It's weird to read about the rest of the country sometimes. We just broke a decades old record today....115 days of over 90 degree weather. It looks as if we will have at least another week of it.

bushes that had some breakage during the last thunderstorm are putting out new growth. Trees have not started turning yet. And the only thing that seems to be blooming is tons of Ragweed... AACHOOOOOO!
Please, please, please! send us a little of your cooler weather.

My morning walk did not last long today. Cold driving rain and 59 degr. Yesterday morning it was 69 degr. I don't complain, we need the rain even if it is just a little bit and the cold will not last either.
George, I hope your melons made it through the night. Our leaves turn brown this year and just fall off, no color yet.

It is too early for the leaves to be turning here, though some are falling. The Virginia creeper are getting red, though and I notice the dogwood berries are getting bright red, and there is a flush on the burning bushes.

Here in the land of mostly evergreen we don't get so much leaf color, but I noticed the pines are getting ready to drop a lot of needles - I like pine-straw for mulching. Poison oak is turning red, it's in the forties over night, though or days are still in the mid-eighties.
There is a mountain of firewood ready to be stacked, Grandson and friends said they will come to help with that.
Rain is still off by about a month, the well is giving, but we have to be careful, of course, it is the time to let up on watering anyway, so not to worry.

Shake, rattle and roll: we've been shaken, we've rattled with high winds and torrents of rain, and now we're on a roll... from a high of 88 yesterday down to 42 last night and the weatherman says 'fall-like' weather for the next week with highs in the 60's.

The fall asters are in full bloom a month early, the oaks have dropped all their acorns and are now dropping leaves (8-10 weeks early); the tomatoes have produced a second round of fruit, ditto the beans; the rest of the garden is in the process of being chopped up for compost. I'm wondering if the first hard frost is going to be ahead of it's usual schedule.

I'm ready to enjoy autumn!

Just got back from a walk with Tallulah. Izzy is out of commission for a few weeks because she's recovering from surgery on her paw. It turns out that when she got the through and through involuntary paw piercing last April (and subsequent multiple infections) that about three inches of reed lodged itself in her paw, nestled right up against the bones. Prognosis is good, but I digress.

Our walk these days is to, and a couple laps around, a beautiful 15 acre restored prairie at the top of a nearby hill, with amazing views of one of Madison's lakes and our capitol building. I can definitely see the change in the prairie: goldenrod at, and ever so slightly past peak, Queen Anne's Lace is nothing but closed, brown, dried fists, Echinacea is all dried, tall grasses are in full seed, milkweek is yellowish with full pods that are just beginning to pop, the "little Black Eyed Susans on the taller plants" are in full bloom, but the "big ones on the shorter plants" are spent. Those teeny daisy thingies are going insane, but the big ones are done with. A few wild asters are going, and the ones in my back yard are just beginning to pop.

I noticed a couple maple trees on the way to the conservancy are putting on their reds. The one in our back yard is blushing at its extremities, but still mostly green. I also found a (mostly brown) wooly bear caterpillar.

A good friend of mine voiced my feelings about autumn very succinctly a few days ago: "Fall is a beautiful season in and of itself. But it fills me with dread, because I know it's a 'gateway season.'" In years past, I've driven myself crazy denying the seasonal change: covering the garden in sheets, and even cutting and hanging the tomato vines in the garage until every last fruit ripened. On Wednesday morning, I noticed forecasted lows in the mid-30s for the next two nights and just ripped up and composted the whole garden. (Major undertaking!) I have three giant tubs of produce---after sharing a full size cooler-ful with a neighbor---and if I get my act together today, I'll roast the ripe tomatoes, and can a bunch of green tomato chutney. I kind of feel a sense of relief.

Our summer was pretty magnificent, and the amount of brown I saw on that wooly bear has me feeling optimistic about what comes at the end of this gateway season.

Here in the South Bay of Silicon Valley, CA, we really don't have a gateway season, things grow year around. But we do get some frost in late autum, and I've learned the hard way to pull my plants before the first frost date. Once the frost hits the plants, some of them turn into a slimy mess and I'm willing to forgo some straggles to clean out my garden for the next season's plantings.

Fall is a bittersweet season. It's the only season in these parts where the weather plays nice. The one time of the year when the humidity and the heat are not insufferable. It's an eight week window of non weather woes. Winters are mild here but we do have it. And since most days of the weeks in winter are cloudy it makes for a dark night of the soul season, especially after the winter solstice.

Yes, fall makes my soul sing, gateway or not.

Ready ready ready for rain, should it please the heavens! Toms are way done, okra giving one or two a week (what does one do with one okra?), herbs are happy, basil - for once in my life - is happy, anything not cultivated and watered is dead and burnt. I've planted seedlings of all sorts and most are doing what they're supposed to, but I still need to buy about 5-8 bags of soil to plant them. The lasagna gardens have proved their worth but since I started with construction rubble as soil, it takes seasons to get actual soil on the ground. Compost is happy, and hopefully I can get some vermicompost going this year.
Odd, this year every container and raised bed is overrun with millions of ants, little black ones that bite and literally take over any pot and inch of ground. I'm not sure what I can do about them, or if I should do anything, but it makes playing in the dirt impossible. We are still using the air conditioner. Hoping to get to Chicago for two weeks in Oct., so to see my beloved fall colors.
Peace.

Hey Batya, if you go north again to visit your friend, feel free to stop by again!

Thanks sugar! Probably not this trip, only 12 days instead of over 4 months.....barely enough to visit with mom and sisters..but SO glad to be able to (hopefully) see the fall colors. Gotta get everything planted from seedlings to their in-the-ground new homes before then so DG has an easy watering regimen.
Any ideas about all those millions of ants?

Day before yesterday, the temps went to 97.

Today...it's 68 on the back porch, the air is breezy. It's wonderful!!

So, was it you, Gandle, that sent me some cooler weather???
If so, thank you, thank you, thank you!!

(now, can anyone manage to send me some rain?)

Batya, great to hear from you. No idea what to do with the ants in your area. We had quit a lot of ants a few years ago, I raked the colonies open a couple of times a day so that the eggs were exposed and my bird population waited for that every morning and evening.

Re: ants. We get them from time to time and I also find the "colony" as anneliese said, but I flood then with water.

Strange year for weather all over.

Irene gave us an abundance of rain for a couple of days during her visit. Since then nothing of significance has fallen from the sky.
It is cooler now and next week will be in the 80's for the highs and 60's for the lows.

Had a nice visit from my brother. I love it when he and his wife visit. They are so easy. They were about 30 miles from the center of the earthquake. Both were still shaken from experiencing it. They had nothing but admiration for the folks in California having to live with the possibility of
earthquakes all the time.