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.

Way Hot

My White Siberian Iris is blooming, so I sketched it. It was way too hot this weekend to do anything, but go zen and sketch. I also contemplated The Way of Bee's.

I was so dehydrated from the work week, and hungry, no time to eat last week. We were in the ER resuscitating plants everywhere we planted.

I was gathering anger at the weather, stressing out about 'my gardens' and I was spiraling into energy whack. Bee's were aggressively scouting me in my garden. I usually have no issues with the buzzy stinging ones, but I was making them nervous, so they made me nervous. One sat on my head and in no uncertain terms made me aware of it. Something was up, and they were trying to tell me to chill.

I was going into 'me' and 'mine' energy.....whoops! Where had I stung or been stung recently?

I puttered, painted, drank lots of water, swam in Wilson's creek with my dog. I immersed my self in the cool water and soaked in the sun on a rock, like an old seal.

It was wonderful to feel chilled after I emerged from the cold water. I looked upwards at the skyline of the mountains above me, and absorbed the beauty of my environment. Fortunately, Finn had a few children to play with which gave me the time to get into this space. He had a blast. I surely think that dog would swim until he had a heart attack, if I didn't pull him out occasionally to rest up.

I reveled in my microcosmic place in the world, while allowing the macrocosm take care of its self.

We did magnetize a rainstorm to Ski Mountain right as we finished work this afternoon.

Apparently it didn't rain anywhere south of us. But we saw the potential clouds and invited them to the garden. It worked! A special Thank You to the nature spirits for that.

Froggy Went a Courting Uh huh

I do love garden whimsy. Especially when the garden art is truly art and not the predictable garden junk. Some gardens such as this invoke the faerie feeling in me.

I photographed this frog sculpture while enjoying a quiet lunch during work last week. I have seen these figures before, in Baltimore, a series of three as part of the 'Froggie Goes a Courting' tale.
(Click the windows media player link to hear Bob Dylan's version)


I was so delighted to meet this frog here in Blowing Rock and he does so fit this setting, his shapely legs surrounded by cinnamon fern. It was a sunny moist day, a good rain the night before, the garden was glowing in the dewy sunlight. Sitting in the Oak grove of a garden with the blooming rhododendron, spring flora with a Fiddling Frog for entertainment is what I live for.

I love my job~Note to readers The contact info on this website is out of date, I know, I need to do a new website...but not this spring! The linked article explains a lot about my job and how it came to be. I will update the website soon.

We have done a lot of work to this garden since last fall. It needed soil restoration badly. This garden needed a lush understory of woodland plants, but for years, previous gardeners had just mulched on top of mulch to the point that there was no soil to hold and sustain root growth. When I met the garden during last years drought it was truly in a sad state.

In November, we scraped off the 6 inch layer of powdery mulch and added amended topsoil to the main garden beds. ( Yes, one wheelbarrow load at a time, with challenging access to the garden as well.) We transplanted and added plantings and then let the garden rest.

Last month the owners built a new porch. So when we arrived this spring we had construction disaster to look forward to fixing. Fortunately the crew of carpenters, painters, electricians and plumbers stayed off our beds pretty well, but let's say that construction workers generally have no plant consciousness what so ever! Two weeks ago it looked like this,

Now it looks a little better. Mike has been busy re building torn down retaining walls.
Making miracles happen with leftover stone. We are still planting and mulching, but when we left on Friday, the place was looking so much more homey and comfortable.












The stone planters on the front porch are a work of art as well. The finials are a strong architectural feature as well as the pergola to the kitchen door.

I love having clients who recognize the value of well placed well done features. It truly makes the garden quaint and unique.



Wednesday we worked in a pouring rain. Our client Simmy had given Finn this raincoat recently so I tried it out. Finn didn't seem to mind it much, but Mike took it off because he thought it made my dog look a little bit too feminine.

I thought the raincoat added some garden whimsy for a garden dog. Finn has had to be very patient with us this week. At first he thought he had it made when 'Cooper', our Leola Street Community Garden leader came to work with us. Finn was thinking he'd landed in heaven....two boys on the job to throw the stick and ball for him.

Not so, we are so busy we pretty much ignore Finn. He sulks under the rhododendrons and watches our every move for when we may be in the mood to play. Besides that, both men are expecting new babies, so they are huddled together talking sonograms and stuff, so boring for a lab.

I made up for it yesterday at his private upper pond at Bass Lake where Finn can swim and fetch and run to his hearts content.

He is such a good garden dog.