Phenology and Extras
Sep. 26th, 2005 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanI hadn't made a lemon meringue pie in about fifteen years, but it came out very nicely.
David is going to California for a job interview tomorrow. Anybody with any extra appendages, do please cross them. Pauses. No, I didn't mean extra. Temporarily at rest, perhaps.
It rained all weekend. My cat slept so much I thought he might be ill. However, this morning he was running up and down the house yelling his head off, so I skipped the shower and the second cup of coffee and took him out.
Ordinarily at this time of year things are looking a little dull and dusty, and a little dry. This year, all is completely lush and green. There are some black and brown spots on various leaves, and powdery mildew on the lilacs. Sumac and a few impetuous maples are turning red already, and the Virginia creeper that hangs in the mulberry trees is red as it can be. Mostly, though, it all looks like high summer with rain in the near past and near future.
A few weeks ago, I wrote in my head an entry saying that this is the time of the year when I remember why I did not uproot all the white snakeroot and all the Japanese knotweed. They bloom, the snakeroot with rounded heads of tiny pure white fringy flowers, the knotweed with long strands of tiny cream-colored flowers. Both are well loved by a horde of wasps, bees, flies, bees that look like flies, flies that look like bees, beetles, and tiny gnats. It's a glorious sight.
Now they are going to seed. Lydy's morning glories are blooming in both the canonical blue and a volunteer deep purple, in front and back. A few repeatedly mown plants of blackeyed Susan and common yarrow are blooming low to the ground. A volunteer sunflower has a big cluster of yellow flowers halfway down its prickly stem. Sorrel is blooming in the unmown lawn, which this afternoon was still glittering with raindrops and alive with grasshoppers. Ari chased them repeatedly and then lay on his back blinking in the sunlight.
The purple asters took over where the knotweed and the snakeroot left off, and are all covered with the aforementioned pollinators. The asters have been blooming in the front for some time; today the ones I moved to the back have just opened a few flowers, with the promise of more. They're up to their chins in dandelion and dame's rocket leaves, and in rampaging lawn grass, but they don't seem to mind.
Two surprises occurred today, the first a golden-crowned kinglet darting about in the neighbors' lilac bush, making its ticky ticky sound to itself; the second, a volunteer plant of white aster, growing up in the neutral zone between the illicit brush pile and the mown weeds
of the scrappy patch of lawn on the south side of the garage. I'm tempted to move it to a more salubrious location on the spot, but I think I'll just put down a plant marker instead.
I hope your early autumn is pleasing also.
P.
David is going to California for a job interview tomorrow. Anybody with any extra appendages, do please cross them. Pauses. No, I didn't mean extra. Temporarily at rest, perhaps.
It rained all weekend. My cat slept so much I thought he might be ill. However, this morning he was running up and down the house yelling his head off, so I skipped the shower and the second cup of coffee and took him out.
Ordinarily at this time of year things are looking a little dull and dusty, and a little dry. This year, all is completely lush and green. There are some black and brown spots on various leaves, and powdery mildew on the lilacs. Sumac and a few impetuous maples are turning red already, and the Virginia creeper that hangs in the mulberry trees is red as it can be. Mostly, though, it all looks like high summer with rain in the near past and near future.
A few weeks ago, I wrote in my head an entry saying that this is the time of the year when I remember why I did not uproot all the white snakeroot and all the Japanese knotweed. They bloom, the snakeroot with rounded heads of tiny pure white fringy flowers, the knotweed with long strands of tiny cream-colored flowers. Both are well loved by a horde of wasps, bees, flies, bees that look like flies, flies that look like bees, beetles, and tiny gnats. It's a glorious sight.
Now they are going to seed. Lydy's morning glories are blooming in both the canonical blue and a volunteer deep purple, in front and back. A few repeatedly mown plants of blackeyed Susan and common yarrow are blooming low to the ground. A volunteer sunflower has a big cluster of yellow flowers halfway down its prickly stem. Sorrel is blooming in the unmown lawn, which this afternoon was still glittering with raindrops and alive with grasshoppers. Ari chased them repeatedly and then lay on his back blinking in the sunlight.
The purple asters took over where the knotweed and the snakeroot left off, and are all covered with the aforementioned pollinators. The asters have been blooming in the front for some time; today the ones I moved to the back have just opened a few flowers, with the promise of more. They're up to their chins in dandelion and dame's rocket leaves, and in rampaging lawn grass, but they don't seem to mind.
Two surprises occurred today, the first a golden-crowned kinglet darting about in the neighbors' lilac bush, making its ticky ticky sound to itself; the second, a volunteer plant of white aster, growing up in the neutral zone between the illicit brush pile and the mown weeds
of the scrappy patch of lawn on the south side of the garage. I'm tempted to move it to a more salubrious location on the spot, but I think I'll just put down a plant marker instead.
I hope your early autumn is pleasing also.
P.
