Ten Days of Little Celebrations - October 2012

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Back in mid-August I posted about finding things to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and getting into the habit of writing it down each day reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. Here are some ‘little celebrations’ I’ve noted this month:

Sleeping late. The night had gotten cold and we didn’t have the heat coming on yet. It was so wonderful to stay under the warm blankets just a little longer than usual.

A rainy day. I like to work when it is raining. There is no temptation to get outdoors and the little bit of noise from the rain on the roof provides the white noise to keep my focus on whatever I am doing. It’s a day to where concentration comes easily.

Pink mushrooms in the grass. Mushrooms seem to come up very quickly after a rain. These were almost hidden in the grass. At first I thought they were scraps of fall leaves. But from the side or underneath ---- they were this wonder color.

Watkins Glen. A beautiful place any time but I enjoyed it in the fall.

Corning Museum of Glass.  I like glass in just about all its forms. Every time I go to this museum I find some other beautiful piece that I’d failed to notice before.

Home again. I always celebrate the first day back home even if I was only gone a relatively short time.

Writing 3,000 words to start a short story. I’ve signed up to participate in the National Novel Writing Month in November. So - I am busily practicing writing something every day and preparing a chapter by chapter outline to be ready to get 50,000 words written in November. Writing a 3,000 word chunk of a short story in a day was one of my practices that was successful! Hurray!

Sweet potato harvest. The weather dictated that it was time. It’s a lot like unwrapping a present although, in this case, you know there will be sweet potatoes. The surprise is how many there might be and how big are they.

Magnificent maple seen on the drive to the grocery store. Sometimes a path we take frequently has something of temporarily extraordinary beauty: in this case - a tree that has a glorious week every year in the fall….and somehow I always notice it.

Bean soup. Humble fare that was exactly what I wanted on a cool fall day.

Around our (Maryland) Yard in October 2012

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October is the key fall month in Maryland. The leaves are turning and falling. The onions blooming in September now have seed heads. The dahlias are still going strong and there are more puffballs that ever. There were lovely pink mushrooms growing in the grass. There is a new group of caterpillars on the parsley that may not get to chrysalis stage before it gets too cold. Enjoy my October slide show below!

Posts from previous months are here.

Around our (Maryland) Yard in September 2012

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September is the winding down of summer. I have onions blooming - a brilliant display over the lemon balm cut back last month. The insects really were enjoying the flowers.

The dahlias are still blooming profusely but sometimes one just dries out to look more like a sculpture than a flower.

The mushrooms are still growing around the old oak stump. The ones on the stump itself just get bigger and bigger. The puff balls a little further way on the mulch grow and then the puff opens to send spores out to grow other puff balls. It seems like we always have new pristine white one somewhere in the mulch around the oak stump while the older ones still disperse more spores when the wind is just right.

And finally - a feather in the grass. It must have come from a good sized bird. Since it was the only one - I’m assuming it was from molting rather than a death.

Previous Months: August 2012, July 2012, June 2012, May 2012, April 2012, March 2012, January 2012 

Catoctin Mountain Park - August 2012

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We took advantage of a cool, cloudy morning recently to revisit Catoctin Mountain Park near Thurmont, Maryland. It’s a forested area with hiking trails and winding roads. For us - it’s a place to celebrate all the times we’ve been there before (over the past 20+ years) and the beauty of the place even in August: (from the top down in the collage below) Catoctin geology, tiny mushrooms in moss, sunflowers at the visitors center, Cunningham Falls - not much water but the scour holes to the right of the water are indicators of how much there is at other times of the years, and a blue chicory flower.

This time of year the fungus steal the show from wildflowers. The slide show below captures some of my favorites. There are a lot of tree falls and forest mulch at Catoctin that provide lots substrate for these decomposers.

And last but not least - there were a few colorful leaves….reminding us that fall is just around the corner.

Around our (Maryland) Yard in August 2012

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I waited until I thought the dew would be dry from the grass - but misjudged it. At 9 AM, the grass was still very wet and I had to take my flip flops off to make it back up the slight incline of our back yard!

August is a month to start thinking about drying mint and basil. Both are blooming and growing profusely right now. Maybe I can get several harvests from the plants this month. I’ll do a later post on my technique for drying herbs.

 

 

 

 

 

Dahlias are the showy flowers in my flower beds this month. Other things are blooming too but somehow the dahlias always stand out above everything else.

 

 

 

 

 

I planted a sweet potato under the dahlias (I had one that sprouted before I could bake it) but the deer found it….it’s recovering but may not have enough time to actually grow sweet potatoes.

 

 

 

There are at least three different kinds of fungi in the back yard. The big bulky ones at the top of the picture collection below are the same ones growing on an oak stump from the ‘yard’ posting last month (and I posted about them at mid-month as well) - they’ve weathered from white curves to structures with rings and almost a clay like color. Two puff balls are a little further down on the mulch from where the oak stump is rotting. Then there are the very delicate mushrooms that come up in the grass. There always seem to be one or two in the back yard.

Previous Months: July 2012, June 2012, May 2012, April 2012, March 2012, January 2012 

Mushrooms on an Oak Stump

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One of the outdoor discoveries from our days without electricity was some mushrooms growing on the stump of an oak tree our neighbor cut down several years ago. I decided to take some pictures of them for as long as they lasted. On July 1st they looked creamy white at the margins. Notice the brown filament in the center of the one on the left; that will be a way to orient yourself in the upcoming pictures.

On 7/7, the white had flattened and enlarged. There were rings that began to appear.

On 7/11, the rings had become even more apparent and the rusty gold color was quite appealing. I also took another picture to show how they were oriented on the stump.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, this morning - on 7/19, the mushrooms have browned more with time and the pelting of rain yesterday afternoon. They are looking a little battered at this point. I'll do a follow up post to document what happens to them in upcoming weeks.