Rain

The Rain
Robert Louis Stevenson

The rain is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.



It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring,
He bumped his head, and went to bed,
and he couldn't get up in the morning.


Rain, rain, go away...
Come again another day.

Fall Color Project - 2009

Dave, at The Home Garden, is hosting a second annual Fall Color Project. Your obligation, should you elect to participate, is to take photographs of the Peak Fall Color in your area, create a post, link back to Dave's site (click on the logo above), and let him know you've participated.

As you drive towards our home, you'll first see forsythia turning their fall color.

Next, you'll see two areas of burning bush -

the second of which has Gooseneck Loosestrife at their base...Had you realized Gooseneck Loosestrife turns such a beautiful Fall color?
A tree out by my mailbox.
Trees downtown as seen through my windshield.
I got out of the car for the next couple! :-)
This is my neighbor's Pagoda Dogwood catching a few rays!
Are you enjoying your local Fall Color?

Personally, I'm wondering if we'll have much Autumn this year... the weather has been cold and wet for quite awhile (with a day or 1/2 day of sunshine here and there). ;-) Keep on your toes, enjoy whatever you can of the season, and now...

Enjoy the colorful walk across the variety of stages and places as they report!

Green Thumb Sunday

If you happen to live where you'll soon experience cold/freezing Winter temperatures as well as snow and ice, have you begun bringing your non-hardy plants indoors? Our forecast is looking towards a freeze tonight. I'm rather looking forward to it!


My houseplants are now indoors, and I'm wanting to dig the few bulbs that also need to be brought indoors for the Winter. The word is that they need to experience a frost before they're dug out of the ground and brought indoors.

I'm really hoping I can dig my few gladiola bulbs, as well as my canna, early this coming week. I've also stopped to see about a good load of shredded hardwood mulch. Perhaps I can pick this up on Monday morning?


I purchased this hibiscus last Spring. It must have loved its location... partly sunny, partly shady with a lot of rain (not provided by me)! At any rate, check out the number of buds on this plant!

What's blooming at your house. To participate in this meme, create a post to show the rest of us what's blooming at your house today. Then head over to As The Garden Grows. This link tells all the info you need to participate. You can also head to the homepage where you can leave a post to tell of yours (or see who else is participating)! :-)

The sun has been hiding a lot today. But I'm headed outdoors, anyway. Gonna dig those bulbs.

Sitting at the Computer, Looking out the Window, and

Watching the Leaves begin to fall.

Am I ready for this? No.

Am I ever ready for this, I wonder? I doubt it.

But thank heavens for my handy-dandy tools! This is what it takes from me to try to keep up:

My Lawn Sweeper and tarp:
(These first few photos were taken Nov. 3, 2008)

Nice work, eh?
It helps to do this every few days...
Otherwise, you'll see something like this!

(Backyard; End of October, 2007)

Lawn Sweeper and tarp to the rescue!

Now, you must meet the other great Fall Toy!
Mr. Leaf Shredder!

Give him a tarp of leaves ...
(you can place him in a bag, just don't let it get too full while he's in there)

And it won't be long until that whole pile has been reduced!

You may remember that last September 23, I was busy dodging acorns being thrown to the ground by the wind, squirrels and/or generous trees...

Do you remember what I did?
I used Mr. Shady's Shop Vac! lol

If I remember correctly, I picked up quite a number of 5-gallon buckets of acorns for the ravine. Perhaps That is what kept the squirrels out of the yard last Winter?? All the acorns were down there! ha.

At any rate, there are a great number of acorns again this year - but not as many. And I'm not doing that this year! :-)

It Was a Good Try!

The photo below was taken May 3, 2008.
(Don't forget to click on the first photo, esp. It enlarges!)

I post it here today to show you the capability of my old camera at a 3x magnification out the kitchen window. You can see the distance to my sister's little tree and how far it is to the Sunny Corner Bed. Now you must visualize the shepherd's hook in the foreground being out there by the daffodils (actually next to the second from the right).

Just as an aside, we've had these Baltimore Orioles visiting for two consecutive years! Yea!

Just the other day, there were two bluebirds in our front yard.
My new camera says 10x magnification, but goes beyond that... I took these at 40x.
Yes, I lost a little clarity (this bird was on the shepherd's hook)

And this one was on my sister's tree.

Both were taken with the Automatic Setting, which does incredible things all by itself. I haven't done my homework, yet with regard to the manual settings... But I was quite happy. What do you think??

Do You Really Want to Know?

Kylee of Our Little Acre tagged me for this meme September 10th.
The link above will allow you to read her post on this subject!

I hadn't meant to avoid doing this, but have just waited until I had a moment to think about it.

I did something similar a couple of years ago. I was very complete. Wonder what else I could say?

First the rules: 1) Disclose seven pieces of information about yourself.
2) Link back to the person who gave you the award (the tagger).
3) Choose seven other blogs to nominate and post a link to them.
4) Let each of your choices know they've been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.
5) Let the tagger know you've posted.

Okay. I'm going to write about the variety of "chapters" in my life (during my married life):

1) While raising our two pre-school children, I babysat a couple of their playmates as well as a couple of other very special little friends over a 3-year period.

2) When they were school-age, for two years I helped a baker in her basement kitchen, doing her "finish work" by layering and frosting cakes, dipping truffles, etc. Fun!

3) For two summers, I worked for our local daily newspaper (weekday mornings),

4) For two years I began and operated a consignment Art Shop out of our home. It was great fun (I made and sold over 200 various styles of baskets)!

5) For two years I worked as an associate in the local school system. This was with one of my teacher/friends, in the Talented and Gifted Classroom. (She, herself, had researched this whole program and was allowed to develop and teach it.) During this time period, I was able to take several classes in Gifted Education.

6) While I was the teacher associate, I also returned to college in an evening program. For those same two years, I was able to take all the Methods classes necessary to complete the teaching degree I'd begun years before.

7) After the two years' associateship and teacher training, I student-taught with two other teacher/friends, substitute taught for 1 year, and was hired by our local school system as a second grade teacher. I began teaching as our daughter entered 9th grade. The rest is history. I took early retirement 3 years ago. My last class of 2nd graders entered 6th grade this year.

8) One last little fact: I love this new chapter of my life. Making new friends and having new adventures. :-)

P.S. Did I ever mention that I like the Science of anything outdoors, artistic and crafty endeavors, writing (prose, poetry and blogging), meeting and making friends, etc. ;-)


That's about it! As far as tagging anyone else... would YOU like to be tagged? Either let me know, or just go right ahead and create a post. Then you can let me know, because I'd love to read it!! :-) Have fun with this - it's only as complicated as you want to make it.

Garden Bloggers' Muse Day - October 2009

These photos were taken October 8, 2008.
Everything is turning here, but not quite to this stage, yet.


October's Party

by George Cooper

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came ---
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.

The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses Maple
In scarlet looked their best;
All balanced to their partners,
And gayly fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
New fallen from the sky.

Then, in the rustic hollow,
At hide-and-seek they played,
The party closed at sundown,
And everybody stayed.
Professor Wind played louder;
They flew along the ground;
And then the party ended
In jolly "Hands Around."

And I'm waiting for this party to end, so I can continue mine (that of disposing of the leaves - raking, shredding, hauling, mulching...) ;-)

Join Carolyn Gail at Sweet Home and Garden Chicago for her Garden Bloggers' Muse Day (the first day of each month). You can participate or visit to see who IS participating!

Happy October!