Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Frost Warnings

Yes, I know this is Wisconsin and yes, having frost in September is no big surprise, but I'm Not Ready.  There, that should put a stop to this nonsense of Frost Warnings.  In my mixed-up mind, the calendar should be on August's page.  In fact, it took me until two days ago to turn mine to September because I am in Denial.
 This is the view out of my (in need of being washed) kitchen window this morning.  Oh, I hate to see all those flowers turned into mush mummies.
But there's no denying the annuals are looking a bit tired, too, despite my deadheading efforts.  Still, it's color and I want to cling to it!  We had such a ridiculously late Spring this year with that 17" snowfall in April and I guess I expected Mother Nature to make up for it by gracing us with a ridiculously late Fall.

Ok, so Mother Nature is not being nice to anyone this year, with extremes in every part of the country from floods, horrendous heat, droughts, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, so I'll hush up now since my biggest gripe right now is merely impending frost.  It's normal for this time of year, but just a tad too early for me.

I had all these good intentions of making cuttings of the coleus and some other things, like the sweet potato vines, to grow them on over winter, along with some geraniums and this and that, but I haven't rooted anything yet.   And we all know what happens to coleus the minute the thermometer dips down below 32.  And tomatoes, I have 15 plants out back and just had my first canning session last Saturday.  There are still loads of green tomatoes out there and I'll cover them and hope for the best because I want to make more sauce.  But we're supposedly going no lower than 36 degrees tonight (and 34 on Thursday night) so maybe we'll get lucky?  Oh, you're right, I won't hold my breath.  That's what got me hooked up to a Sleep Apnea machine.
Did any of you ever grow this pepper?  I started the 'Sangria' from seed this spring and it is producing hundreds of little one inch long peppers that are now in two different colors at once as they ripen.  I also have 'Explosive Embers' with the black foliage, shown below.
I'm not much for spicy foods; my taste in peppers is more to the mild Green Bell persuasion, but one day I was weeding right by ol' Explosive here, and thought I'd try one straight off the vine.  Wow.  When they say Explosive, they mean it!  At first, it wasn't bad at all, but in under a minute, my eyes were watering and I was staggering around the yard trying to find my way to the house for a glass of milk.  Like embers, the afterglow was a long time leaving me, too.  Very aptly named plant!  (I know, I'm a wimp, many of you could probably eat extremely hot peppers as a snack, like peanuts, but not this ol' gal.)  I'll still grow these two peppers just for their ornamental value, but from now on, I just won't be eating them anymore.
We had what will probably be our last scheduled garden walk of the season last night.  A garden club from the Fox Valley came out here for a tour.   Since all of the ladies were gardeners, they were really enthused about plants and it was so much fun to compare notes on what worked for them this year.  Many (or most?) of them were also Master Gardeners, too, and I didn't even get as tongue-tied as I usually do in their presence, they put Amateur Gardener Me at ease. We had a wonderful time strolling around in the rather chilly garden and the timing was perfect.  They had originally intended to come over at 7PM, but decided to come a bit earlier since the light is really dwindling by then.  We ended the evening in the house talking about stained glass lamps.  They were such friendly guests; I hated to see them leave and to also realize this is the last hurrah of the gardening season. 
If I'm going to protect all of these annuals, I'm going to need an epic amount of bedsheets and blankets.  I hate to let the 'Fresh Look' celosia die because it's just glowing right now in front of the house and down by the dome in the Formal Garden.  And the castor beans just reached some impressive heights, too....and I'm not sure if the seed will be ripe enough to harvest:

I planted over 100 seeds this spring and about 50 of them survived.  These are the 'blue' castor beans that I've saved seeds from for two years now.  I'm not sure how I'm going to cover even one of the 6' tall plants, but I'll give it a try.

The datura metel, or Angel's Trumpet Ballerina has finally started to blossom in the last week, but the plant is over 3' tall and once again, to cover it will be a challenge. 
This flower is huge, I wish I had a ruler to show the size here, but it's in excess of six inches long.
The waterlilies are still throwing a few flowers here and there, too, but all too soon they will be brown and crispy.  The water level has been steadily receding, too, since we have not had much rain for the last few months. 
The grasses are in their glory right now, lighting up at sunset even with the hazy sky conditions.  Yesterday morning I woke up in a panic, I could smell smoke and didn't know where it was coming from. After checking over everything on our property, I realized the wind was out of the west, so I thought there must be a big fire in that direction somewhere.  I was almost ready to get in my car and head out to see what was burning down when Ann called me.

"Did you hear about the fire in Minnesota?" she asked.  "That's where the smell of smoke is coming from."

Well, good thing Ann called me or I would have been driving a REALLY long way to find the source of the smell.  (It would help if I would spend some time watching the news, too.)  For awhile we had some very hazy conditions here, and it was amazing to think the smoke was all the way from Minnesota, a few hundred miles away.  I can't imagine what it must be like to live nearby to this fire, and thought again of all the people in Texas and other fire-ravaged states, too. 

I guess even though I'm trying to cling to Summer, it's evident my calendar is correct.  It does look like Fall.


Dang, I want to protect those petunias from the frost threat, too...the long range forecast shows that if we can get through Wednesday and Thursday's cold, the next week would be warmer and we still have a wedding coming here on October 1.

I'll have to get a coat for the White Lady too, and a blanket for her carpet of Bubblegum petunias she tended so well with that watering jug of hers.
By tomorrow morning, my yard is going to resemble an explosion at a rummage sale, with blankets, sheets, fabric and clothing strewn all over the place.  I'll post a picture of the colorful coverage for Fertilizer Friday hopefully.  And hopefully, the coverings will work.

Update on the Round House/Ruin Thing......my heartfelt thanks to everyone for their wonderful encouragement to the two of us on this project!  We haven't mortared anything since Sunday because we realized we'd better get some sort of a plan on the drawing board before we mortar too much and end up having to tear some stone out, horrors!  Carl had plans all drawn up on his laptop, but for some reason, Technical Difficulties arose and he lost all of his work, so he had to start over.  That took most of Monday night.  

Did I ever tell you Carl is up for work every day by 5AM?   All too often we don't get in the house at night much before dark, so his days are VERY long, so when he sat down to work on his computer Monday night, he fell asleep.  He falls asleep very easily, since his tendency is to be a Night Owl but his work schedule is Early Bird.  I worry about him more than he knows.  

Someone asked me when do I find the time to blog?  Well, I am a true Night Owl and write most of my blog postings late at night when the house is nice and quiet and everyone else is in bed.  I've found the older I get, I just cannot concentrate on writing when the television is blaring or even if a radio is playing.  I have to have Complete Silence.  (I know, I'm weird.)  And I don't like to write when my family is home, either, since that is precious time, too.  That's why I resort to late at night blogging and early morning, though many times I finish editing a post here and there throughout the day. 

I love to write.  Duh.  No surprises there for those of you who wade through my ridiculously long posts, huh?  (I didn't say I was good at it, I just love it.)  And another fact that may (or may not) surprise you, is I have been depressed for most of my life and am, believe it or not, rather introverted in many situations.  Yes, you heard it here, I am not a Party Gal by any means, I'm not the chick with the lampshade on my head (stained glass is too heavy for such shenanigans) and I've been told more than once I am funnier in print than I am in person.  

I had corresponded with a fellow gardener from Alabama for a few years who finally came to visit us awhile back and he said he was amazed by two things:  The garden was better than he expected, but I was not....... 

what he expected.  I had to stifle a guffaw when he said that; but I know what he means.  I spend a great deal of my life in the solitary pursuit of gardening and walking and writing (I've kept private journals for years) and was basically an only child so I guess I'm a rather Odd Specimen.  

The Great Depression (as it relates to my life, lol) was a not-so-good time for me and stemmed from a childhood fraught with some very rough times and from a thyroid that decided to take a hike in my early 30's.  When Joel was born,  I went through a post-partum depression that was horrible, for lack of a better word, but pulled myself up by my bootstraps and survived.  But eventually I ran out of bootstraps and had to get some help from a crisis center.  Believe it or not, a psychiatrist diagnosed my thyroid troubles and saved my life.  My general practitioner just wasn't hearing me at the time, 'Oh, you're a young mother, lack of sleep, stress, blah, blah, blah, it's to be expected you'll be blue, you'll get over it, yadayadayada.'  And here it is, 25 years since Joel was born and I can't afford shrinks and the search for a good GP is still on, too.  But I have an appointment in a few weeks with a new one, let's stay optimistic, shall we?

But anyway, back to the writing.  I bought a Smith Corona typewriter out of the Sears catalog back in 1968 when I was ten years old.  I had saved up my money from farm chores to buy the thing; I think it was around fifty bucks.   The day it arrived UPS, I was on a hay wagon up in the barn, unloading hay onto an elevator which was headed up to my father in the mow.  I couldn't wait to get that load of hay off the wagon and get to the house to open my box.  I put too many bales on the elevator in my haste and received a good yelling at, so I had to slow down so my father could keep up.  But of course, we had to go back out to the field to bale more hay, and then we had cows to milk, so my typewriter sat in it's box waiting for me to open it until dark.  

I finished my part of the chores in record time, leaving Mom and Dad to finish theirs, and foregoing my usual evening bike ride, dashed to the house to open the box in private.  What a moment it was to carefully open the box and find, in my hands, the coveted typewriter.  We had a very old typewriter someone had given to my aunt years and years before, and I had played with it since I was little  (probably why it didn't work?) so this was a dream come true.  I carefully took the tiny aqua-blue plastic typewriter out of the box and rolled a sheet of paper into it.  I struck the 'K' key (for Karen, of course, what else would I type first?) and was mesmerized to see the word appear on the paper.  Then I set about typing my first sentences.  

And then I was dismayed, again.  Seems somewhere along the line, I neglected to learn how to type.  This wasn't as easy as it looked.  Gosh, on TV and at school, secretaries would be sitting at their desks busily tapping away on the keys without looking at them.  Who knew typing wasn't easy?  And the typewriter was far from fantastic, the letters came out rather railroad-tracky, a bit up and down and the type face was 'Elite' not 'Pica' which meant the font was kinda tiny.  The keys pushed amazingly hard, too, and all in all I was a little deflated at the end of the first hour of putzing with it.  This was the most money I had ever spent on myself and the first money I had earned, so it was a Big Deal.  I kept at it and tried to learn to type on my own, but eventually gave up and went back to hand writing my diary, taking the typewriter out every now and again to play with. 

It wasn't until high school that I took a typing class with a very good teacher and then an Office Practice class for a total of four years of typing almost non-stop and became a fair to middling typist.  I'm no great shakes at it yet, and the Backspace Key and I are great friends, lol, but when we bought our first computer, I was in seventh heaven!  Word processors are Amazing. (I have an ergonomic keyboard--which never leaves me bored--(my apologies to Weird Al Yankovich) that I love, fantastic for carpal tunnel syndrome.)

Once again, like Prince, my long-coveted Pony (which I'll probably write about soon) Fantasy was much better than Reality when it came to the typewriter, but I'm glad I stuck with it.  And the same thing will probably hold true for the Round Stone House Ruin Thing, too.  But Carl's at the drawing board and bought some lumber after work last night so we can build window frames, so stay tuned.  

Will the Frost Get Us or Will the Stone House be our Undoing?

Let's hope all our Fantasies don't go Up in Smoke.





30 comments:

El Gaucho said...

We have our frost warnings out here in North Dakota too. What started as a potential dip to 32 degrees has been revised down to 28 degrees for a low temp tonight - yikes!!

I think it's great that you have such fond memories of your first typewriter. It's more than a little sad that all the young people these days have no idea (except maybe from watching Mad Men) what a typewriter is and the tangible joy that comes from having to manually depress each key, the wonderful "clack" sound that it makes, and seeing the mark of the letter on the paper. Sigh. I may not be that old, but had technophobes/parsimonious parents, so I was the only kid in high school typing my reports on a typewriter and using a rotary dial phone. Such fond memories.

Gatsbys Gardens said...

Hi Karen,

We don't have frost warnings but it could get down in the forties tonight. My husband has been looking for a warm jacket for the winter and when we went shopping the stores do not have any in stock yet. What are they thinking, you can't wear a windbreaker in the thirties?

Anyway, I ordered him one online. came today and I'll bet he wears it tomorrow.

Your garden looks like a fall postcard, love all the grasses. Luckily you will have a lot of fall interest when the flowers go.

Eileen

Kimberley said...

Wow! What beautiful gardens you have! I truly hope that frost bypasses you so you can enjoy all of that glorious color a bit longer!

They are talking of potential frost here in NE Pennsylvania tomorrow and Friday night, but only in isolated pockets, so I think we'll be safe.

I really relate to your denial of September!

mudderbear said...

Hello Karen, I have just "met" you on [A Southern Girl With Northern Roots] Her post was so poignant and you were the first and only comment yet, I was compelled to come over to visit you. Reading your profile was delightful. Yes Rock 'n Roll is definitely a favorite music. I recall my mother saying once, "Ah, That's the best of all." She was past seventy at the time. Also, my most favorite book of all is Ethan Frome and Gone With the Wind is a close runner-up. So I thought I would say HI. Your photos here are especially beautiful. The colors are so strong and clear. I would love to come back and visit you again sometime. Hope that's alright with you. I am at mudderbear.blogspot.com

Sandy said...

"Frost"!! The last time I felt the frost was maybe 6 years ago.. went to Champaign in Feb to visit friends.. well I vowed not to return in the Winter..lol
We have cooled off a bit, it has gone into the 80's finally so for me time to get some outside work done.. we are backwards down here.... I'm excited for you to be getting back to the Stained glass once again... love your work!
Enjoy the Frost Karen!
Sandy

Diana LaMarre said...

Aren’t you the brave one, biting into those hot peppers right off the vine! The thought makes me shudder! They are beautiful as plants –love the black foliage—but I only eat mild taco seasoning;--just to give you an idea of my hot pepper heat tolerance.

I think you have attained Master Gardener simply by experience! A few years ago I had a co-worker who had taken the MG course and I knew way more than she did about plants. So the title does not necessarily mean they have more knowledge than you.

The grasses with the hydrangea photo is a simply stunning combo! That is what I am hoping for in my shrub rockwall garden – someday.

Since you have a wedding on Oct., I guess I would make the effort to save whatever annuals I could.

For me, I am not covering anything. When the time comes for it to go, I am ready. Our high today was 58, but it’s only supposed to go down to 41, so I probably won’t lose anything tonight.

I wish the same for you.

Anonymous said...

Hi Karen, autumn is upon us here in the UK I live in the south of England and tonight we are forecast 32 F. I hate this time of year. A dark gloom descends over me. I can relate too much of what you talked about, depression and thyroid. I to spend most of my time alone but my garden is my escape. I love you writing. I remember using broomsticks to lift frost fleece over tall plants (being five feet one inch tall has its disadvantages) when I worked at the garden centre.

I have my fingers crossed the frost does not wreak havoc in your borders and the mush monsters say away until after the wedding. The view from your kitchen window is stunning.

looking forward to the next blog.
Have a good week
Sueb

Ginny said...

Karen, that view out your kitchen window is just amazing! Well, everything about your garden is amazing, but that view is especially so.
It is hard to imagine having frost this early when it was about 88 here today with a low in the mid-60s predicted tonight. It is usually sometime in late November before we have a frost. I hope you're able to protect your plants and that you're able to enjoy them for a while longer. It would be so hard to say goodbye to all that color so early!

Lona said...

Oh dear I hope you do not get any frost. Summer was just to short this year with all of the terrible weather we all had from the get go.I am not ready for what little blooms I have left to go. We are suppose to get in the low 40's so not as cold as you. I did bring in a few plants and took the amaryllis to the basement. Thanks for reminding me to take some cuttings of the potato vines.I do not have too much luck with cuttings but once in a while I get lucky. LOL! You have so many blooms yet o I do not blame you for bringing out the sheets to save them a while longer.

Unknown said...

Oh no, say it isn't so... Frost?!?!?

I really must know where you got the blue caster beans, I have not been able to find them anywhere...

Well, I know exactly what you mean about covering the garden. For too many years I have owned too many tropical plants that want to live 200 miles further south. 'Course now it is 450 miles south... My yard, as I describe it, always looks like a gypsy camp. Every comforter, blanket I have ever owned gets put into service to cover some treasure. And tomato cages are not used for propping up tomato plants but to keep the heavy blankets from crushing the temperate babies underneath.

I saw on a brief look at the weather about the Minnesota fires, so sorry to hear more folk having this trouble. I am wishing for clear skies for us all soon.

I am thinking warm thoughts for the quarry garden and if you ever want to do a late night "chat" via gmail let me know...

mudderbear said...

Wonderful...I'm excited. See you soon.

Anonymous said...

Frost, a possibility here too for tomorrow. I never protect anything in the ground, but all my houseplants will be back inside. The orchids have been back in for a couple weeks now. Our weather seems to follow yours pretty well. Our wet spring with lots of flooding was similar too. You do have many warm weather annuals I bet you do not want to see as mush. I am actually ready for the cooler weather after the hot one in July. I bet Carl would be happy for a cool down after all his rock work this summer.

Bonnie K said...

Your gardens are incredible! You should be super proud. Great combinations! I loved your photos, but the photo with the sun behind your grasses was the best. Thank you for the tour it was relaxing and I got some great ideas for next year.

Barbara Rosenzweig said...

You continue to amaze me! How do you have time to do all that you do AND check out mine and others' blogs!

Your angel's trumpet photo is fabulous! May I attempt to paint it?

It gives me pleasure to know that you enjoy my artwork!

Lana from Farm Life Lessons said...

Karen - you always amaze me. I'm a night writer as well and an early morning writer. I seem to think more clearly once everyone is settled down, like you prefer as well.

I'm very impressed that you have adjusted your life to living with depression, especially to be outside so often which I believe to be one of the best ways to battle depression. A dose of the great outdoors and keeping our body busy can truly do wonders for our mind. I bet you can tell the difference when you are stuck inside for too long. I was wondering how you dealt with the winter time? What do you do to try to combat it during that time. When we lived in Germany, I went into a depression and was told that since I had come from Texas, I was also suffering from the extreme lack of natural light, so I was recommended to get some photo-therapy which was to simply turn on a few bright lights and look at some gardening magazines, travel magazines and just get some of the sun and fun back into my mind. Well, it wasn't as easy as that. haha. Anway, I cannot believe you are having to prepare for a frost so soon. We would be freaking out here in Texas!

One thing is for sure, I admire your honesty and love reading your blog and to know that your daily life involves various levels of complexity...it's not all gardening fun, there is a lot of life to live in between and it seems as if you really are living life to the fullest.

And a wedding out there? Have you guys done this before? You are some busy woman!

Karen said...

El Gaucho, just think, today's kids for the most part don't even know what it means to 'turn the dial' on the TV. "What, no remote??" Good grief, things have changed in a few short years. My mom still has a rotary dial phone, lol.

Eileen, you'd think the stores would realize winter is on the way, they have Christmas decorations waiting in the wings for the day after Halloween, but no winter coats? Sheesh.

Kimberley, how nice to meet you. We've been to PA twice for stained glass (Youghiogheny) and really enjoyed the trip. I hope you and I both escape the Frost.

mudderbear (love the name!) glad to meet you, too. Can't wait to see what's going on over at your blog.

Sandy, I guess frost would be a foreign thing for Florida this early in the year, wouldn't it? As soon as we're frozen solid, we'll be back at the stained glass, but I hope we have a little time yet, or we'll be completely stir-crazy by next April.

Zoey, you're going to be a bit warmer there, so your garden should be fine. I was out covering stuff with Carl just before dark and it's a joke, I don't have enough fabric to cover the acreage, lol. And, yes, those peppers were a real blast.

Patrick's Garden said...

Your garden is taking my breath away. It has to be one of the most beautiful I've seen online. Hope it's a light frost. Still blown away by your efforts.

Karen said...

Sueb, oh, you're having cold temperatures there, too? It just seems so early. I'm sorry to hear you have the same issues with depression and thyroid, but we sure do have a lot in common, don't we? What I would do without my garden is a thought I don't even want to contemplate, you are right, it is an escape and a wonderful mood lifter.

Ginny, Wisconsin is a weird place, we were in the upper 80's on Monday, but now we're going down to the 30's, there's a saying, 'If you don't like the weather, wait 24 hours' and it's true, we're all over the thermometer. Except in winter, where we stay stuck for about six months at 20. LOL The view from my kitchen window would be much better if it were clean!

Lona, I was out there tonight armed with sheets, blankets, pillow cases and fabric and on the Pachyberm we resorted to using a huge tarp (which I'm told will probably not work). Let me know how your sweet potato cuttings go, I have rooted them in the spring after buying new plants, but haven't ever overwintered them. Curious to know how big they will get. Let's hope we have just a little more time before we have to pack it all in!

Cindy, I will send you some castor bean seeds if they don't freeze too hard tonight. I think they should be mature enough to sprout, and if they are, I'll have hundreds, literally. Great idea about the tomato cages not crushing the plants with the blankets; I'll have to remember that one. Ernie is draped in my best sheer curtains from a decade ago, looks like Halloween around here with ghosts everywhere. Scared Teddy dog when he went out to pee, lol. Chatting would be great fun, too!

Donna, this has been a summer to remember, hasn't it? Or maybe to forget! Carl is at his wit's end right now, trying to figure out the stone house thing...but I think he is happier it's cooled off at least.

BBBB, thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the tour. The grasses were something Carl had to twist my arm to plant, I didn't think having grass was a sign of a 'good gardener', lol.

Barbara, I'm honored you would want to paint the angel trumpet, by all means, you are welcome to it! When I took the photo I thought of you and your Devil Trumpet piece. Your artistry is so inspiring to me; your use of light and shadow is outstanding and a skill I have yet to master in stained glass. I could use your insight on our lamp projects at every turn. There was a reason LC Tiffany had women working in the lamp department, we have a much better sense of color than most men. (Not to tick off any men out there, I said 'most' not all!)

Karen said...

Lana, I know you cope with health issues beyond what I have ever had to face, and you do it so gracefully. The depression was/is a part of my life that I finally had to come to accept. Medication was a godsend at first and helped immensely, but gardening was the answer for me. I have lived most of my life outdoors and when I worked for an insurance firm for a decade it was pure torture. You're right, winter has it's challenges. I try to walk every day or x-country ski, and work on my stained glass lamps as much as possible. It would help, too, if I lost about a jillion pounds, lol. As far as the wedding goes, yes, we have had many weddings here over the years for photography (one couple did get married in the Formal Garden a few years ago) but this is the first one this year. I sure hope there's something pretty left to photograph! (Besides the bride, that is.)

Patrick, thank you very much. I keep thinking about your 15 (or is it more?) window boxes and all the work you have done to beautify your grounds. I am amazed by all you have done, too! How soon before frost is expected in your area?

Sue said...

Hi Karen-If my garden were a tenth as beautiful as yours ,I would be stealing sheets from the neighbors to get it all covered. We had frost over a week ago. Tonight it's supposed to be 28. I'm done with the tarps--it's all going to go....tomatoes, melons, flowers. I'm too tired....and doubt they would help with those temps.

We smelled the smoke from the MN fires over here in Michigan too. Isn't it odd how far that drifts??

Darla said...

Great entertaining post Karen. Your gardens still look good, looking forward to reading if you indeed get frost or not. Petunias take the cold pretty good here, just the blooms are affected. Depression is no fun!

FlowerLady Lorraine said...

Dear, dear Karen ~ Your posts are always a delight to read. I do much better with the written word than I do with real people. I'm glad you have survived depression and created such tranquil beauty with Carl and your sons there at Quarry Gardens.

You always inspire me and now I need to get up to do some things before I head off to work.

Have a great weekend ~ FlowerLady

Karen said...

Sue, 28? Oh, boy. Impossible to fight with Mother Nature when she pulls out the low numbers. I completely agree, covering everything is way too much work. The bad part is, we'll probably have some very nice weather after the freeze for a few weeks. And I never thought we could smell smoke from that far away, and here you did, too!

Hi Darla, I didn't go out yet this morning, but there's frost on the sheets on the River Bed. Rats. Oh, well, we tried. Maybe it won't be as bad as it looks. And amen about the depression, no fun at all!

FlowerLady, you have always inspired me, too!

HolleyGarden said...

We are supposed to get "down" to the high 80's today - 20 degrees lower than what we've been experiencing. And you're worried about frost!!! Amazing the difference, isn't it? Your garden looks beautiful. I love the oranges in the first two pictures. Yes, it looks like fall. Beautiful. I hope you can save as many annuals as possible. I don't usually plant many - I am too lazy to do all that work, and I don't like re-buying them. I agree Mother Nature has not been nice to anyone this year. I hope your freezes won't come for a while so you can enjoy your beautiful garden a bit longer.

Lisa Sall - Sall's Country Life said...

How I would hate to see so many lovely plants turn to mush also! We had a light frost last night too. The flowers are all in pots and got slid up under the roof and the Tomato plants all got their own quilt. Everything survived except one sweet potato vine. We are so not ready for winter, I'm with you and think it should be August yet! Those celosia would be perfect for drying (just a thought)! Enjoy these final days, it sounds like there were many lucky garden tourists who got to share your wonderful place!

Corner Gardener Sue said...

Hi Karen,
Thanks for stopping by my blog. Yes, summer does seem like a blur. I am so far behind in everything, that I don't think I've visited you for awhile. Even though your place looks lovely in snow, I like the flowers better. I love your water feature with the different bowls, or whatever you call them.

I enjoyed reading about you doing your chores quickly in order to try out your new typewriter. My cousin used to own a typewriter repair business. I'm not sure what he is up to these days.

I have had mild depression most of my life. When I went on meds for awhile, I got very shaky, and had to stop.

I hope the frost didn't do much damage.

Karen said...

HolleyGarden, down to the 80's? Wow. We do live in a different climate, don't we? Though we were in the 80's on Monday. The frost wasn't too bad on Wednesday night, it's Thursday I'm worried about.

Lisa, summer is just way too short, and I still remember your having to live away from home due to the deep snow. Not ready for that yet! I wonder how the celosia would dry? Should I hang it up? Or? You have my curiosity up now.

Hi Sue, good to hear from you again. Yes, I like the flowers better than the snow, too. The Pan Fountain is made out of old light shades from a gymnasium turned upside down, nice and cheap, junk turned to garden ornaments, lol. Sorry to hear you have to cope with depression, too, it is no fun.

Larry said...

I think I commented on the frost in the wrong post... at any rate, we were spared the frost and I hope you were as well! Larry

Karen said...

Hi Larry, we were nicked a little bit on Wednesday, and I'm not sure how much on Thursday, but I covered everything. Well, almost.

Wally said...

Ah, another nightowl. (I could identify with some of your other comments too.)
May I say you write beautifully.