SADDEST TIME OF THE YEAR
It seems like the summer goes by quicker and quicker every year. I'm not sure if that's because I am getting older or because it is actually getting cool a lot sooner. At any rate, it is a sad time of year for me for many reasons. The main reason is because the garden starts slowing down. The tomato plants still have lots of tomatoes, but they are all green. The pepper plants start dropping their flowers because of the cool nights, which means no new peppers. Even the cucumber plants do not produce a bucket full every few days like they used to. It is to be expected this time of year, but it always seems to hit me "all of a sudden." It's almost like turning on a light switch, because in my mind it happens that fast. Another reason it's sad is because I don't get to sit outside in my chair as much. At the height of summer, I love sitting out there in the shade in my shorts and t-shirt, with Summer Girl on my lap. It doesn't matter how hot it is, we both love it. Now, if I sit outside, I have on sweat pants and a hoodie...and I have to keep moving my chair around to stay in the sun! It's just not the same. Still yet another reason that this time of year is sad is because all the baby birds are grown. It is such a joy to see the babies out in our yard and to watch them grow up. Now I can no longer distinguish the babies from the adults. I guess I should be thankful for the cooler weather. I am getting daily reports from my sister on the weather in Jacksonville, Florida, and this past week the actual temperatures there were hovering around the 100 degree mark. The heat indexes (or "real feel") have been 113 and 115. Unbelievable! Here is today's forecast from her.
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| Check out that humidity! Actually low, as the Sept average for Jacksonville is 81% |
The big sunflowers out in my garden have a bad case of the "big head." The seed heads are getting so big that the stalks are drooping over. I had to cut off the biggest seed head because it was drooped over so far that it was sitting on top of my banana pepper plants. The seeds are not fully developed on it, but I hope they will be soon so the birds can eat them. Here is a picture of that seed head.
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| This is what happens when you get the big head! |
The stalks are almost as high as the roof on the house behind us! These have to be a good ten foot high.
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| We grow them big in Yakima |
The sunflowers in the front yard are still pretty in spots, but a lot of them have fully developed seed heads. When the seed head gets fully developed, the flower petals fall off and all that is left is the head with sunflower seeds. The birds love them at this stage. The bees, however, love them at the flower stage.
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| Bird's Favorite |
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| The favorite of the bees |
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| Busy gathering pollen |
While I was getting these pictures of bees, I noticed that one guy had really long antennae, as compared to most of the other bees. Of course, when I got back inside I Googled him (don't you just love that we can do that?) and found out that he is a Long Horned Bee (click here for more info). Here's a picture showing him, along with a "regular" bee.
It is a beautiful day here in Yakima, although still a bit cool, at least to me. The sky has a few clouds floating around, which always makes for a lovely shot.
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| The sky's the limit! |
The rose blossoms are pretty much bloomed out, as you can see in the background, but I did manage to see one little rosebud that hasn't opened yet.
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| The Precious Rose |
OUT IN THE GARDEN
Since the garden is winding down it means that cold weather will soon be here. Linda and I usually pull everything up by the middle of October. We decided this week to start digging up the potatoes. We had a few potato plants out there that had turned completely brown, but most of them were still green. So we only dug up the ones that were brown. After digging up about four plants, we got about half a bucket full. The plants we dug up were volunteers, so I am hoping that we get more potatoes out of the ones I actually planted this year.
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| Yummy potatoes! |
The worst part of digging up potatoes is this...
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| Getting my hands dirty |
In years past I had way more pepper plants in the garden. I remember one year I had 25 hot pepper plants, not including the banana peppers and bell peppers. This year I only planted 8 jalapeno plants and 2 habanero plants. I wasted my time with the habaneros as I only got 1 pepper off of each plant. The jalapeno plants did not seem to yield as many as in years past, and the peppers took much longer to turn red. This is a picture of one harvest of red jalapenos. I already picked about this many, and there are 2 or 3 left on the plants that are trying to turn red. Since I have so few of them, I need to decide if I want to dehydrate and powder them (I've already done that to a few), or if I want to make hot sauce or pickled peppers.
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| Decisions, decisions! |
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| Delicata Squash |
HURRICANE UPDATE
It makes me very sad to report that Hurricane Florence hit my hometown of Lumberton, NC, very hard. I've been looking at pictures and video from Lumberton for the past few days and it is just heartbreaking. The devastation is very widespread and extensive, especially when you realize that these exact same areas flooded almost two years ago from Hurricane Matthew. The communities weren't even fully recovered from that when Florence struck. We are not talking about a coastal area here. Lumberton is 90 miles from the coast. Both of those hurricanes dumped so much rain on the state that the rivers around my hometown were not able to handle it and they flooded. Some of the rivers have not even crested yet. Many other areas of the state are flooded as well. So many N.C. roads are under water that the Department of Transportation is advising motorists to avoid the entire state. Click on this link here to read an excellent article by The Washington Post about the hurricanes and floods. If you would like to help with recovery efforts, click here to go to the American Red Cross to donate.
PARTING SHOT
Summer Girl heard me say that things were winding down, so she decided to wind down herself.
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| Summer Girl at the top of her form |
That's all for this week, my friends. Please join me again next week for another edition of Southerner in the Northwest!
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