I began work on the new garden bed, making it ready for the Big Transplant. The rest of our move will happen after Thanksgiving, but I need to get this out of the way now, since winter will be with us before long.

First I used the latest load of rocks to outline the proposed bed, and then got to work spading it into sections, so I could go back and loosen it all up with a long-handled claw.



I was pretty excited to find some lovely and rich black earth and many earth worms waiting for me in the area where the garden bed will be.

I was expecting a sandier mix, which is why I brought along some bags of topsoil.

While this bodes well for the garden, it also meant I had some tougher work battling against the root systems I was displacing.

At the far end of this new border bed is a tangled hedge of birch and bittersweet and who knows what else, just now. I know I'll have to keep up with the bittersweet to keep it from taking over, but I also discovered that there's a family of chipping sparrows living happily inside there.

That's a project for another day, of course.

As the sun began to sink away (ugh, this Standard Time thing...) late in the afternoon, I hadn't gotten everything turned over, but you can see I got most of it done. I'll want to be a little more careful working around the lamppost near the driveway, since A) there'll be an electrical connection underground and 2) a clematis vine grows there...and it won't serve me well to damage either of those.

Some light showers are expected in the early morning, which may make my work tomorrow a little messier, but I think it may also help to loosen up some of the soil from the over-turned clods. We shall see.

Golden Afternoon

Taking advantage of the day off and some fantastic weather, I delivered a first load of rocks for the garden to Harwich and did a little sight-seeing to celebrate the beautiful day.




I love the way the cranberries in a flooded bog make the shoreline blush.



Since my day's activities weren't particularly "Hallo ween-y", I thought it might be interesting to shoot a couple photos of the churchyard cemetary at the First Congregational Church, which was actually quite lovely. Many of the headstones' etchings seem to have worn away, but I did spot one dated at 1837.





There wasn't too much time for tarrying, though, as I had candy to buy and a house to spookify a little. Actually, since we're at the end of a dark wooded driveway, I wanted it to seem more inviting than anything. (The red luminaries, BTW, are plastic Folgers Coffee cans, with sand and a tea candle. I'm pretty pleased with this re-use discovery. The labels have been removed, of course.)

And we were lit up just in time to greet our first and only trick-or-treaters of the evening!

Sunday

For those detractors who suggest railroad photos have no place in my garden blog (see the word "my"...?), here are a few of the "new" rocks I found at trackside during my travels. They weren't taken from the track ballast, but from the further edges of the right-of-way, where folks seem too often eager to dump trash and such. After a good wash in this week's forecasted rains, they'll work nicely to edge the new bed I'll be digging later this month.

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Mossy rocks.