November In the Garden

  On a frosty November morning, we still have some flowers blooming!

Cranesbill has some nice fall colour

Yarrow just keeps on going

Veronica decided to bloom again!

I thought this delphinnium was finished in September,
but it's still hanging on!

Another pretty yarrow

And this yarrow, I left to grow in the middle of the lawn!

Virginia creeper has lost all of it's leaves,
but I'm sure it will be pretty when we get a hoar frost.

These annuals haven't noticed it's November!

And the petunias are finally done.

I'm sure my next garden photos will have a lot more white in them!

Prairie October - Photography by Brian Bolack

  

  Saturday afternoon, Brian decided to take a drive around the neighbourhood south of where we live. He found some beautiful scenery and an old farm site.

Thanks for stopping by! 

You can see our September Scenery here.

Watch for our November scenery post.

Saturday Snapshot - Red Yarrow In October

Falling Off the Pumpkin Truck

  

  Have you ever heard the expression, "I didn't just fall off the pumpkin truck!"? Neither had our boys, until several years ago, when we had a crop of huge pumpkins that needed to be moved from the garden.

  We had never planted pumpkins before, and Brian had bought the seeds. It wasn't until they started to grow that he told me they were giant pumpkin seeds. Fortunately, we were late planting them, so the pumpkins didn't have a chance to grow to full size!

Looks like someone picked their pumpkin!

  

 The boys started out moving the pumpkins with our garden wagon, but soon found out the job was a little too big for that. So, that's when Brian decided to use the truck to load up the pumpkins, and move them to our patio.

  Some of the pumpkins had gone bad from sitting too long in the garden, so we decided to take them to the back of our property. Once the pumpkins were all loaded, the boys jumped on the truck too....Justin sat on the tail gate. Brian drove across the yard, through the ditch, and across the field....and you guessed it, Justin fell off the pumpkin truck! 

  Now, just in case you've never heard this expression, or maybe you've heard 'turnip truck' or cabbage truck', it is used to describe someone who is naive or unsophisticated. (Definition here) For years, we would say to Justin, "Ya, you really DID fall off the pumpkin truck!"

  Fast forward to this year, and we finally grew pumpkins again...or rather, Daniel did. I'm not sure what kind of seeds Brian picked up this time, but inside the package there were only 3 1/2 seeds...yes, a half a seed! I decided to experiment with a way to keep down the weeding, using a big piece of carpet in our skating rink area. I cut a circle in the middle of the carpet, and Daniel planted his 3 1/2 seeds. 

  We didn't have many weeds come up, but we also only had one pumpkin plant grow.....and that one plant only produced one pumpkin. Not quite like the crop from years ago! 

  But that didn't stop Daniel from having some fun!

I don't know about you, but I think Daniel looks like he may have just fallen off a pumpkin truck!

Cottonwood Acres

  They say you can't go home again, and in my experience, that philosophy has held true. Returning to visit an old home is usually a disappointment, but our latest tour proved just the opposite.

  In June of 1992, we bought a house with plans to add on to it. Before we even took possession of the house, we discovered that for a variety of reasons, our plans were not going to work out...at least not where the house was located.

  So, we made the decision to move the house. We purchased five acres of open prairie, with not a tree on the lot. We paid about $7,000....I try not to think about that, given the price of land now! We hired someone to put in a basement for us, and made a deal with the house mover...we gave him the lot where the house came from, in exchange for moving it...good deal!

  By August, the house was on the new property, and we were living there. We never really moved out...the house was moved with all of our belongings inside.

I don't have a lot pictures from back then, because we gave them to someone who lived in the house after us. But the first photo shows the hole for the basement. The trees in the background are a neighbour's yard. There was not one tree on our property!

The second photo shows a flower bed,(of course) the beginnings of the garage we built, and beyond that, the trees we planted. Judging by the size of the trees, this must be a year or two after we moved there.

The last photo is when we are in the process of making a huge stream, waterfall, and pond. We already had a small pond that isn't visible in this photo. That big pond at the bottom was big enough for our kids to climb right in! At the edge of the photo, you can see a bit of a tree, so this was probably the summer of '94 or '95. We sold the house in February, 1996, and moved into Brandon....what were we thinking??

  We now live just a few miles from this house, on another acreage with very few trees, so when we saw a sign for an open house, we knew we had to check it out. The house has changed hands a few times since we owned it, and has undergone a lot of renovations. It was beautiful inside, but I was more interested in the yard. The realtor gave us the ok to take photos. 

Here we are checking out the backyard.
We planted almost every tree on this property.

No sign of  the ponds or stream,
or rock garden, and not a flower to be found.
We're used to that happening though...
Most people don't like perennials as much as we do! 

We had a big deck, but it's been replaced with a newer, and nicer one.

You can tell the soil is as sandy here as where we live now.

In over 20 years, some of the trees we planted have hardly grown!

I love the way our tree-lined driveway turned out.
You can barely see the house from the road.

And then it was time to leave.

  We've moved several times, and I've enjoyed every home we've lived in. I liked different things about each house, but I never really got attached to any them. But this yard....if ever there was a move to regret, this would be it!         
  Fortunately, I have an even better home waiting for me someday...and I'm sure that along with my mansion, God will provide a beautiful garden...and trees....lots of trees!