Beautiful

Beans is watching from the steps
while I photograph my perch

All the leaves are down.
And the sky is blue…

It is 70° today. I am sitting on the patio and looking out toward the forest and pond. The geese who haven't headed South yet are cackling away while a woodpecker taps on a neighbor's tree and fluffy grey squirrels bounce across the lawn.

Before sitting down to write, I couldn't resist pulling up some Ground ivy and Hairy bittercress. I sampled a leaf from the latter. It tastes a bit like watercress but prickles the tongue unpleasantly. (Which probably accounts for the "hairy" part of its name).

Better Belated than Never

Earlier this month, I collected photos of the vibrant fall colors in my back yard and the surrounding neighborhood. I couldn't think of a narrative to attach to the photos, so they didn't get posted when they were current. But they're too beautiful to keep to myself any longer. (You can click on any photo to enlarge it and appreciate the colors).

Looking up our street just before
turning into our driveway

Berries on a leafless tree by the park

Our front yard with a
Kousa dogwood on the right and
 the red maples on the left

A shock of bright red at the
border of our forest

Bright red at the front
of our property

Bright red and orange
on someone else's property 

Red, orange and yellow
across the street

Surprising berries with each one
shining red, orange and yellow as they
dangle from a tree in copious clusters
 near the raspberry bushes

My beautiful red dog sitting
beside me as I write in my red chair

 

Unseasonal Greetings

The Swiss Chard is still growing

The weather has been in the 60's for the last several days. That means there are no excuses for not going out and working in the garden -- harvesting some Swiss chard, surveying the newly sprouted weeds and feeling guilty about the garden tasks that never got finished or even begun (the latter is the subject for another, very long blog post).

I was incredulous that so many new weeds would have sprouted up at the end of November. Don't things die back for the winter in these parts?

Daffodils are already
starting to come up

While I was futilely trying to lessen the spread of the budding new weeds, I found something else I didn't expect until spring: daffodil tips pushing up from the earth.

Cherry blossoms at Thanksgiving.
A sign of global warming?

That was just too much. So I took my dog for a walk to clear my head. And what did I see? Cherry blossoms on the tree in someone's front yard.

Dirty Hairy

The weed that is carpeting every bald spot in the lawn and every uncovered area in the garden is called Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta). It's a member of the Brassicaseae family (like cabbages and mustard) and is an edible bitter green. Guess what we're having in our salads from now on? We have plenty. It sprouts up in the autumn and stays green throughout the winter. And it can't be composted because it will continue to grow seeds after it's pulled up. The most important way to control it is to not let it flower and seed.

Hairy bittercress.
 But a better name is "Cluster bomb"

It's classified as an invasive weed because of its diabolical reproductive system. The plant is an angiosperm. Which means its flowers produce fruits with seeds that include a nutrient that aids in their germination (like wheat, barley, corn and coconuts). Its other common names are "jumping jesus" and "popping cress" because the fruits burst open at the slightest disturbance and scatter thousands of seeds. I called them "cluster bombs" last Spring for the way they blasted into my shins and face when I was trying to pull them up. The zillions of scattered seeds can then germinate for years

I didn't know how lucky I was in Colorado that Hairy bittercress doesn't grow there. At least it's almost fun to pinch the center of the carycomb of leaves and pull them out of our luscious loamy New Jersey soil. I'm sorry to say, there really is too much of a good thing.

First Flakes

Last week's snowstorm in Colorado made the national news. And not to be outdone, so did the snow that fell here on Sunday. While other parts of the East suffered from fallen trees and power outages, we had two or three inches of the white stuff, some beautiful scenery and one broken tree limb. The only real tragedy is that the neighborhood kids didn't go trick or treating on Monday so I'm tormented by the open bag of candy that was meant for them.

Enjoy these quick snapshots from Sunday morning while I snack on some chocolate: 

Beans deciding not to go outside

The Red Maples (Acer rubrum)
in our front yard

The Pyracantha outside
our kitchen window

The branches of the Yew and
Magnolia outside my office
bent several feet to the ground
from the weight of the snow

And I'm still picking raspberries!