After the Autumnal Equinox Comes

"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there." Ray Bradbury Farenheit 451

 So I took a long walk around the garden this past evening, I had meant to put up a post on the flowers of the autumnal equinox as I have done in the past. But somehow time slipped by me and almost a week has past since we hit that perfect moment where day and night are equal in length.

So all the pictures in these two collages were taken on evening of September 27 when the length of day is now 11 hours and 52 minutes. And tomorrow it will be 3 minutes and 6 seconds shorter.

I really just focused on the Autumn Crocus and Colchicum that are in bloom, although I could have found a few more flowers if I had pushed the issue. I like the shades of lavender and pink, it seems to be a subdued color pallette for the coming of winter, almost as if the flowers are telling you it's time to fade away from the bright neon glow of summers Petunia's bedded en masse. Time to take a closer look at the intricate details of the flowers that will soon fade away with the first hard frost, and won't be seen again until the days once again begin to lengthen. I really wish I wasn't writing in memorandums here every so many months, but it's come to that point in life where the good friends and relatives are aging out.


In Loving Memory:
Oh to walk down those racks of vintage's in glass in the little Chelsea Lane store, near the duck pond in Bend where Auntie Raissa made her place. Thank you for so many memories from Pacifica and the Packaging Store, to Bend and Chelsea Lane. You may not have left a garden for your soul to rest at, but you left me so many precious memories I'll never forget you. Rest in Peace and may your soul be free.

Summers End

“To say it was a beautiful day would not begin to explain it. It was that day when the end of summer intersects perfectly with the start of fall.”
– Ann Patchett

The Autumn Colchicums with long summer bloomers

We all know that day, the crisp cool morning, the dew is heavy and you can see your breath as you walk out in the now dark early morning hours. By noon the foggy dew is burning off hard and by afternoon it's warm and the flannel comes off. Oh, these are the halcyon days. I've used that quote by Walt Whitman before, but I don't know if I went into the etymology. I mostly liked it because I used to follow a travel blog of some retired teachers, who bought a boat, named her the Halcyon and went about exploring the rivers, lakes and oceans wherever they could take her. 

The Halcyon,-I took this from wikipedia- From Latin Alcyone, daughter of Aeolus and wife of Ceyx. When her husband died in a shipwreck, Alcyone threw herself into the sea whereupon the gods transformed them both into halcyon birds (kingfishers). When Alcyone made her nest on the beach, waves threatened to destroy it. Aeolus restrained his winds and kept them calm during seven days in each year, so she could lay her eggs. These became known as the "halcyon days," when storms do not occur. Today, the term is used to denote a past period that is being remembered for being happy and/or successful.

My Halcyon days often involve fishing, and off the Pacific Coast where storms can ravage, I envy old Aeolus and his ability to restrain the wind and keep it calm, because when it's calm like the past few weekends, you would have found me at Salmon camp, following the ways of the indigenous coastal tribes who knew that when you had a Halcyon day you went to get the Salmon and stock up for the winter ahead.

It's been a wonderful end to summer, Salmon camp was successful and the fall bloomers have started in well. The rain has been here and gone and back again. Which is the way that I most enjoy it, a day or two of dry followed by a wet one makes for the perfect, easy end to summer. It's also really nice not to have to water anymore!

While I do have a huge amount of fall projects I need to get done ahead of the real "weather", I hope to be back here every so often with some fall blooming bulb pics. 

Showers this weekend, followed by sun and nice weather in the 70's. 

Cheers,

Mark

It is Finished

The shipping season has ended!

Thank you so much to the loyal customers who put in orders this year and welcome to the new folks that are enriching the garden. I for one am looking foward to the fall, harvesting the produce from the vegetable garden, some salmon fishing  to stock the freezer for the long winter I have a feeling is coming. The kiddo is back to school soon and the heat wave has broken, its starting to legitimately feel like fall is here. Every few days a different Autumn Crocus is coming on now. The Naked ladies are up. I'll be back to blogging about them after some salmon fishing trips, but here are a few for you to enjoy now and look forward to purchasing on next years list.

Colchicum lateum

Colchicum davisii

Temps in the low 80's and nice cool evenings, the yellow jackets are about the most annoying thing about this season as they seem to be think as thieves right now.

Cheers!

Mark