WANING DAYS OF SUMMER
The official first day of Fall this year is not until September 22nd, but it is already feeling like Autumn here in Yakima. We have had daily temperatures in the low 70's, and overnight temperatures have been down in the low 40's. The forecast is for temps to go down into the high 30's towards the end of this week. Needless to say, the garden is winding down fast. I am getting a bumper crop of tomatoes now, which is always a good thing, but they didn't have to wait until the last minute!
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| Big Rainbow tomato (top) and Black Krim & Big Rainbow (bottom) |
The cucumbers are falling off a little bit, as is the yellow squash and zucchini. We haven't started digging up the potatoes yet, but we intend to do that in the next week or so. Linda took this picture below of an onion that stayed too long in the pantry. Although I did not grow this Walla Walla onion, I thought the picture was absolutely stunning, so I am including it here. It looks like it's out-of-this-world!
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| An Alien Onion? |
While out in the garden the other day, I saw that some of my asparagus has turned brown. Although it is supposed to turn brown at some point this fall, it has never done so this early. I got my camera to get a closer look and found these guys all over the plants.
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| What in the world? |
What an ugly bug! My first inclination was to try to get them off my plants, but I decided to see if I could find out what they were first. I came inside and Googled "black orange spiky bug" and found out that they are the larvae form of Ladybugs! (more info here). I put my camera on the "magnify" function (which is used only for focusing) and I could see literally thousands of aphids all over my asparagus! The ladybug larvae were doing their best to keep them in check, but I wasn't sure they could handle the job. I looked closer into the asparagus and finally found this below.
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| The Source |
There are still some flowers to be found out in the yard, despite the cooler temperatures and shorter days. I hope everyone enjoys the flower pictures below, because it won't be much longer before all of our flowers will be gone and we'll be taking pictures of snow.
This rose below is named the Precious Rose. We named it after our kitty, Precious Baby, who passed away two years ago. This is the most fragrant rose that we have in our yard, and it is right beside the front walkway. That way everyone who comes to our house in the summer can smell its wonderful aroma. It is sweet, just like our little Precious Baby was.
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| The "Precious Rose" |
Linda and I were sitting on the front porch the other afternoon, as the sun beginning to set. I took this picture below because the sun was shining behind the flower, through the petals, and the color was beautiful! An added bonus was the tiny ant on it.
My sunflowers I planted out in the garden have finally bloomed. They have the biggest seed heads of all of our sunflowers, measuring over 7" across the seed head (the dark part). The rest of our sunflowers (like the one above) only measure 2" to 2.5" at the most. So these are much bigger.
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| Lots of sunflower seed forming on this one! |
BIRD UPDATE
I haven't seen any quail around the house lately, so I don't know how any of the babies are doing. I suppose the quail families are looking for places where they are going to spend the winter. We don't get to see much of them during the colder months as they are sheltered up somewhere. We have seen a great number of sparrows, though. The babies that we had this summer have all grown up now, but they still remain in large groups, as they are very social birds. Linda and I have been delighted that they have finally discovered the purpose of the bird bath. "Last one in the pool is a rotten egg!"
ANOTHER DIY PROJECT
I've had an on-going project this summer in addition to my table refinishing project. Since we got a new front door in the early summer, I decided to replace all of the doorknobs throughout the house so they would be the same color as the lever on the front door. I've been doing one or two a week, and I've gotten quicker at it the more I do. I still have two more to go, and those will be done in the next day or two. I do believe the new knobs look a lot better than the old ones!
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| New knob on left, old ugly knob on right |
RAIN?
Yesterday, after I finished grilling our supper, we had a little rain, "little" being the operative word here. When I went out to move the grill back under the porch, I noticed it was wet. We got just enough rain so that you could see a few drops on the part of the patio that is out in the open. Linda and I hurried out front to see if there was a good sunset photo opportunity since rain meant there would be clouds. The sun was not low enough in the sky for a good picture, but when we turned around and faced the East, we saw this below. So appropriate to see on September 11.
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| Always a beautiful sight |
PARTING SHOT
Summer Girl always seems to find a nice shady spot somewhere to take a nap, even if she has to use a rock for a pillow.
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| S'up, puss? |
A WORD TO OUR FRIENDS IN NORTH CAROLINA
As I write this, Linda and I are well aware that our previous hometown is in grave danger from Hurricane Florence. Our former city of Lumberton was completely inundated by water just two years ago, from Hurricane Matthew. I am sure the recovery from that is still in progress. Now the entire state of North Carolina and surrounding states are threatened with what may be catastrophic flooding from yet another huge hurricane. We want all of our friends to know that we are thinking of you and hope that everything turns out as well as can be expected under the circumstances. Please stay safe.
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