Fall Begins.

9-22-18 SHORT HILLS: Very early in the morning tomorrow, September 23, Greenwich time, the sun will cross the Equator into the southern hemisphere and so will begin the dark half of the year for us northern hemispherians. On the Autumnal Equinox everyone has a twelve-hour day and a twelve-hour night. The sun rises and sets on the equator, so it rises due east and sets due west, if you want to check the accuracy of your compass.

Technically, we’re talking about the sun’s geographic position, which is that spot on the earth’s surface directly beneath the sun at any given moment.

While it may not seem so, the northern hemisphere spring and summer are longer than our fall and winter. If you start on March 21 and add 10 days at the end of March to 30 days for April and then 31 and 30 and 31 and another 31 for August and 23 in September, you get 186 days. Half of 365 days in the year is 182.5 days, so the sunny season are 3.5 days longer than the fall and winter.

Don’t believe it? Add 7 days in September to 31 for October and 30 and 31 and 31 and 28 and 21 in March to get 179 or 180 days, every fourth year, for the fall and winter.

It happens because the earth’s orbit is not round, but oval and eccentric and the earth is actually closer to the sun in winter and moves faster in its orbit at that time. If the earth pointed the other way, which happens cyclically, winters would be longer.

Big congrats to Judy and Kaley for passing the Therapy Dog Exam. First visit for Kaley is this coming week.


Kaley just passed her exam to start Therapy visits.

Congrats to Judy and Kaley for their hard work on her training.

Roses continue working into the fall, without any training.

More Rain.

9-17-18 SHORT HILLS: Except for yesterday, it has rained every day, and today the remnants of Florence are headed this way. In the dry spells, I have started on the weeding, and replaced a broken fence rail.

In the bed we recently planted on the site of the dead oak tree, the birdhouse bed, one of the successes was a currant bush, which grew to more than six feet and flowered every spring. Well, for no apparent reason, it died this August. To replace the loss, I planted three Rose-of-Sharon volunteers from our yard and two roses from the Farm nursery. A pink Rosa rugosa and a white rose, Milwaukee’s Calatrava. The latter rose is very aromatic, and it shows a red bud, but the flower is white.


Crape myrtle in pink, each flower has a tangle of many stamen and stigmas.

One of the new roses deceptively shows a red bud, but....

...opens a white flower. It is also quite aromatic.

Maizie is just back from a therapy visit with Judy.

Rainy NJ.

9-11-18 SHORT HILLS: It’s been raining for three days, and everything is soggy, soaked, slippery and wet. I fell on a wet flagstone while outside taking pictures. Today there’s only drizzle, but we are in line for the remnants of two hurricanes.

I’ve been back in NJ for a couple of drippy days and have done nothing about all the weeding and trimming that needs to be done.

In bloom: caryopteris, clematis, aster, white snakeroot, rose-of-Sharon, crape myrtle, rose, hosta.


Rose-of-Sharon is a cousin of the hardy hibiscus pix I've recently posted.

See the family resemblance?

White snakeroot is all over the yard, and quite welcome as a late bloomer. The opening buds make little pentagons.

Crape myrtle is soaked and bent over from the rain. It's buds are hexagonal.

Caryopteris provides the fall blue and lasts deep into October.

Hosta looking quite soggy.

This white-star clematis is the same as the one on the deck in VT. It's an aggressive climber and spreader.

End of Summer.

9-6-18 VERMONT: It has been too hot, but cool at night. Today we got a nice rain at midday, just after I finished doing some weed whacking around the roses and blueberries. Neighbor Eliza will do the watering of the newly seeded pasture while we are away. I expect green grass when we are back in October.

The hardy hibiscus that I planted three summers ago had big, dark red flowers then, but hadn’t bloomed since, until this week. One gigantic flower opened, and it has other buds threatening to open. It has survived two Vermont winters.

A moment ago a flock of at least a dozen wild turkeys strolled through the yard, no more than twenty feet from the house. I caught a few stragglers before they disappeared into the woods.

New blooms: more sedum.


Leveled, limed, fertilized, seeded and watered. Go grass.

Hardy hibiscus. This one is in its third year, but the first bloom since it was planted. It has survived two winters.

While I was writing this entry, a flock of more than a dozen wild turkeys walked through the yard.

I just caught the stragglers. They seem to be strolling along without a care, but in a few seconds have vanished from view.

Bird Days.

9-4-18 VERMONT: Today the leveled pasture was limed, fertilized, seeded and hayed. I did a little of the haying, and after Eric and EJ left, I spent the day watering, with sprinklers, to get the hay wet so that it won’t blow away if it gets windy. The seed itself doesn’t need much watering yet, but it will after it germinates if the weather stays dry.

The two days before today, I spent rebuilding an outdoor bench. The first day I cut and prepared and painted the slats, and the second day I put the new slats on the bench after removing the old ones. It was harder than I thought it would be.

Afterwards I was relaxing on a different bench with a refreshing beverage and saw lots of bird activity so took some pix when they posed on a flower, tree or shrub and waited long enough for me to focus. I did get some pix and made tentative ID’s and would welcome any others thoughts.

This morning was foggy after rain yesterday and heavy dew overnight, and everything was dripping wet. I saw a blue heron through the mist at the edge of the pond and watched him/her silently wade around the perimeter stalking prey.

New blooms: hardy hibiscus.


Can you see anything in this early morning shot?

Yes, a great blue heron was patrolling the edge of the pond in the morning mist.

He/she was here for almost an hour and at one point swallowed something.

Doing some trash talk.

Two days before the heron, I was sitting outside and saw lots of bird activity and caught a few. The ID's are all tentative, that said, I think this is a yellow-rumped warbler. Hemlock tree.

A Nashville warbler and a monarch butterfly. BTW, I saw a big monarch caterpillar in the pasture today. Joe Pye weed.

Black and white warbler doing a headstand. Willow tree.

An immature yellow-bellied sapsucker, no red head marking as yet on an apple tree. The funny looking apple has him puzzled.

Cerulean warbler. You can see a blue foot between the leaves of the viburnum bush. Almost all of the berries have been eaten.

Pasture Flattened.

8-30-18 VERMONT: Three days of pasture work have turned an unruly pasture almost into a pool table. A lot of scraping, digging, dumping, grading have leveled the upper pasture for a big tent. Actually it is graded to drain to the sides and downhill. One spot will still need some additional fill. The pasture accesses and yard entry were also re-configured to make them more car-friendly. Tomorrow we get haying and seeding of the raw dirt.

We had rain last night and again this morning, which almost filled the pond up, and it me skip watering today.

Today I heard and then saw a Pileated Woodpecker and later a Kingfisher, but sadly, no pix.

September arrives over this, Labor Day, weekend, and summer officially ends in a few weeks. The days are rapidly shrinking, and the darkness begins to take over September 23, when the sun dips below the Equator.

Anticipating Autumn, Judy left for NJ this morning and begins a new pet-therapy season next week. I will be here for a bit longer to finish chores and the pasture prep.


Late August gardens look good even without peonies or daylilies or delphinium.

Hardy hibiscus above and below certainly add to the floral display...

Even if they're obscenely huge.

Salsa echinacea adds some vivid red.

Pasture graded, ready for the next World Cup.

Another angle, actually there is a spot that was very wet after the rain last night. It might need some extra fill.

Veggies Are History.

8-26-18 VERMONT: Friday we had the final dinner party of the season. Donna, Bruce, Jane, Ken, Ann and Roger were here for a Judy spectacular. Judy and I finished the last of the leftovers tonight.

I have taken down the veggie garden in anticipation of grading the pasture for the wedding tent for next year. If I didn’t do it now, there wouldn’t be enough time for the new grass to take hold before the winter and be established for next spring.

First I took down the fence charger and wires, pulled up the grounding rods, saving everything for a possible future revival. Next came the wooden fence. The rails and posts are all stored in the big barn. Two rails went into the pasture fence to replace broken rails there. Lastly, the hardest job was pulling up the plastic mulch for which I had huge help from Judy. That pile of deteriorated mulching is ready for disposal. Eric and EJ arrived late in the afternoon and left a huge yellow grader, shovel, dozer.

Brady the horse has been fenced out of the upper pasture for the work, which will start tomorrow, but still has access to shelter, food and water. I moved the special herbs to a small, new temporary bed. They have lots of flower buds.

New blooms: red turtlehead.


The season isn't quite over yet.

Red turtlehead.

Morning sun on the deck, but not yet flower bed.

A pair of purples, dark monkshood and light hosta.