The Frost is on the Pumpkin!

Just over a week ago we had our second hard frost which finished off most of the flowers in the gardens.

October 29th: Second hard frost

My hubby's pumpkin/squash/gourd patch yielded a wonderful harvest and gave us lots of colorful decorations for Halloween and the Harvest Supper at church.

You can see that most of the leaves have fallen, due to some very windy, wet weather over that weekend (Oct. 27th).

Hubby got creative and did the fall decorating in the front yard.

He found an old wheelbarrow that had been his mom's, and filled it with pumpkins, squash and gourds. I was really impressed with the result. He has hidden talents that I'm only just discovering! (I wonder if I can interest him in cooking........ ;)

I wonder where he's off to now.... ?

I planted those nasturtiums late, and thanks to our warm fall they gave us some lovely late color. For those who asked, the white pumpkins are called Lumina. We used them for decoration only, but I assume they're edible. The catalogue doesn't say they're good for pies, which leads me to believe they may not be the most flavorful. But I'm just guessing.

Early in August we extended the fence garden a little (one of several we made a bit bigger this summer), and I planted a few flowers that I'd started from seed. Not really expecting much in the way of blooms because of the late start, I was pleasantly surprised when they gave us a lovely show, which lasted until just about a week ago.

Calendulars are hardier than some plants. They managed to survive a couple of frosts, and were a lovely bright spot in the yard with their cheery faces of bright yellow..........

..........and orange.

There are a few zinnias and some 4 O'Clocks mixed in, as well as those delicate little pink flowers....

......which are Baby Snapdragons (Toadflax). They were a nice surprise in a seed mix I started.

The calendulars made a sunny bouquet for church.

This was the view looking up the hill from our farm just 2 and a half weeks ago.

And I caught Pete sitting on a post the same day.

Looking south

There were still a few lovely colors left after the storm on the 27th. This was taken driving home from school on Oct. 29th.

It was a bright sunny afternoon after that very frosty morning.

The geese have flown south.

I miss hearing their honking down on the river, and seeing their v-formation as they fly overhead.

The outdoor wood furnace is keeping us warm and cozy inside.

We saw our first snow today!! It was just a few light showers and didn't stick, but seeing those snowflakes and feeling the chill certainly made it feel like Old Man Winter had arrived! That's just a little more of Hubby's pumpkin and squash harvest.

But there's more!

We've been freezing some squash and have had plenty to share.

And the gourds make pretty decorations.

The white marigolds from Anita in Germany bloomed beautifully, and so did Marion's 4 O'Clocks from Wales, again thanks to our 'extended summer' temperatures.

Aren't they pretty?

I was afraid the frost would kill them too early, but we were lucky to enjoy plenty of lovely blooms!

However, this is how they looked on that frosty morning of Oct. 29th. The Alyssum is still going strong (that "Sweet Alice" is tough stuff!), and the red Diascia is still putting out a few blooms.

I've been working on emptying all the containers while Jasmine has been chasing leaves. Next year I vow to restrain myself and plant fewer containers!

As I picked up this fuchsia to bring it inside I saw this Monarch butterfly sitting on a stem. It apparently wasn't in good enough shape to migrate, so I just left it on the plant to be sheltered from the cold wind on the enclosed porch.

Some of the flowers in the containers are still looking good. This Marguerite, with the Persian Shield is certainly too pretty to throw away so I'll save it on the side porch for a while. It'll be sheltered until the temperatures get really cold.

We discovered that Jasmine likes to eat the stems of summer squash! She doesn't like the green zucchini so much, but she ate the whole stem of the one she's munching on here. What a crazy cat :)
I hope to have a little more time to visit my blog friends soon. Working at school is keeping me a little too busy, and tired at the end of the day. I find myself nodding off at the computer so I can't seem to fit in more than a few visits before I have to trot off to bed.

I hope you're all enjoying November. Thanksgiving will be here before we know it!

Blizzard, 2007

As most of you know, here in the Northeast we were hit with the big Valentine's Day blizzard, and we now have snow up to our ears! Well, not quite, but we have enough to last us for a good while. Our school was closed for 3 days! I don't remember that happening before during the 6 years I've worked there.

We've been pretty much house bound except for feeding the barn cats and birds, shoveling and plowing snow and feeding the furnace. Ross spent 3 hours outside on Thurday morning plowing out the driveways and around the buildings, and was back at it today. The winds were strong and frigid both yesterday and today, and filled up the plowed areas with snow again very quickly. Twice yesterday and again this morning we couldn't open the back door because so much snow had blown against it. Ross climbed into the garage through our little dutch door and went out that way to shovel the snow away from the door.

I froze my fingers taking a few photos each day.

We had the most snow on Wednesday and you can see what a gray day it was. The snow was powdery and didn't look like it was coming down very heavily, but it accumulated amazingly fast. It kept falling all through the night and eased off on Thursday morning. More light snow fell during that day and we had just a little more today.

The trusty furnace has kept us relatively warm, but the arctic winds blow in through every nook and cranny, so we've been wearing layers of clothing and sitting with blankets covering our laps, and Jasmine sharing herself between us. She makes a good lap warmer!

Jamine keeps an eye on the birds for a good part of each day.

Our flag was whipping in the wind and so were the bird feeders.

The birds came in droves to fill their tummies, trying to keep their energy level up enough to stay warm. I felt sorry for the poor little things.

There's Woody Woodpecker sitting on the line above the suet...taking a break.

The blue jays were at the feeders very early on Thursday, as they are every morning.

In the fall Ross puts wire mesh collars around our roses and half fills them with compost to help them survive the winter.

Looking out our back door on Thursday morning.

(Are you humming that old Creedence Clearwater Revival tune now....."doot, doot, doot, looking out my back door"?) I am :)

The sun shone brightly on the snow for most of the day. If the wind hadn't been so nasty it would've been quite a nice day, in spite of the cold temperatures.

I shoveled this path out more than once before the day was through.

The mourning doves were cleaning up all the seeds that the naughty jays threw on the ground.

After Ross climbed through the little door once again this morning to shovel the snow away from the back door, this is what the pile looked like. Goodness, that's a lot of snow!

You can see the roses are completely buried now. I'll prune the clematis in early spring.

There's the snowplow working this afternoon. The county workers have done a wonderful job clearing up all the snow. They sure have earned their pay this week!

You can see that the shone shone brightly again today.

We have some rather large piles of snow and high snowbanks.

That dark spot in the snow bank in the left foreground is our picnic table.

And last but not least, here are a couple of shots of the beautiful sunset we had this evening.

I hope Apple hasn't been buried again by all this snow. She lives northwest of Syracuse where those record high depths have been recorded after all the lake effect snow that's been dumped on that area. The highest depths are further north than she is, but I know she's had more than her fair share! She calls her neck of the woods "Snowville"...an apt name! And they're still predicting a bit more snow for that area!

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Edit: Several of you have left comments saying you couldn't see my pictures in this post and the wildflower post (I've now reloaded those pics too). I noticed when I looked in the "Edit Html" page that the "Blogger ID number", and some of the following bits of the picture code were gone from the missing pictures, so I reloaded those photos through the "Edit posts-Compose" page (I used Picasa the first time I posted them). Hopefully they won't disappear this time. Alice had these same problems recently. Has anyone else experienced similar frustrations, and if so, what solutions did you come up with? Please leave a comment if you have any advise on the subject!