The Welcome Sound of Rain

Rain, rain, glorious rain!  After at least a month with no significant rainfall, a gentle rain is falling this morning, and I am thrilled.

Normally, I wouldn't complain about day after day of warm and sunny weather in October, but when you are trying to plant bulbs in ground that is as hard as concrete, you start wishing for gray days with rain soaking the soil.  Pulling out weeds and even dead annuals isn't easy either, when their roots are stuck in the aforementioned cement.

I've planted most of the bulbs in the garden, where the soil is much better, but I have crocuses I want to plant in part of the lawn and daffodils around some trees, so a good rain should make these two jobs much easier.  I've also done just a little garden clean-up, including pulling/cutting back most of the Rudbeckia triloba.  Although the seedheads look rather cool,  they were in my way as I planted tulips.  Besides, these brown-eyed Susans took over one area of the lily bed this summer, and I really don't want any more here.  Of course, I probably scattered thousands of little seeds as I cut them back, so it may have been an exercise in futility anyway.

Most of the Echinacea seedheads will stay in place through the winter, however.  I still see some goldfinches--less colorful as we approach winter--feasting on the seeds occasionally, and the seedheads add some winter interest when topped with a dollop of snow.

Once the ground is a little softer, though, all the rest of the annuals will be pulled.  We had a light frost a week ago,  but its effects varied from place to place.  In town I noticed that most annuals were still going strong, but here in the country where the wind whips across the flat land, it's a different story.  My poor 'Zowie' zinnias just couldn't escape the cold.

The Gomphrena was hit, too, but with a different effect--

the blooms now look like little frosted pink pompons.

Fall seems to be slipping by without a chance for me to enjoy it as much as usual this year.  No time for leisurely drives or walks in the woods with Sophie.  Saturdays have been fun, however, with Illini football games, and older grandson's football games and the younger grandsons' soccer games.  But family obligations have kept me preoccupied much of the rest of the time--my mother has been in and out of the hospital for the past month and is back in a nursing home once again.  Meanwhile, many of the trees changed color and dropped their leaves before I really noticed it.

Still, there are moments when I notice the changing world around me.  On a particularly beautiful sunny day as I was driving to visit Mom, I came over the crest of a small hill and came upon a scene of golden fields stretching for miles with farmers busy harvesting.  No time to stop for a photo, but the scene uplifted my spirits so, making me think of the line "amber waves of grain"--the quintessential Midwest scenery.

Other than enjoying the fall scenery as I whiz past it in a car, most of my appreciation of fall has been closer to home.  The old oak tree at the end of the lane is beginning to change from green to bronze, and at the right corner of the photo you can see one of the burning bushes in their brilliant reds.

My favorite tree this time of year, the maple in the center of the yard, is slowly becoming more and more orange.  The leaves gradually change color from the top moving downward.  It's always the last tree to lose its leaves, and once it does, I know that winter is not far away.

The crabapples have all lost their leaves, but plenty of ripe fruit remain,

 waiting for the birds to find it.

While the trees are the most obvious examples of fall color, the garden is slowly changing color, too.  Solomon's Seal turns a light buttery shade as the season winds down.

I think this might be the 'Stained Glass' hosta--almost as eye-catching as it was in its prime.

Pokeberries are finally a deep purple--

I do hope their stains come out of my gardening pants, by the way:)

Amsonia tabernaemontana is turning a beautiful golden hue.

But my favorite golden shrub in the fall is the Amsonia Hubrichtii.  This photo isn't as striking as last year's pose (see banner photo) when the Beautyberry still had its leaves and was covered with frost.  But still, you can't help but notice the Amsonia--it positively glows in the sunlight.

There is now over two inches of rain in my rain gauge--hooray!  This makes my garden happy, and me, too, since it will make working in the garden so much easier.  I have so much still to do, but the forecast is for sunny days in the 70's next week, so I'll be out finishing the bulb planting and as many of the top-priority items on my list as I can before the weather turns.  And if I don't get all the rest done . . . well, there's always next Spring!

Book Review Club: V. I. is Back!

"Oh." The syllable is a soft cry of ecstasy.  She has never seen colors like those on the floor, red running into orange, yellow, green.  The purple is so rich, like grape juice, she wants to jump into it.  When she runs over to look, the colors disappear.  Her mouth rounds with bafflement: she thought Frau Herschel had painted the rainbow on the floor . . . In later years, Martina remembers none of [the rest of this experience].  She remembers only the rainbow on the floor, and the discovery that the cut glass in the nursery windows created it.

A little girl's discovery of prisms in 1913 Vienna seems like an odd way for the latest V. I. Warshawski novel to begin, since the tough-talking, persistent P.I. usually is embroiled in some kind of corruption in Chicago while solving a case.  But when she receives a call from her long-time friend Dr. Lotty Herschel to help a patient of hers in distress,  Vic soon finds herself in an investigation that involves almost as much research in the University library as in skirmishes with various bad guys.

Judy Binder, a hopeless drug addict, is not only Lotty's patient, but she is also the daughter of someone Lotty knew as a child refugee in London during WWII, so she feels especially duty-bound to help her.  Judy's desperate phone call that someone is trying to kill her leads Vic to a meth house downstate where she discovers a rotting corpse in a cornfield but no sign of Judy.

With few clues to help her, Vic goes to the home of Judy's mother, Kitty, a strange and paranoid woman, who like Lotty, escaped the Holocaust years ago.  There Vic discovers that Judy's son Martin is also missing, and Kitty hires her to find him.  Martin's mother and grandmother may have problems, but it turns out that he is also the great-grandson of Martina, a brilliant physicist forced to work on top-secret research on the atomic bomb by the Nazis.  Martin has inherited her gift for science.

What starts out as a hunt for two missing persons turns into a complex case for Vic, as she goes up against low-life drug dealers, the CEO of a major technology firm, and even Homeland Security. How a meth house, the Nazis' work on an atomic bomb, and research into cutting-edge technology today all relate to a single crime sounds implausible, but Paretsky ties all the subplots together in a logical and satisfying ending.

V.I. Warshawski has been around for 30 years, and I hope she's around for many, many more.  Unlike Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone--of whom I'm also a fan--who has been stuck in the 1980's for a whole series, V. I. has aged with time.  Now in her 50's, she may be a little slower and take longer to heal from the injuries she always seems to receive in her investigations, but she can still hold her own with anyone who tries to confront her.

I somehow managed to escape taking a single physics course during my school days, an omission I really don't care to remedy.  But despite my ignorance on this subject, the important role physics plays in Critical Mass didn't distract or confuse me in the least.  Paretsky has obviously done her research, but doesn't expect either Warshawski or the reader to understand complex scientific principles.  Rather, she presents Martina's and Martin's desire to understand the "harmonies" in nature and knowing how all the pieces fit together in a way that is makes us admire them.  I imagine that their fascination with natural laws isn't really that different from a gardener's or naturalist's fascination with a bee enjoying pollen.

I've read all the books in the Warshawski series, and I have to say that Sara Paretsky just gets better and better.  The plots have become more complex and deal with some timely issues.  V. I. may have mellowed a bit over the years, but she's still the best female P. I. in fiction today

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@Barrie Summy

Disclaimer:  I received no compensation of any kind for this review, and as always, I review only books I like.  I bought my own copy of Critical Mass, but being frugal I waited impatiently until it came out in paperback.

Note:  The photos here have nothing to do with this post; they are just a few pictures I like that I've taken recently.  For more photos of fall color in my area, see my previous post.

Farewell, October

Every year at this time I think of one of my favorite poems:

Nature’s first green is gold,  
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf’s a flower; 
But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost

Although it's true that "Nothing gold can stay," it certainly is beautiful while it lasts.  The month of October started out gloomy and rainy, but the last few weeks of the month made up for it with warm, sunny days that highlighted the colors of autumn.  Above, the old hackberry tree at the end of my yard doesn't look like much the rest of the year, but its golden leaves shine in the fall, especially backed by the orangey-gold maples of my neighbors.

The old oak tree's leaves gradually turn brown, but its grand stature makes up for any lack of color.

Warm autumn days are meant to be enjoyed, and so we found ourselves one sunny afternoon visiting the local forest preserve with youngest grandson and Sophie in tow.

A rare moment of stillness for Sophie, who preferred to pull me along while she tracked squirrel and other strange scents.  Taking photos with my phone while she tugged at the leash wasn't easy.

Meanwhile, Grandpa and Grandson looked for fish.

Except for this lone canoeist, we seemed to have the park to ourselves.

Driving through town the last few weeks, I often wished I had brought my camera.  Our small town really is a blaze of oranges, golds and reds this time of year.

The not-so-pretty side, though, is also revealed in fall.

Trees aren't the only plants providing splashes of color this fall.  Here, Japanese Blood Grass provides a vivid shade of red at the Nursing Home Garden where I volunteer.

Next to the Blood Grass, a variety of Muhly Grass hardy in our zone 5B adds some airy color.

Back at home, I am greeted by the brightest red of all as I drive into our lane, provided by three large burning bushes.

Viburnum 'Cardinal Candy' still hasn't provided any "candy" for the birds, but its leaves are beginning to make an impact.

The small Serviceberry shows promises of beautiful autumns to come.

'Little Henry' Itea has started its fall transformation.

There are still some colorful blooms as well--the 'Radsunny' Knockout rose appreciates the cooler temperatures.

A not-so-welcome plant even gets in on the color act (poison ivy!).

My favorite tree each fall has to be the maple in the center of our yard.  Like Cinderella donning her ballgown, it begins its transformation at the top, slowing adding color downward each day.  This was taken on October 14.

By October 23, leaves at the top had turned a blazing orange.

Full view, Oct. 23.

A week later, the change is complete.  Today, most of the leaves are still clinging to the branches, but strong winds yesterday blew off a few,  and conveniently for me, blew away almost all the leaves on the ground!

"So dawn goes down to day..." Thursday's dawn brought the first killing frost of the season.

Though the frost brought an end to all but a few hardy annuals, I will not "sink to grief"--this was one of the latest frosts in my memory.  

And despite the poem's theme, there is still some gold in my garden--Amsonia Hubrichtii is one of the prettiest perennials for fall.   

Farewell, October--you were beautiful!

Garden Muse Day: Welcome, Sweet November

This Garden Muse Day I find myself with mixed emotions. Autumn seems to have passed by so quickly, and no single poem suits my mood. Instead, I've collected several quotes here that I hope will make some sense of it all.

"Nothing gold can stay . . ."

Part of the reason I'm feeling so uninspired is that October was a lousy month. According to state climatologists, this month was the second wettest October on record in our area, with almost nine inches of rain compared to an average of 2.81 inches of rain. In the first 28 days of the month, it rained on 19 of those days.

To add to the general depressing atmosphere, I've been laid up on the couch for the last few days with an apparent case of H1N1 flu, contracted no doubt from several days spent at school where normally healthy teenagers coughed over papers and desks, determined to "tough it out." The first two days I didn't even have the energy to read blogs, but rather spent the days watching a little daytime TV in between naps. (Anyone wanting to know about a specific past episode of NCIS should contact me--I'm sure I've seen each one at least three times now.) So you can see why I've been such a grouch.

"You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by;but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by." ~James Matthew Barrie

But I don't want this to turn into one of my "whine" posts; I think I do that often enough already. Besides, in all seriousness, when one reads the news about the number of flu victims hospitalized across the country, not to mention fatalities, a few days spent napping on the couch hardly merits self-pity.

"It is no use to grumble and complain;

It's just as cheap and easy to rejoice;

When God sorts out the weather and sends rain

-Why, rain's my choice."

~James Whitcomb Riley

Life is too short to cry about a day or two of rain or feeling under the weather. I realize that each time I read posts of blogging friends who are bravely undergoing rounds of chemotherapy or dealing with loss or other hardships. This realization really hit home this week when I learned of the fate of one of our high school alumni. This young man, the youngest of five exceptional brothers and sisters, all former students of mine, was killed in Iraq this past week. A college graduate with advanced degrees, he had served our country in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and received two Bronze Stars as well as many other awards.

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest
appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." John F.
Kennedy

I am reminded that each day is a gift no matter the weather or circumstances. It is a time to enjoy the last few days of brilliant autumn color.

To appreciate the beauty of fading blossoms . . .

And changing foliage . . .

Even the many trees now with bare branches can be appreciated

for the better opportunities for bird-watching.

"Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul

and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all. " ~Emily Dickinson

Changes in temperature bring new wonders . . .

And a new definition of beauty.

“How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.”
--John Burroughs

It is a new day, a new month, and a chance to experience new things. The sun is shining, and my energy is returning. Welcome, sweet November!

"Autumn is the eternal corrective. It is ripeness and color

and a time of maturity; but it is also breadth, and depth, and distance.

What man can stand with autumn on a hilltop and fail to see the span of his world and the meaning of the rolling hills that reach to the far horizon?"

Hal Borland

Special thoughts of healing and hope go out today, too, for good blogging friend and faithful reader, Maggie May. May your news on Monday be good news.




For other thoughts for today, please visit the hostess of Garden Muse Day, Carolyn Gail of Sweet Home and Garden Chicago.