Peak Leaf color. . .

We headed North late this week to hike along Little Moose Pond, close to Moosehead Lake and surrounds. Moosehead Lake is the headwater of the Kennebec River, so it's a pretty big deal. In truth, we're a little past peak leaf color. You can see in the photo to the left that there are a few deciduous trees that have already defoliated, but there it still plenty of color. These photos are not touched up, by the way.

The "pond" (they would call this a Lake in the West) is completely surrounded by the Appalachians. . .a wonderful mix of deciduous and coniferous trees. 

Even underfoot the color is remarkable. 

The color isn't limited to our excursions, though. Our backyard is full of color as well. . . I wake up to the image below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also spent a little time in the garden this morning, tying back the raspberry canes to avoid lodging in the snow. . .premature, I know, but not THAT premature. . .

And I was able to harvest this small bouquet. The hydrangeas keep giving, and the hardier herbs, and even some basil, remain as gifts for the taking. The vase is a new design. I must have seen one like this somewhere (2 circles bowed out, with the top and the bottom slightly truncated), but I have no idea where.  And I just realized that I never photographed it for my collection. 

The highbush blueberries are a blazing red, and the surprise was that two of the small Korean lilacs also put on a show of red in the fall. Nice.

The temperatures have cooled considerably now. Mornings find us waking up snuggled under 2 extra wool blankets, and hurrying out of bed to slip on layers. I love it. For now, at least. Walks smell wonderfully fall (makes me think of walking around my old neighborhood at Halloween), and while I look forward to our first snow, I'm also feeling great ambivalence toward the weather. The climate. When we moved to Boise in 2000, we started looking forward to winter. We had just learned to ski, and it was a new Fun Thing. Now, as climate is giving us the extreme weather evens we deserve, I think of those folks in Florida without power. . .some likely for weeks. If I impose our version of wild weather. . . ice storms. . .over that, it's a grim picture indeed. We like to think we're prepared, but I know that if it's extreme, we're not. I have never chosen to live my life afraid, but this feeling is hard to shake. Stay warm.

Early October

 

I've finished harvesting raspberries now, but I thought this parting shot was worth documenting. The chipmunks harvest the raspberries too, and have them as a meal on the stone steps that are between the two raspberry cultivars. I think it's incredibly cute that they leave the seeds behind for me. We've got several patches of these on the 5 stone steps. I'm glad we can share, and not lose the crop.

Last week I hiked with friends along Salmon Lake. The leaves were coloring, but they're at full color now. . .just 5 days later.

Maine is full of these hidden gems of hikes. We have a wonderful series of trails in back of our house, but there are woods everywhere. You have to know about them, though, and the best way to do that is to "know a guy".

One of my hiking friends is always assessing the various lakes' condition, particularly as pertains to erosion, and/or land owner education. It is a battle to fight against ruining these lakes with too many people doing things that erode the shore, pollute the water, add invasive species, etc.

I love these rocks along the shore. We have an abundance of rocks and roots on just about any trail.

And of course, Jasper is ever present. Lending support to the ongoing mission of enjoying life, and trying to be worthy of our many riches.

Red is the color. . .

 

Well, maybe more orange in this case? John took this photo while he was working on the Messalonskee Trail. It is very large. . .8" in diameter at least. He was told it's a Honey Mushroom, and then directed how to cook and eat it. But we're not that hungry, and probably not that bold. It also seems a little selfish to take it when it can be enjoyed by anyone who cares to look right where it is.

Speaking of art. . . this leaf is from a tree along our driveway. I picked it to see if it is from a Sugar Maple, but it turns out that it's from a Red Maple. Score for accurate naming.

The Summer Leaf Series

 

I didn't spend much time in the studio this summer. . .between recovery (No Potting For You!) and the business of the growing season, there just wasn't much time. But as usual, I couldn't resist picking up leaves, twigs, and other bits as I walked with Jasper, and they somehow, in small moments, transform themselves into little bowls.

This technique isn't as easy as it looks. There are a lot of details, and of course glazing is always an issue for me.

I glazed the second grape leaf bowl with a combination of a matt and an iridescent green glaze. Also a sweet piece. A nice surprise that even without feet added to the bottom, these are really quite stable. They are 6-7: from rim to rim, so they're a nice size for serving small delights.

I found this huge oak leaf in our driveway, prematurely downed, though the leaves are really starting to both color and fall now. I think it makes a nice, if not conventional, dish.

I thought this was a leaf from a striped maple, but in fact, since it's from a shrubbery, it's more likely a viburnum. You'd think that someone with my education would know for sure! Anyway, it's the largest of those listed above, and again, makes for a sweet bowl. I'm not terribly happy with the glaze on this one, but the veins are nicely emphasized.

Above is another rhubarb leaf platter. . .my third. Unfortunately, early successes are are often hard to repeat. You can see a nasty split  along the middle vein where the clay separated when fired. You bake some and you burn some. I'm thinking of having a wall of despair that showcases these abject failures. . .

And to the right is the last of my summer work. A thrown mug that I slip-trailed. Again, the glaze doesn't thrill me, but the slip trailing is way fun, and allows for all sorts of decorative additions, much like applique. "Decorative" is the worst thing a fine arts major can call an object, but I'll own it. Smile.

Rain

 We usually avoid the Rotary Trail, which runs alongside the Kennebec River on an old railroad bed. It's lovely. . . wide and flat. . .but often so peopled that I need to keep Jasper on his leash. He doesn't complain about that, but we both do our best work Off Leash. Smile. 

Dogs are so accommodating. I don't ever want to take that for granted. Anyway, the rain staved off the people (the parking lot was empty at 9am), and we had a lovely drizzly walk. We paused to photograph the extreme damage done by last winters storms. We're trying to figure out how to pay to fix the damage. Ack.

The Kennebec River is fairly wide here. In typical mid-Maine style, there are areas that seem completely isolated, and others where you can see a factory across the river. . .or houses. I used to feel like these man-made things like old mills, (some abandoned, some functioning) were eyesores, but I've come to see this mix of the natural and the man-made as a testament to what has gone before. And perhaps potential for the future. Too Pollyanna? Maybe.

I didn't walk out to the garden a single time today. That's the surest sign that fall is here. I remember wishing that water would fall from the sky in Boise. At 12"/year, it was not a common occurrence, and no one tried to grow anything without irrigation. Maine is different, of course, at 45"/year, though I had cause to appreciate the trickle irrigation we installed 2 years ago. We had had 2 summers of drought, and a lot of hand-watering. While most of the summer had ample precipitation this year, we ran into a 2-3 week period with no rain just prior to today. 

Perennial plants don't look like they're doing much this time of year, but they are. They need resources, (water, light, some warmth) to prepare for the winter, shuttling carbohydrates down to their roots as their leaves senesce and fall. It's actually a pretty important time of year if you want them to come back in the spring.

A couple of last shots of Jasper on the trail. Clearing predicted tomorrow, and the last of the apples will be harvested.

The Equinox come and gone. . .

 

How did that happen? My original title for this post was "The Equinox cometh. . " and here we are post equinox. All things being equal (ha ha),it's ok. Fall is really pulling out all of the stops this year, and I feel like I'm never coming close to being caught up. It's hard not to see the beauty around us, though. The impending election makes me waver between hope and despair, but if I just keep my eyes on the now, I'm good. We're down to a few eggplant, a few cherry tomatoes, raspberries and the last of the apples, so the end of the harvest is in sight. I seem genetically predisposed to NOT  WASTING ANYTHING, and this is proving a disadvantage as my energy levels are well below what they once were. My challenge for next year is to figure out how to have less. Odd, isn't it?

But! Some images from both hikes and garden are in order.

Hiking: Jewel weed (also called Touch-me-nots) because their little seed pods pop when touched, distributing the seeds.

 

 

Another feral aster. Blues, pinks and purples all grow together. No reds, though. Ha.

Sumac is one of the first reds to appear in the woods, though the maples are also coloring, and the ash are adding their gold-yellow to the mix.

Very sweet mushrooms growing out of the
knot of a tree.

 

 

 

Offers from the garden:

Fall Flowers

Cultivated Asters

Asparagus ferns

Apples: Macoun, I think.

Hydrangeas were amazing this year

Daylillies blooming well past their sell-by date

Eggplant: Outrageously beautiful

Bat Spotting and other pleasures

 

When we were living in Australia, we started bat spotting as a regular evening practice. Our first experience with them was when we were biking home from a movie at dusk. We lived in downtown Melbourne, so is not a rural setting. We were lucky enough to rent a very urban garage that was right on the Royal Park, analogous to Central Park in New York City. 

As we were coming through an open area in the park, we saw what looked like pterodactyls swooping around us. Their wingspans approached 6 feet. Am I exaggerating? Maybe a little. But they were large. Really large, and we eventually figured out that they were bats. . .locally called Flying Foxes. They are fruit eaters, which explained why everyone in the neighborhood had netting over their fruit trees in their very small patio gardens. 

Fast forward to now, and we have continued our tradition of bat spotting, though not nightly. Now is the perfect time of year, though. It's dusk at about 6:30 or 7p, and we have a deck that is raised above the yard and overlooks the sunset and a lovely tree line. Our bats are considerably smaller. . . maybe a wingspan of 6-10". . .but they are so wonderful to watch in this mosquito prone environment. They swoop and dive and careen. They are only visible for about 30 minutes every evening. We've only seen 2 of them at any given time, but bats seem to be having a moment now. Much like octopuses were a couple of years ago. People are finally seeing these creatures with wonder and curiosity, rather than an automatic "other" reaction. That's got to be a good thing.

And I'm thinking some bat boxes might be in order soon. . . 

As a final note, apples are in now! They are delicious, and the deer seem to agree. I've been bringing in the apples that deer have taken a bite or two out of, trimmed off the bitten parts, and added them to applesauce. We'll be well prepared for winter, as far as applesauce is concerned!

Because of the wet weather earlier, many of them have sooty blotch on the skin, but it's easily washed off and doesn't seem to affect the fruit quality at all. And we have been very dry for the past 2 weeks or so. I am at last very glad that we installed the drip irrigation to all of the beds. We're having a bit of warmish weather as well. . . low 80's and expecting up to 84F this week. I do find that the managing of the harvest and the canning/freezing/blahblah is much more taxing for me than it once was. My back hurts after too many hours on my feet, and I can see ahead to a time when I won't want to work this hard. But now is now. We're good. And well prepped for the winter.

September by any other name is. . .

Jasper and I in shadow on top of French Mountain

Fall. Time for fall planting. An uptick in Fall storage for the winter. Planning for winter. But in usual form, the weather is just beautiful. Bright sun but not too hot, cool nights. Jasper loves his walks again. So do I. 

So as busy as the garden is, we took a hike up French Mountain last week. The weather was perfect. Jasper was his pranciest Danciest self (which is pretty prancy/dancy. . .Jasper walks like a dressage horse when he's feeling spicey), and the air has just started to smell like Fall.

Lowbush Blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium)

Summer used to be my favorite season, but with the increasing heat I've downshifted to Fall. I am noticing so many of these lowbush blueberries this year. You would think that the berry expert would have picked up on this sooner, but I've even noticed them along our driveway, which I walk along every day. 

The view of Great Pond from above

Our highbush blueberries really are finally done. As with the green beans, it's been a long extended season. I took out the regular tomatoes today, along with the zucchini plants. The former are just suffering too much, and their remaining crop will ripen as well on my counter as they will hanging from their nearly dead hosts. The zucchini really came into their own, but I have run out of freezer space and folks to give it too. It feels good to start the cleanup for the impending winter. And any excuse to be outside is a good one.

Jasper

The view from the top of French Mountain is hard to do justice in a photograph, but the above is a rough approximation. And of course, another image of my sweet Jasper finishes up this abbreviated post.


 

Late summer and the raspberries are. . .

 

Spectacular. This is year 3 for my raspberries, and Joan J is a wonder. These little jewels make diamonds look pedestrian, don't they? Somehow, I don't think that "Raspberries are a girl's best friend" will be a hit, though.

Several things about this mostly cool wet summer have surprised me. Some haven't. The very poor tomato season wasn't surprising. I canned 3 quarts today, and don't think I'll have any more from my little patch, though the cherry tomatoes are still going gangbusters. The green beans (Blue Lake) continue to hold forth. That's a big surprise given previous years' behavior. We're actually getting increasing numbers of beans now, whereas last year I had pulled them all out by now.

Likewise, the later cultivars of blueberries continue to deliver in small amounts. This is ok, though. I simply add them to the fruit I have in the freezer, and will pull them out once the winter is here for jam or pie. It's amazing how this small amount 3 times/week add up!

I haven't had any time for the studio, which makes me very sad. I have several pieces that need to be waxed and glazed, but need to have a block of time for that. I just haven't had it.

Hiking must go on, of course, because it's Jasper's time to shine. It also forces me to do something other than harvest and preserve. Harvest and Preserve. Harvest and preserve. My lovely consort and spouse caught these images of some really amazing mushrooms. The 3rd Kingdom. The image to the left isn't complete clear, until you see the image below, which focuses on just one of these black trumpet mushrooms. I have no idea if that's the proper name for them. Are they cool or what?

Then there are these cool orange guys. Maine always seems to have a plethora of mushrooms during the not-snow season, but this year's wetter seasons really brought them out.

On the hiking front, Jasper and I made it down to the rock on Messalonskee the other day, and I thought I'd record the view. What you can't see in this image is the loon that went paddling by in front of me. Small gifts.

The last bit is about a new resident here at the Highland House. I finally got this Rose of Sharon planted. I had a good hand wringing session over it, because I didn't know if my back would tolerate the small retaining wall, and much bigger amount of soil, compost and peat moss that I wanted to incorporate into the planting hole. As usual, it was easier to Just Do It than it was to contemplate/worry about the possible consequences. Two days later my back is fine, I'm a little muscle sore, and life will continue on as before.

Putting by. . .

 

I have often thought that I must have starved in a previous life, because not only am I focused on saving our garden food for later, but I also go to almost ridiculous lengths to not waste anything. Anything.

However, if we really did have previous lives, then there's a good chance that most of us starved at one time or another, so I'm hardly unique if that's the case. It is a marvel of our time. . .our civilization. . .that so many of us don't have to spend every waking hour either getting food, or figuring out how to feed ourselves through the winter. 

When I was writing grant proposals for our sustainable agriculture work, I opened with a sentence something like "Civilization is only possible once a sustainable food source is secured." [Actually, I think I was more articulate than that back then, but you get the idea. . . ]

So. The harvest goes on. Tomorrow, more peaches, tomatoes (which are looking very ragged indeed), raspberries, green beans, zucchini, eggplant, and a dribbling of blueberries. Since everything takes me longer, I'm a little anxious about getting all of this food in shape to can, freeze, dry or. . .yes. . . EAT. We're a little overwhelmed on that last one right now. Two old codgers can only eat so much, even when it's this good. . .

On other fronts, I saw this mushroom while Jasper was exercising me the other day, and it struck me that I think I subconsciously copied it in a couple of new porcelain pieces I'm working on.

It's funny how these images go into your head, and come out altered, but still recognizable. I think that's why artists often feel they're being copied. Images go in, and come out slightly (or very) differently than the original, but they are still recognizable.

This mug is still in the greenware stage, so it will have to survive 2 firings and me glazing it before it will be a useful object. The porcelain is first thrown, handle made and attached, and then a technique called slip-trailing applied, using a steady hand, piece held tentatively on a piece of foam, dots of thinned down clay applied through a squeeze bottle. And all the while hoping not to break the tender thing.

Below is a case in point. I threw this lovely little bowl, embellished it with the applique leaves, and then lifted it to set it aside in a safe place, putting my thumb through the dried clay. I have done this particular stupid thing before, so you'd think I would learn. But in my absent minded get-it-to-a-safer-place state, I applied a little too much pressure to the rim. 

 

This fragility at the greenware stage is so different from my more extensive experience in working with metals and vitreous enamel. I need to constantly remind myself that anything I make can be broken at any stage (though this earliest stage is the most vulnerable). 

But clay things break when dropped. A mug lip that has been knocked against the faucet may crack at that point sometime later. Clay only allows for so much "preciousness". It is a utilitarian medium that demands a little respect. Even the well-named stoneware is breakable, though not so easily as porcelain. Drop a stoneware bowl on a tile floor, though, and it's history.