Moving Along

62°f, 16.7°C. Heavy dew, mostly clear with high thin clouds. No rain in sight.  

A late rose, so much darker than the photo, and so velvety!

It is still very dry here, although the ground is retaining the moisture from last week's storm much better, probably due to shorter and slightly cooler days and the angle of the sun. I am watering the potted plants but the rest are on their own now. We lost one young pear tree, sadly. I guess we will be getting a replacement for it soon, although I don't want to add to the watering chore. I did buy 8 mums (only $5 each, a bargain!) that I will use to replace the fading petunias and other potted plants. I am waiting to do that, though, until the hair nets I ordered arrived. I will put the nets over the mums to prevent the deer from eating them. Do you think it will work? 

These vinca on the porch have been happy campers all summer. They get watered pretty often!

Another late rose. Just makes me happy.

I have apparently caught something, a rhinovirus or something, that has me feeling like warmed over crud. Thank goodness Larry is feeling much better, so at least one of us is mostly functional. I seem to get this every fall, and every spring, but I am lucky in that it stops at my throat and doesn't get into my lungs. Larry is not as fortunate. 

Before I got to feeling bad yesterday, I worked outside in one of my flowerbeds, cutting back the dead stuff. It does look much better, and the mums, when I get them out there, will brighten it up. I still have the other beds to do, but they will have to wait.

We spent a good bit of time on the porch yesterday, neither of us feeling too well. The upside is that we watched birds as they flitted from the mulberry trees to the fir trees. They were quite busy! We saw on bird that was new to us, although I think I have seen it before but confused it with a Goldfinch. This was actually a pine warbler. So cool to add tonour list. The Merlin app helped by identifying the song first, then a few minutes later I spotted the bird. Here's a list of what we saw yesterday during our porch time:

Pine warbler

Summer Tanager

Northern Cardinal

Cedar Waxwing

Eastern Goldfinch

Red-bellied woodpecker

Downy woodpecker

Nuthatch

Titmouse

Carolina Wren

Song Sparrow 

I think that was all of them. 

We have been hearing coyotes again. They have been quiet all summer, but the other night I heard them howling. I went out and yelled at them and they instantly went silent. But at 3am I heard the bawling of a fawn, apparently the victim of the coyotes. It is a distressing sound to hear. I am afraid the coyotes have gotten both of the fawns we have been seeing this summer, as now we see only adult deer.

This week I continued to work through the piles of stuff from my friend who moved away. 90% is priced and stowed away in totes or packed up for Goodwill. I still have 2 small totes to research and price, but can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. I really need to get finished and then start cleaning up this house before my knee surgery. Hopefully next week I will feel up to it. I also have a bushel of apples Larry picked before he got sick that I have to do something with. Probably applesauce, today if I feel better, or tomorrow. 

I am reading the second book in the Maisie Dobbs series, and have to admit to being a bit disappointed.  The first book was great, but in this one Maisie seems too...perfect? The characters, which were very real in the first book, seem to be becoming stereotypical. I ordered others in the series based on my enjoyment of the first book, so I hope what I am feeling about this book will not carry over to the others.

And we just started watching To The Manor Born. Such barbed British wit! I love it. Plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. I know this is an old series, but we have not seen it before. 

That's about all the news from here. I hope you all have a great weekend!

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