Tunbridge Worlds Fair.

9-19-10 VERMONT: Yesterday we did a bunch of errands on a warm and sunny day. In the afternoon, I turned the soil in the bed that will become the kitchen herb garden. I described clearing the space in a couple of August posts. While we were away, hundreds of seedlings sprouted which I turned hoed up. I moved the soil to one end of the bed and laid down porous plastic on the base of the bed which is the top of a stone wall. The plastic holds the soil back while letting the water drain away. This prevents the soil from disappearing and defends the integrity of the wall. Then I moved the soil onto the plastic and covered the other half of the bed with the plastic and spread the soil. After that, I added 160 pounds of top soil to the bed to replace the soil that came out with the removed transplants. Now it’s ready for herbs, but we’ll wait until spring.

Today we took Anna and three sophmore friends, Dylan, Sam and Sarah, to the Tunbridge Worlds Fair, in Tunbridge, VT. We ate bloomin’ onions, pulled pork, chili dogs, funnel cake, fries that I remember and probably more, maybe much more. We saw prize cows, pies, oxen, sheep, preserves, goats, pumpkins, chickens, sunflowers, ducks, squash, pigs. Some of us dared the rides. We checked out tractors and saw pig races.


Those are big, tall sunflowers.

Shy Holstein needs a little encouragement.

Tomorrow—NJ.

Asters.

9-17-10 VERMONT: We came back up yesterday just ahead of the rain. We had 0.5 inches in the gauge when we arrived and added 0.65 inches last night. That would seem to be plenty for the two weeks we were away, but things looked thirsty. The pond is down five inches, and the little pond in the pasture is dry, even after yesterday's rain.

I switched to storm doors from screens and did a few other chores, but it’s too soon to start fall clean-up.

The pasture is full of golden rod and asters. Some of the asters are a lilac shade and some more magenta colored. A distinctive feature of the asters, that lets one identify them before they bloom, is the junction between leaf and stalk. The asters have no petiole, their leaves begin at the stalk and even wrap partly around the stalk.

After the centers of the asters are pollinated, they change from yellowish to dark reddish. The petals remain on the flower, apparently to attract pollinators to the mass of the plant, but the color change of the center indicates to the pollinator which particular flowers are still pollen rich.

New blooms: boltonia, asters.


Lilac colored asters are more numerous.

Magenta colored asters. You can see the differences in the flowers' centers.

Lazuli Bunting Visit.

9-14-10 SHORT HILLS: Sunday we went to LI to visit Alison, Dan and Lily for the afternoon. It rained off-and-on most of the day, the rain was most welcome. We timed our return to NJ pretty well, avoiding the traffic at the end of the Mets game, the tennis matches and the Giants home opener. That one hour trip can sometimes be endless.

Even better was the intense T-storm last evening. The two rains gave us 0.75 inches of needed precip, and everything in the yard looks perky this morning.


We had, I believe, a pair of Lazuli Buntings at the feeder yesterday, a first sighting for me. They were here with a gang of grackles, all dressed in shiny, black outfits. They act like bikers too. A grackle is giving us the evil eye, the buntings have their backs turned. Birders-any comments?

Feisty Turkey.

9-11-10 SHORT HILLS: Last night we went to the Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit, NJ with Bill and Lynn for a jazz concert and picnic. The show was great, the performers were local, mostly post-grad music students, the setting appropriately arboreal, the champagne and caviar delicious [it was an upscale picnic] and the evening cool enough for jackets.

We were almost late for the event. On the way we were stopped by a feisty, irate resident who resented our car using his road. His lady was watching from the nearby yard. After telling us off and pecking our tires, he let us proceed having been advised who owns the friggin' street.


Eh, look at me when I'm talking to you.


OK. Fageddaboudit.

More Weeding and Pruning.

9-9-10 SHORT HILLS: It’s official—we’re in a drought. We had in NJ a very hot, very dry summer after a dry spring. The meterologists are saying that this was the hottest summer on record, I guess they mean the USA. We just finished another two hot days but are now feeling more like autumn. We did get a little rain the other night.

I have continued to catch up on chores, doing weeding and pruning. There have been a number of shrubs with dead branches, and I think I got them all trimmed. There’s a car load of cuttings and weedings for the dump tomorrow. We brought all the house plants back inside today after their summer off. They all look great. Bringing them in early gives them a chance to adjust to the dryer inside environment before the heat goes on in another month of so.

When I do a lot of pruning, I always feel that I’m taking away more and more dead material and leaving less and less. But then I remind myself that the ninety-five percent of plants that don’t need pruning have all grown over the course of the season for what is certainly a net gain of vegetation.


Talk about your hard workers. The roses have been doing it since early spring and are still covered with buds.

Labor Day Weekend.

9-6-10 SHORT HILLS: It was a lovely weekend weather-wise, sunny and not too hot, but no rain, not for a few weeks. The first two zones of the sprinkler system are not working at all and the third zone is delivering a trickle. I am waiting for a repair, but in the interim, bought new hoses and a sprinkler that attaches to the hose. I have most of the dry stuff wet enough now for a few days.

Valerie, Maggie and Lucy were here for the weekend. Val was editing her latest, so Judy and I entertained the girls. We went to The Farm for three new shrubs, the Great Swamp Raptor Center, a farm stand, the movies. We did a dog walk and Val took them to the Mall. They left this morning, and I planted the new shrubs.

The casualties were: two variegated cotoneasters and a pheasant berry. I used a crepe myrtle, Lagerstroemia ‘Cherry Dazzle’, for the spot where the pheasant berry was, and a blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum ‘Northsky’, and a Pieris japonica ‘Cavaine’ to replace the cotoneasters. Add in a little weeding and pruning and it’s an easy day.

It’s about two weeks to the Autumnal Equinox and the official end of summer, always sad to see it go, but instead we get a fall with no oppressive heat and the foliage and the end of the bugs.


The Entertainers, Sam, Nick, Gus, and Chloe.

New Jersey is Hot.

9-3-10 SHORT HILLS: We left Vermont on the first and had an easy trip except for construction delays. Everything was in order here, no nasty surprises, no fallen trees. It’s been in the high ninties until today when Mister Earl arrived. He has cooled things off, but so far has delivered no rain or wind. Part of the yard could use the rain because some of the sprinklers are not working. Repairs are scheduled for next week.

I have braved the heat to do a little bit of weeding. Three of the new shrubs have died—heat stroke? I’ll condider replacement options when things cool off. The house plants, outside for the summer, have enjoyed their holiday. They have grown so big that we may have difficulty getting a few back inside.

The lawn, so-called, actually looks OK by my, loosest, of standards. The Goldens immediately tested to see if holes can be excavated where the defenseless baby grasses were fighting for survival.

In bloom: hosta, rose of sharon, roses, butterfly bush, hydrangea, abelia, clematis, and wild asters and other weeds.


Rose of Sharon has been blooming for two months.

Butterfly Bush usually, readily demonstrates why it is so named.