The Witches Big Bloom Day

It has been a full week of bone chilling 100% humidity hovering back and forth around freezing. I managed to get quite wet the first day. That chill set the tone for the week and slowed me down. A good thing really.

I sit here for the very first time fully aware and with no teeth. The old ones are in a bowl on the kitchen counter. I was going to have to find out what this felt like at some point. I got a full set of new choppers instantly on Wednesday. The new ones are in a container on the bathroom sink. The old ones were shot. Gum disease, bone loss, big time bone loss.

I did check around enough to get the Kama'aina discount. $6000.00 for a full set of dentures. My period of indentured servitude will at least be cut in half.

Now I have to learn how to eat and talk again. Such is the way it is in the early winter of my decrepitude.

I missed Bloom Day last month. And that is how it happens, the garden bloggers post less often and slowly fade away in a rapidly corporatizing internet. I have been slowly fading away.

At least I am trying to show you the very best of the wild cultivated gardens when I do manage to post. For Garden Bloggers Bloom Day of November 2018 I have a once in a decade super bloom of the native Witch Hazel, Hamamelis virginiana.

Never before has the bloom been this full or the flower petals so long. This bone chilling humidity must be just what the witches want to extend the bloom period even longer This has been going on for two weeks and shows no signs of slowing down yet.

This Witch Hazel super bloom won't last forever. At once a decade I should be able to see it again. I'll probably be going to take pictures of it with my new knees by then.

The solid humidity has frozen again. The snow has started to fall.

The First Day Of Winter

I still see remnants of a lingering fall in my travels.

High on the low spot winter has arrived. The last tree in the forest remains.
While just a bit to the left,

The native Witch Hazel, Hamamelis virginiana, is having a once in a decade super bloom.

Never before has it rivaled the bloom of the Witch Hazel hybrids I've planted. Even the petals look longer this year. It is the last bloom in the forest.

Winter rolled in last night. Today the air has changed. The same fog of the Winter of Monet has returned.

It wasn't just the cataracts in my eyes, the winter air is indeed made of a different substance. It comes from a different place in the world.

The Witches respond.

Once in a decade they can have an actual see from a distance super bloom.

With the first little bit of winter that sticks.

Which Way Does The Wind Blow

At this time of year I get it coming and going. The leaves must fall. They are. I will say this lingering, low cold autumn has been very good for a number of my small trees and shrubs that haven't been very reliable for good color in the past. This year I am seeing them as advertised.

Who knows what next year will bring.

All the darkness puts me in a hibernating mode. I can sleep for ten hours just fine.

But I am obliged to wander away in search of nuts.

Some nuts do manage to roll down my driveway. They always have.

I arrive home in the In Between Time to the vibrancy of fading color.

In between blowing winds, luke warm or cold, which will it be.

The Mountain Tobacco tree cures in the wind.

Magnolia fraseri.

The urge to hide is strong. Let the scenic byway roll on by.

Which way does the wind blow? Snow?

Moving On To Fallen

A whole bunch of leaves fell in the last wind and rain. More of that is incoming for Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday it could be all over. The mountains are already naked up top and I see a possibility of the first snow for the weekend.

I have not declared one garden officially closed for the season. Ample wet and no real cold of substance has slowed things down. Or have I slowed down? No matter. It will get done eventually.

Half way to barren and the forest is still looking mighty fine. Enjoy.

It Happens

No reason not to share it. You will just have to pretend you are here. Click on a picture for the slide show. Mo betta that way.

A Wet Fall Evening

Two kinds of light.

These pictures show two different camera settings. The difference in perception of light quality is dramatic.

I stumbled into using a night landscape setting some where during the period of the Winter of Monet and having my eyeballs sliced open.

As far as my vision goes, the biggest change is I can now see the lighter image on the computer screen when it would have been more difficult before. Monet lived in a perpetual fog that sent light refracting all over the place.

I can still see dark and moody.

The rains began at four just as I finished work. It was completely overcast and falling in a car wash, slapping, spit. Still daylight, this light was truer.

The shadow of a mountain, the viscous shadow of clouds, the shadow makes the light.