It is peak fall color here in the foothills of western North Carolina. It is so radiantly red and gold around here that I am feeling light headed from all the beauty! North Carolina is also now a blue state!

This painting is my homework for my

Monday evening art class. I have little experience with landscapes and water, but I do kind of like this one. Practice, practice....

It is fun to be painting the fall colors in the evenings that I am working in every day. Peak season has passed in Blowing Rock, but I did hit the peak season in Virginia on Halloween weekend. My fall color season has been wonderfully long. The leaf raking is continuous. Yesterday, I cheated and borrowed Michael's leaf blower.

Working is the word...we have started landscaping some of the apartment

buildings in Boone this fall. Some big and badly needed projects. Students living in the buildings kept thanking us for the transformation of beds full of cigarette butts and beer cans into living gardens. The weather was beautiful and cool,

which we were grateful for because we had to fill raised beds with amended topsoil, one wheelbarrow at a time, maneuvering around all the parked cars in

front of the beds. We are sore....but a great work out.

Michael was down after jumping out of his truck bed and badly spraining his ankle. So it was up to Matt and I to get the heavy work done in good time. One student, Thomas, did play the banjo for us one afternoon from his third floor balcony. We really loved that. 

Finn had to spend the week tied to a tree while we worked in the center of town. He was bummed, so many garbage dumpsters, full of remains from the tailgate parties at ASU, so little freedom.

The first project was done by Thursday, a great week, and we have a new President elect! 

I visited friends and family for Halloween weekend, taking Miss Barrie Ann trick or treating in Waterford made for some great laughs and memories. I loved Airynee's glow in the dark horns....and once Barrie got a taste of an M&M she wouldn't let go of her little pumpkin bucket full of treats even though her hands were about frozen by the end of the evening. 

The gardens in Waterford were transformed by the elementary school classes into Halloween celebrated around the world. Neil Keller's gazebo, became a Greek setting with people 

in robes with lightening bolts in their hands. The barn was a Mexican celebration of the day of the dead with a mariachi band. Another garden depicted Halloween in Japan, another had an Egyptian pyramid. It was awesome. I got to celebrate with so many of our clients in town, so great to see them all again. Lot's of hugging. 

Saturday we girls picnicked in Middleburg, and toured Goodstone farm in the gators so Barrie could see the new baby cows and sheep. It has been a long time since Airynee, Morgan and I spent an entire day together, just being. 

                           

Barrie fits right in, with our giggles and stuff. We played in piles of leaves and on Barrie's new playground. 

I do love fall, and my family. 

My daughters both called, after they voted and after the election. It feels so good to talk to them at such an important moment. We all just hopped onto another timeline, in the history of things.

Barrie is just the happiest and busiest little thing. 

She knows it's all good.

End of Summer Projects

Heather asked for a painting over a year ago.

I have mulled the concept over for the longest time.

Her daughter's middle name is Magnolia. She was born in North Carolina. I wanted to paint this one in honor of Miss Rowan Magnolia Boothby. A young girl dear to my heart. Heather has the most beautiful tattoo's of a Magnolia for her daughter and a Jack in the pulpit for her son Jack.

It is matted, framed and ready to send off to Iowa where they now live. Just in time for Heather's birthday.

I had a lot of fun with this one. Painting it on these beautiful rainy days we've had lately. Someday I will turn my Jack in the Pulpit sketches into a painting for Jack.

I have been painting and staining the shed, at last. Though I have been through several shades of red, and am about to try another. I just can't seem to get the right shade, very frustrating, but I must say it has even been a joy to spend the last two weekends up on the ladder, doing the work while listening to the crickets sing. It has been a quiet and peaceful endeavor and nothing makes me happier than making my garden beautiful. The Million dollar Red I tried last weekend is much to much!

I do want to wrap it up and build some shelves inside this weekend. I think I finally found a Moroccan Red color that is perfect...I hope. It is getting repetitive, two coats of primer and 3 coats of colors later. I feel the urge to get a lot of work done this fall. I am working on getting a new roof for the house. It is needed and I can match the color of the new tin roof to the roof of the shed.

I have some beautiful compost from all the leaves I collected in the fall, ready to mulch my beds with for winter. It is also time to get the bulb orders made for clients. People are asking for designs and I have a big fern and native woodland plant order coming in soon. We were just waiting for the rains to come.

Thanks to all the hurricanes it looks to be a beautiful fall coming up. The fall planting season begins! We have a lot to accomplish in the next few months. That's OK, we are ready.