Heather's Garden

CREEPY

I'll steal an idea from Layanee and say Happy Halloween:

 

Looks like she has her dinner ready...what will you be dining on this evening?  I'm making stew and am excited to use my own carrots harvested expressly for said stew:

 

Those 4 habaneros (the only ones harvested this year) will probably heat up some chili.  No salsa for us this year, just not enough good tomatoes.  Though some parts of the garden still think it's growing season:

 

Those little eggplants will never make it to harvest, but the flowers are pretty to look at.  As are the zucchini's that likely won't amount to much either:

 

That's it for me on this beautiful almost 70 degree Halloween.  I almost wish we would just have a hard frost already so I could pull all the plants and get this horrible gardening-season behind me. 

DOES THE TITLE REALLY MAKE YOU READ THE POST?

I hope not, because I am having the hardest time coming up with titles these days.  I put off drafting this post for an hour or so while I tried to come up with a good title...no luck.  I considered NIMG (Not in My Garden - originally coined by Carol of May Dreams Gardens?):

Yes, those are topiaries, anchors, lengths of huge rope, and no, you're not insane, that's the Three Stooges in golf gear on the pedestals:

 

We pass it every time we go for a walk, but today was the first time the home-owner wasn't out there playing around so I dared to stop and take a few photos.  Then I considered a fall theme of some sort, but the only fall color I could find was this cinnamon fern in my garden:

 

A post about dahlias was a legitimate possibility, with these colorful specimens all blooming in my garden, and now decorating my kitchen windowsill:

And these beauties:

 

In the living room next to the couch, as viewed from the couch:

 

But nothing clicked.  It was nice to get outside for a little while on such a beautiful day.  I probably should have spent time cleaning up the garden, but our trees are all still green and no leaves have fallen yet.  Maybe by next weekend.

I CAN SEE WHY THEY USE COBWEBS AS HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS

We've had one very persistent spider using our front porch to build its web nightly.  I wouldn't mind if the spider did it between the post and the house, but no, it has to go post to post right across the front steps -- otherwise known as exactly where our faces are when we walk out the front door:

 

Pardon all of these photos...the weaknesses of my simple point and click camera really show in low/no light situations: 

But the web is so magnificent even overexposed:

I tried playing with the images, but no luck:

 

I had more success with the macro setting on the camera and VPH shining a flashlight on the spider for me:

 

The spider went all the way around its web repairing wind damage:

 

I got some pretty good shots:

 

This is my favorite because you can see the filament coming out of the spider:

Though compositionally I think the first of the close-ups is the best photo.  What do you think?
 

AT LAST

It only took 6 months, but we have a shed!  I left the men to finish up on Saturday as I headed off to an appointment.  They ran into a problem and gave up.  I came home and fixed the issue in less than 5 minutes but it was too dark to finish up.  They headed outside before me on Sunday and I came around the corner of the house to find this:

Yes, that's SS2 climbing on to a table to climb onto a chair to reach the middle of the roof.  And VPH hiding his face in shame as I snap the photo.  No one was injured in the assembling of the shed:

 

Getting the shed done in under an hour gave VPH and I time to take a walk on that lovely day (possibly the last one over 65 degrees that we'll see in 2009).  Our destination was Dave's garden (the lovely man who got me started growing dahlias).  His dahlias are so beautiful: 

Every color you can think of and so lush and full:

 

VPH told me to be sure to snap a photo of the flowering tree behind the hydrangea here:

 

I can't remember what it's called, but it's Hawaiian and Dave digs it (and the other 2 or 3 he has) up to overwinter in his basement each year (please note even his grass looks awesome):

 

Back in our garden...I'm loving the wildflowers blooming all over the place right now that are making the hill next to our house a little less ugly:

 

A close-up of the wildflowers that shows a few slow-moving bees that are loving them too:

 

Here in southern CT on my 35th birthday, it's rather cool.  Some years my birthday is a short-sleeved t-shirt Indian Summer day, but not this year.  At least the shed is up and once we get the insanity of the American Girl Fashion Shows out of the way (tickets still available here), we'll get the garden tucked in for the winter.

THERE'S STILL SOME COLOR OUT THERE

Our windows have been closed for days, but I'm adamantly opposed to turning on the heat.  It was a gloriously sunny day here in CT today, but I was stuck in the office all day only sneaking peeks of the blue sky and puffy clouds through my boss' window.  I did get out to the garden 2 days ago and I was so excited to see a new dahlia blooming (I neglected to see if there was a tag though so I have no idea what kind it is):

 

At least one of the tomato plants is thriving:

 

And an actual habanero changing color:

 

Very calendar-worthy in my opinion:

 

What do you think?