October First

Today couldn't have been more lovely. What a wonderful way to start a new month in my favourite season. I left the house around 10 this morning to get groceries for the week and checked the temperature before I left. I had on jeans, long sleeves and a light jacket. By the time I got out of the store and loaded my groceries, I had to put the air conditioning on for the drive home.

My favourite grocery store (where both of my kids had / have part time jobs) had a great deal on fall mums. I bought some more. I set some up on the porch.

I need to pick up a few more pumpkins. I did not grow any this year. The Mennonites down the road always have many for sale at a good price.

My hydrangeas (have no idea what kind!) are still putting on a nice show of colour.

I spent a lot of time outside today doing various outdoor clean up projects. Here are some of my pots / urns that are going to be emptied soon. They are looking a little rough. I just put them all in one spot for now and will tackle these sometime this week.

I'd say the creeping jenny did well this summer!

I put in a couple of hours cutting back and ripping out perennials from a couple of beds in the back yard. There's still a bit more to do here and probably three or four more beds larger than this to complete before the snow flies.

I'll leave the sedum and black eyed Susan for some colour.

When my back screamed that it had had enough, I helped the husband to finish up the last of the pool house chores which consisted of emptying big concrete flower pots, emptying and moving the little fridge that stays at the pool house in the summer, rolling up the rug, stacking furniture, general tidy up... It was a bittersweet task because of the rainy, quite cool summer we had. We really did not enjoy our pool and outdoor space as much as we would have liked. Oh well, some years are like that.

All tucked in for another fall / winter.

As I was walking back to the house after taking pictures, I thought I would take a shot of the shed with its remaining flowers that still look pretty good. I love the long shadows at this time of day (it was about 5:45 in the afternoon).

Finally, as this is the time of year for caterpillars, I was told by a colleague that the white caterpillars are to be avoided. After handling them, you can develop sores and blisters on your skin. I think this might be the kind she was speaking of. It was crawling on a back door window. I didn't feel like having blisters, so I moved him unceremoniously with the broom.  Anyone know anything about these critters?

I'm now having a nice glass of Beringer cabernet sauv. waiting for son to come home so I can fire up the barbecue for some homemade burgers. Have a nice evening, everyone.