My mother spent part of her childhood near lake Winnipesaukee and I’ve visited there a couple times but never in fall. All of that fall foliage gets its impact doubled reflected in water to say nothing of the hot colored foliage/cool water contrast.
@SkovandOfMitaze ,
Your rock gardening book reminded me I never posted these photos from july of a gorgeous waterfall and pond garden from Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids Michigan. I thought it was a shame you didn’t get to see it.
From the Meijer garden website:
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Scott, my husband, tries to connect with the urban wildlife (fox squirrels).when we take our lunch time walk around the state Capitol building (Michigan).
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Thanks for the thorough reporting. If I ever get out that way I will definitely go there.
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Maybe expats as well.
These are stunning. Thank you for sharing.
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More urban wildlife. Squirrel representatives from around the state making nests for the winter around the state office buildings.
The blobs up in the trees are squirrel nests. They’re all over.
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Plus when we get them back they’ve often been improved into some outstanding selection or cultivar.
It is still nature but since we went viral less is generally more.
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Oldest kid and I were looking at a tree on her campus a while back, trying to figure out if it was a lychee tree, because the fruit kind of looked like it might be. But no. I bet it was one of these! Not something one usually finds in MI.
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Creative survival techniques.
Not a whole lot going on. Just sitting in the back of my yard where it’s mostly just wild with my cat. He’s still on a leash because he likes to dart away and it can be a headache to track him down and catch him in the thickets. Lots of bird calls and tiny little bugs doing their own thing in the leaf litter though. Lots of sounds coming from the backwoods though. Nice hearing the creek also. Soon it will be landscaped well. But other priorities atm. It’s funny even being out here he still wanted to crawl in between my arms while laying down. Been out here about 2 hours now.
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Some photos I’d taken at a show in Oakland of the paintings of Roy De Forest several years ago showed up recently on my Facebook page. His paintings of dogs are pretty distinctive. Here might be my favorite.
You can see other paintings of his on this site and the photo at the top shows the artist with one of his dogs as he paints.
My most recently deceased dog Heidi especially reminded me of those dogs.
But my current pack of two falls in that range of herding dogs too.
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Those trees look ready for a first dusting of snow soon.
Out here on the left coast we’re finally getting rain (over an inch in the dog bowls this morning!). Yesterday I took some photos around the garden. Here is some relief for those of us eager for distraction from following the election results for at least s little longer.
The Fuyu persimmon tree is fully dressed for fall now.
This Bolivian sunflower (Tithonia diversifolia) grows as a small tree and is hugely attractive to butterflies. Several years old now, I’m beginning to wonder how long it can go.
The flowering vine is Podranea brycei.
This aloe (whose name I am unsure of) is blooming for the first time in years. I’m thinking removing the nearby Quaking aspen may have decreased crowding among the roots.
Finally here is something unusual an Echium hybrid known as Mr Happy is putting out fresh foliage through its flowering stalk, pretty much covering them over. Usually, by the time the flowers are done the plant but this one bloomed in its first year when they usually spend on year developing a large rosette of foliage. Thee is another to visible it’s right beyond but smaller that is behaving similarly.
This one taken in May of this year is more typical. Blooming in its second year it is much larger and when it finished blooming there was no new foliage growth and I’ve already removed it. (The one in the previous is visible to its left, the runty thing next to a palm tree.)
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Cesar’s head state park in cleveland, sc:
To the left of the last picture are two rock walls known as the devils kitchen (no idea as to why or how it has gotten its name) in which you take a stair well down and end up having to hug one of the walls to squeeze on through to the other side, as for the mountain it sits 3,208 feet above sea level which is one of the highest mountain peeks in south carolina.
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Soon I’ll get back around to more photos. I always kind of hate this time of year. It’s dark by 530pm. Going to kick off my exercising. I’ve been slacking. I’ve been hiking like 3 miles every other day, and going to the gym like 2 times a week and not really running or biking. My diet is has been a bit bleh lately. I started buying veggie burgers and making them at dinner each night to take them for lunch the next day at work. A lot of my dinners have also been frozen veggie meals I just toss in the microwave.
So now for lunch everyday I’m taking 2 fruits , something like a carrot and so on. Making all my dinners again. Each meal basically with some kind of bean, vegetables and so on. Around 90% of my meals will be “ whole foods “ instead of processed. Going to bike 15+ miles 2 times a week, run 4-5 miles 2 times a week and a day of mobility running like backwards jogging 1/4 mile and dedicating a nice 10 mile hike a week. Plus get back to the gym 4 times a week.
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