A garden is truly a living organism

It's mid August here in northern California.  Already my liquid amber sweet gum is tinged with rose.  I supposed it was just dry, and soaked it the other week, but it continues to turn.  My veggie garden was pristine and green the end of July and now lots of brown leaves, chard with black bugs, and grass setting seed is evident.  With a sigh I went out this morning, cleared two carts of garden debris, and started to turn over the earth for my winter garden.  I dug a dishpan of carrots, a couple humongous, and a bunch of fingerlings and itty-bitties.   I was not quite ready for summer to end, but life moves on.  The last of the tomatoes is always a rude shock. 

I am officially old

I clicked the 'send' button on my Medicare application today.   When did that happen?

summer in my kitchen

I took 90 pounds of plums, apricots, and more plums to the Food Pantry today.  The lady who runs the place gave me a big hug as she does every year.  So after cutting, chopping, boiling, and canning for a lot of the weekend, I have 10 jars of plum-mango jam, 9 jars of apricot jam, 5 jars of Chinese plum sauce (yum).  We paid our annual fruit tributes to the street.  And now I will stop for awhile until the peaches come in.

A Little Scenery from U CA Davis Putah Creek



Green Heron



Snowy Egret

 I also saw a pair of Little Blue Herons and a pair of Bitterns in a tree.  Nice day here.

Mama mallard

Crochet tree

Mason Bee biology project.

I have a Certified Wildlife habitat for my yard.  Other than gophers in my day lillies, almost anything is welcome to live in my yard.  I saw some mason bees at my nursery the other year, but they were mighty expensive.  My former spouse got some in Tennessee, and kindly sent me a package over the winter.  Now that the fruit tree buds are starting to color, I decided to put them out.  I read on the internet how to make tubes out of parchment paper for new nests, and looked at pictures of expensive nest boxes.  For bees?  Really?  Surely cardboard should be cosy enough.  I need to get some chicken wire and cover this so the birds don't mess with it, I read, but otherwise, it is ready for spring.  So, we shall see what happens.  I'll let you know. 

Seen in the heartland

Across highway 40 from Lambert-St. Louis airport was a billboard with signage from a local church:  "Face-to-Face Visits with Jesus".  I was in a taxi, so I couldn't go around the block to get a snap.  Sorry to disappoint. 

Up the Mississippi

Stopover between business trips to visit Mom.  We drove the Great River Road north to Alton IL.  On this part of the river are bluffs on the Illinois riverbank, where the ceaseless prairie winds blow east and drop the soil load onto the bluffs that arise from Vicksville MS and up north past here.  In the winter, the bald eagles fly south to stay on the bluffs and fish on Ole Man River.  Didn't really expect to see any eagles, as it is a bit warm here and the river up north is not frozen.  But there was one, a black dot at 11 o'clock in the sky. I pointed it out to Mom and we both watched, entranced, as it dove down, did a back flip with wings extended, and smoothly entered the water.  Could not see if it got lucky from the car, but we sure did get lucky to see such a skillful dive.