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.