Monday Monday

A cloudy morning started us off today and it sort of matched the mood of my heart. It's funny how it changes a little like the tide lately.

I have chosen with no regret, and seem to be finding happiness wherever I look. And yet still there are things I wish had been different, that sometimes make me a little sad.

I miss the Garden, wonder what is happening along the fence, if the rest of the mums have begun to bloom yet, and if the cosmos ever really started blooming, and if any of them turned out to be seashell shaped.

I have a few roots I would like to extract still, particularly some irises only recently planted there. One or two of them promising to be purple. And maybe a little red dianthus. So I will be heading to Harwich one carefully chosen day soon and I'll be sure to bring the camera along, to show you what I find.


I had to pull over at Rock Harbor when I got a look at the sky over the bay as I headed for work this morning. I'm sorry I didn't notice until I was back behind the wheel and driving what the sky behind me looked like...it was pretty amazing looking. Sorry to tease with just the mention.

Hey, this really bugs me. The property you see here used to be a nice wild patch of woods, all trees and wildflowers. And then last year they cleared most of the lot and built this McMansion. It happens WAY too often on Cape Cod lately.

That was enough of an abomination, a crime against nature, to me...and then this week, they took down another tree or two and hoisted this great banner, which is spotlight-illuminated by night and day. It's a pretty residential area and anyway, I bet its not zoned for nightlit billboards...so add disregard for the law to raping the land, needless power consumption and reshaping the world in one's self-important image. Yep, sounds like an apt advertisement for the candidates.

Oh, I'm getting all itchy thinking about it. Here, let's chill with a bachelor button instead.


As you can see, I got more painting done in the living room this evening. It took a little while to sketch in the crow. I wanted to make sure it looked just right before doing anything with the permanance of black paint.

I'm pretty happy with how its looking right now.

Remember way back on September 13th, when I was painting the bedroom with Cape Cod Gray and tapped the end of the roller on my palm?

I did sort of like the pattern that made...especially as my mind began to transform it into some kind of stylized cave painting version of the sun. And when Patrick suggested in comment that it represented a Brand New Day, I knew it had to be front and center in my plans for the living room.

In fact, it kind of brought together the idea of the garden as cave painting.


It was very important, though, to make the sun a big icon in the scheme of things, and it had to be perfectly round...so I needed something big and round to trace.

In a stroke of luck, I found this pristine metal garbage can lid in the barn outside. What a find! Not only is it perfectly round and just as big as I'd hoped...but also one of those lids that feels fun in your hand, you know, like you've just picked up a great shield and are ready for battle...well, would be, if you also had a sword, and even the slightest clue what to do with it.

I lit my butterfly candle this evening with thoughts toward an orange tiger-striped buddy of mine - Mom and Dad's Dewey cat - who seems to have wandered away from the house in Connecticut they've all just moved into this past week.

I wish him courage and bravery and resourcefulness, and whatever else he needs to make a safe return happen. And meantime, hugs and the power of positive thinking are sent to Mom and Dad.

It's like a mania: tonight I stenciled some more leaves on this particular tree part of the living room wall. I almost think there are enough now...but we'll see what tomorrow brings.

"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there."

"It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between a man who cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said."

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 1950.

Weekend Wrap-Up

This coneflower rudbeckia was apparently a new seedling in the Harwich garden, as it was only just coming into bloom last week when I went back to move a few plants. That was all the encouragement I needed to pot it up and bring it along on the adventure.

Same goes for this chrysanthemum, which is just now sporting buds. Both of these, as well as the coreopsis seen in the background above were planted just outside my new front door, alongside the driveway...not far from that pink rose hedge.

Sunday was a rainy day, though not as much of a rain-out as Saturday had been. It was a day off for me...the first true one since the move and I spent most of the day painting in the bedroom. Still, there was a break in the showers around noontime and while the clouds lingered throughout the day, I couldn't resist a little ramble around to explore the new yard a little more closely.

Here's a shot of the nest from the back yard, the deck-balcony clearly visible.


Found a nice stand of goldenrod at the back of the property. I just love this stuff, it's bright yellow festooning our days just as other plants start to think about winding down for the season. It's always a nice flash of gold on a gray September day.

I also wandered over to the gardens at the property next door. They are primarily summer residents, so it was cool to be able to walk around in their yard without feeling like an intruder. Pretty gardens, too.



Ah, but it's the painting you'll want to hear about...and I will admit that this was one of those parts of the project where I wasn't sure it was going to come out as I'd imagined...and it took a lot of control not to second guess myself, as I began applying crazy, curly-edged flaring stripes of the purple Field Of Heather over the base coat of Cape Cod Gray, which is sort of a blue-green, turned a little more greeny by the close proximity of the purple tones for contrast.

I wanted the vertical stripes, to give the room a little more feeling of height, but the curly edges soften the rigidness of the stripes...plus making them uneven in size and flared a bit toward the ceiling also gives the room a slight illusion of being a little bigger than it is. All justification, when really, I got the idea for the un-uniform stripes by considering the idea of being inside a flower blossom.

Anyway, once the whole room was done and dried, I liked the look a lot more. There's a sort of whimsical "Dr. Seuss designed me some wallpaper" look to it that I think is sort of comforting for a sleeping room...and anyway, this is just stage two. I think you'll like it when it's closer to finished, as I am liking it more and more as I continue to work on it.

As the weekend drew to a close, we prepared to welcome the latest full moon. Here's a shot of it from the deck/balcony, as the wind drew thin wispy clouds quickly across it's face.

(Yes, I'm still running a little behind here. There's more of the painting project, and other household news to share, but we can leave that as a comfortable source of suspense until next time, eh?)

Mostly Sunflowers

Hello and happy September, everyone. I hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend (that's with a U if you're reading from Canada, of course...). I find myself breathing a sigh of relief on a couple of fronts this morning.

First, I'm relieved for the good folks of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, who seemed to have come through the landfall of Hurricane Gustav with minimal worries (well, besides that minor business of having to evacuate a couple million people)--schoolkids from NOLA are no doubt annoyed to hear that school will be in session next week.

Also, now that this last holiday weekend of the summer has come and gone, the roads here on the Cape (and the beaches, too, no doubt, though I've not had the chance to confirm this one) are emptier now, much easier to navigate. While we enjoy (don't we?) the hub-bub and chaos of high summer, it's always a pleasure to get our wonderful Cape Cod back for our own pleasure.

While the calendar page's turning seems to have brought slightly cooler temperatures and lesser humidity, we know that September and the Gulf Stream will conspire to bring us some delightful weather to let us have our last hurrahs of summer without much traffic.

Of course, we are keeping our eyes on the latest tropical activity. There's a storm called Hanna we're especially keeping an eye on, as she seems to be stalking the east coast a bit. And after her are Ivan and Josephine.

We'll keep our fingers crossed...but maybe do a thing or two to make ready, just in case.

Morning glories are back in the picture today. Not only are those early blue and pink ones still going strong, as you can see above, but yesterday morning I was caught off-guard - in the best possible way - by this all-white morning glory. I didn't remember there being any of those suggested as included in the mixed seed pack these came from, but as we've seen before, every now and then something unexpected happens.

As surprises go, it's a pretty sweet one.

Now I know I've been showing you a lot of sunflowers this summer, but let's be clear on this point: there's LOTS of sunflowers to show you. I've tried to work them in here and there with other flower shots, so as not to saturate the market...but the truth is, at this end of the season, the sunflowers are really dominating.

So today, I figured I'd give in and feature a whole bunch of them, so you can more easily see the variety of them I'm enjoying. Plus, Kelly will recently have or be about to return to school, and as she is the godmother of these fantastic beauties, why shouldn't she (and you) get to enjoy them some more?


Perhaps you will think I am being needlessly humble, but I can't help be a little amazed at the smashing sunflowers successes I've enjoyed this year. Many of you have written to say that you've never had that much success with them, and before this year, I was solidly in that camp with you.

I haven't ruled out the idea that the Garden simply knew that I was going to need all these cheery faces as the season wore on, and that all this is merely a bit of good fortune, but for the sake of perhaps duplicating this success in the future, I figured I'd consider the factors which probably also contributed.

First, FULL sun. We simply cannot underestimate the value and power of those warm golden rays. Just about everything I've grown this year has done moreso than ever before, thanks to the bright rays of Ra, or Apollo, or Al Gore, or whomever it is you think might be in charge of the sun.

However, the full sun exposure will quickly bring an end to even the hardiest of plants without the other key ingredient in this recipe, which hopefully, is obviously water. Two thirds of the fence garden here in this year's Midnight Garden is underlaid with a soaker hose, and except on or just after truly rainy days, I have let it run for about ten to fifteen minutes every morning, to make sure all the plants out there have gotten a nice deep drink down by their roots.

The last third, the end around the lamp post, has no soaker hose, though, and I've tried to do some careful top watering of that end of things to keep the balance. That bed is planted more heavily with sulphur cosmos, which is a little more drought tolerant, but sunflowers are also thriving and climbing toward the sky there, as well. I think that might be where some of the luck thing comes in.

Other factors which are no doubt contributing to the show are the quality of the soil. When I dug in this garden almost a year ago, I was pretty pleased to discover that there was some nice rich looking black soil, always a good place to start in the garden.

As spring began to flutter its wings, you may recall I amended the area with lots of coffee grounds...and once the garden got going, I fertilized a couple of times, usually about once a month through mid-July to give everything that extra shot in the arm...or stalk, as the case may be here.

So many people tell me that they actually have success getting the sunflower seeds to grow. That really is one of the easiest bits. They germinate quickly and their seeds are pretty distinctive, so unlikely to be accidentally weeded out of the bed. But they are often the prey of squirrels or chipmunks or bunnies...and so we can't under-value the Liquid Fence treatments in all this.

Those are the secrets, as I see them. I've certainly been happy for the success, since it's hard not to smile when you look out the window and see all these guys. I hope you'll find yourselves a sunny patch and give some a try next year. I think I'll be doing the same.


And so now we've gotten through the last busy weekend of the summer at work, which is also a bit of a relief. Time to turn my attentions to other things for a little while.

I hope your first week of the after-summer (even though the season lingers for another three weeks, I know it starts to feel like its over pretty quickly now that September's here...it's a slippery slope to Autumn, it seems) isn't a mad one, and that you're still able to find a few echoes of the summer...reasons to take a moment to sit in the sun, or admire a few flowers or have a good laugh at the antics of birds and bunnies and the like.

And don't despair: September has treasures just barely imagined yet to come.

"Spring flowers are long since gone.
Summer's bloom hangs limp on every terrace.
The gardener's feet drag a bit on the dusty path
and the hinge in his back is full of creaks."

-- Louise Seymour Jones

Turkeys in the 'Hood

Last night's storms (I'm told a second wave of them crashed through around 4:00 a.m., but I slept soundly through those) weren't of the variety that alleviate a summer heat wave.

These, in fact, seems to usher in a real tropical feeling to the day, as temps climbed quickly into the high 80s, with a 76% humidity level. In fact, today saw the formation of Tropical Storm Christobal off the southeast coast. Something to keep an eye on these next few days.

Wee...

It wasn't as misty as the above photograph suggests, though. That happened as I climbed into the car and unrolled the windows. As I did that I spotted the angle on the garden I liked, but the wave of heat rushing out of the car temporary fogged over my camera lens to, I think, great effect.

I didn't really mention anything much about the garden yesterday, as the nicotine thing took center stage for me.

Although I've been planning to leap from the back of this horse for a while, I only decided it was going to be Friday on Thursday night.

As it turned out, I didn't use any kind of nicotine-substitution support for the first day. I sort of wanted to use my anger at not wanting to suffer the addiction for another minute to launch me...which was sort of empowering, but also pretty tiring.

I did have one small nicotine patch left over from the last attempt a while back and I was happy to put that on this morning to get through the workday. I picked up a new supply of them tonight; there's no reason not to use something so helpful...but I'm kind of glad I just took sword in hand against the beast (the doodle really did help me to visualize it nicely; thanks, Claire!) to get things going.

Yesterday saw the harvesting of the first cherry tomato, which was... frankly ...not quite as sweet and tasty as I might've hoped. I wish I had made note of the variety I grew last year for comparison.

But I suppose one attaches an extra bit of hype to something when it's The First. It's also entirely possible my mouth was a little peeved it wasn't a cigarette.

The second tomato, which I had this morning, was lovely.


The first of the multi-colored bachelor's buttons bloomed today. Fittingly, it was a great purple hue. There's a few other shots of the morning I'll let speak for themselves.




It was hot as day turned to evening and I wandered out into the garden after a cool shower to catch a breeze and see what was going on. I almost didn't notice them at first. I think I saw them reflected behind me in the lens of my glasses, as I turned and looked up, knowing it was a flock of birds, but not seeing them in the air.

And then I brought my eyes down level with the street and there they were, the Turkeys of Not Wisteria Lane whom I'd heard of from some of the neighbors.

There was a momma turkey and six children. They were each too big to be called babies anymore, but they were still a family group of awkward youngins, taking direction and guidance from their mom.

She quickly herded them across the street as I tried to snap a few photos of them. But I didn't capture the whole family all at once until I followed them down the street, where they regrouped in our next door neighbors yard, before vanishing into the hedge in their back yard and the neighborhood beyond.




Now that I've seen them, I'll be paying more attention for the sound of them, which others had reported hearing recently.

With all this in mind, I suppose "Turkey in the Straw" is not a particularly inappropriate tune for the ice cream truck to be playing (though I'm sorry to say she didn't turn up this hot evening, but I'd feel a little silly giving her a ring just for a pair of Strawberry Shortcake bars, right...?).

By the way, thanks to Butch for sending along the original lyrics to the tune, which I'm not sure I'd heard before...or at least not recently.

The version that most often sticks in my head, though not well enough yet to perform myself, is this:





Another one of these tropical looking snapdragons has come into beautiful bloom along the fence. Look at the way that curly grass is beginning to do it's thing!

My sincere thanks to all of you who've offered your words of support and encouragement as regards the Not Smoking Thing. It's true that this is the kind of thing that you have to do on your own terms, but it sure feels a shade easier when you hear a cheer go up from the sidelines.

I love you all!

The moon is just past full but still rich with the color of the day's heat as it rises this evening.

It's kind of the same color as the coneflower rudbeckias on the fence, isn't it?

July's Half-Way

Ahh, morning breaks. With coffee in hand, I head out into the front yard. I didn't hear it rain again in the night, so I'm watering as usual...about ten to fifteen minutes of deep soaking from the soaker hose, and then some careful above spraying with the nozzle for the spots outside the realm of the buried soaker.

In their hanging basket under the eaves, the fuschia ballerinas dance in dawn's early light.

After I connect the soaker hose and turn on the water, I wander along the border, sipping my coffee and looking to see what the morning reveals.

For not the first time, I wonder about the true identity of the two or three plants I've been referring to as rudbeckia. The thing is, I dug these out of the meadow at our old place when they were single flowered seedlings, so they didn't come with a nursery tag.

For the last three years, I've started off the season referring to them as rudbeckia, but then, as I watch the flower petals take on a droopier form, I wonder if they aren't something from the coneflower family, instead. But a flower by any name is still a beautiful thing to behold, so not being a botanist, I don't worry too awfully much.

However, as a garden blogger, I really ought to be telling you the right names for things, so I'll try to be diligent and do some further research to see which family of plants these guys are most similar to. Rather than find yourself troubled by this whole identity crisis...take a look at that sunflower upstage. That one's also as tall as me now.

Now, I'd been watching the bachelor button seedlings carefully, and noted a day or two ago that the first buds were forming. So this first blue blossom today was not truly a surprise, but still. I just love these flowers. They are so simple and old fashioned and delightful and blue.

I'm pleased to have so many of them, as I think they will bloom throughout the summer if I can keep up on the deadheading. Of course, if I can't, I know there's a host of little birdies in the neighborhood who'll happily munch on the seedheads as the summer progresses.

So captivated with this first blue beauty was I, that it was a complete surprise to see that Joan Senior, my white daylily, was blooming for the first time today. It's not one of the tall daylilies and so this plant had sort of gone into stealth mode as the rest of the garden grew up around her.

This morning's buttercream blossom was completely unexpected. I knew there were two of these plants somewhere in the border, but to be honest, I really wasn't sure just where.

Here's that sport of the other "rudbeckia" or coneflower...whichever they turn out to be.

I noticed only in "developing" the photos this evening that this first blossom has suffered from some chewing of the petals, probably from some insect or caterpillar.

Fortunately, I don't get myself too worried about that. After all, I'm not using any kind of pesticides in the garden and if the plant provides some nutrients for something, then there's a natural reason for that and I've no business messing in the process.

Anyway, the first flower would've concealed the second flower too much if it'd still had those missing petals.

The garden is a real joy this time of year. Things that were dry little seeds in my hand not at all long ago have burst forth with these little green miracles everywhere I look. The second and third waves of sunflower seedlings look even more robust than the ones currently blooming, having done all of their growing outside in the heat and the sun.

The first class of cleome are coming into bloom all along the fence. In other places, a second wave of them are growing a few weeks behind. I noticed tonight that some are taller than others, as they are shaded by things which will pass as these continue to grow around them.

All of the cosmos plants--there are a couple different varieties, all told--are getting bigger and bushier every day and I'm sure before long they will join the fray. There's an assortment of seashell cosmos, as well as at least one plant of the regular variety. I also planted a whole packet of sulphur cosmos seeds, which should add a taller note of orange and yellow to echo the marigolds down below.

These cherry tomatoes are showing the first signs of coloring up nicely. I can't wait to pop the first sweet one into my mouth so morning not far off.


And I must sing the praises of the Pansies once more. They are, especially in the summer heat and bright sun, some of the hardest working plants I've got out there this year.

I can't believe this blue variety, which Coop loved so back when we were celebrating Spring, Glorious Spring, are still doing so nicely this far into July. I'm absolutely thrilled, though, since they are my favorite of the lot of them, too!

That said, I can see that some of the pansy plants will require a somewhat severe cropping back to help them continue on into August. I also try to slip them a little extra water via watering can now and then. It's really the least I can do for such an effort.

The morning glories are continuing to offer their cheery trumpets every morning, tho I am amused by the fact that I either grouped all of the same colors together on each post, by chance, or else some morning soon, I'll come outside to find that the other vines have joined in the show and brought the rest of the color range in the packet to the table.

The vines are growing like mad lately. Every day, sometimes morning and evening, I have to carefully peel them off of whatever errant place they have decided to explore, and cautiously weave them through the string trellaces I laced up the fenceposts in the spring...or more often lately, as they become more overgrown (which I mean in the best possible use of the word), I simply weave and braid them around the other stems. The leaves almost entirely conceal one or two of the posts, and in a few cases, the twining stems have tried to work their way up assorted little flagpoles.

The colors on this lantana are so hot I'm having trouble getting just the right picture of them. This is the first one that I've been happy enough with to share with you, and even here, I had to remove about 50% of the color saturation before you could look at the image without burning your retinas.

Which is funny, because I could look at the actual flowers with their variegated tones all day long. I hoping that some hummingbirds will feel the same way, too.