This Is Fall 2018

A Prelude To Still Life

They missed it by a week. It's a week late though.

The peak of fall arrived this week. Starting tomorrow it is going to get wet and probably wind whipped. That is par for the course. Something will be left over, but was this short bit all the peak there will be?

I leave you here for I am weary. All the gardens I tend but one are coming down. Click on a picture for the slide show.

While I Was Out

Two weeks wandered by.

I've been out there.

In all kind of weathers. No snow yet. Just barely a freeze.

The Sisters wandered in.

I planted 900 bulbs. They went to an apple show.

I wandered outside of my usual route for a quickie.

When is Miss Dinah moving in?

Is it fall yet? The Sisters have a week to see it get done.

Maybe that light freeze will help.

The plants began to wander in as I was trying to clean before hand.

For the most part it was a nice and cool, sun shiny week.

They lucked out. We have been low on sun shiny this year.

I kept right on wandering. I had to.

Every so often I spotted some fall.

The forest is having color troubles this year.

They kept waiting for it to turn and not much happened. Oh well. There's always next year. At some point we will have the peak of a very dull year. Just not while they're here.

The Apples

From three inches of hurricane to a week of forty two degrees.
I came home from an emergency repair of a mud parking lot,

To find two small brown paper bags full of apples and a note at the back door.
All the apples look different
Most have fuzzy skin
Not a waxed one in the lot.

It is a sign.
After eleven years,
I am kama'aina.

Sitting with this year's harvest of voodoo bulbs.

Next comes the change
Fading into colors topped with white fuzz
A meadow made to fly far on the wind.

The Time of the Under Garden draws near.

Hidden In The Center Of Trees

Accidental Fairyland

I never had any intention for Ku'ulei 'Aina to turn into an adult sized Fairyland. There is no denying that is what happened. The question is how?

I wasn't alone in this endeavor.

         
























I did add some bling, some would say very odd bling. It began to accumulate from forces outside my control.

You might be surprised how many people search the term 'gay gnome'.

A long time peasant gardener collided with nature.

The result was a very idealized, almost romantic version of nature. The scary wild was weeded out.

I grew up half wild. The woods and creeks of a far less populated north central Florida were our playgrounds. I was surrounded by gardeners and put to work at an early age. Somehow this child absorbed a knowing of the ways of the woods. He was the odd purple one. The fish who preferred dry land.

Then one day the adult child of gardeners wandered into the woods of North Carolina.

There was a deliberate attempt to incorporate ideas from deep history and mythology. That was the intent.

And the adult sized Accidental Fairyland was born.

Seldom Seen Views In The Forest

My new eyeballs are doing many new things. I have never been so aware of my eyeballs. My brain hasn't caught up to whatever this new normal is. The light is still changing.

My camera is old and literally full of dust.

I'm not sure I can see crisp on a computer screen. Can my camera still do that?

I've never been good at crisp. I vibrate too much and don't use a tripod. There was a time when I could at least see it. The light has to be just right to get close to it in the forest.