Over the past week or so, Mom took photos for our annual Christmas e-cards. Or, shall we say, tried to take photos. Some gingery cats were cooperative this year. Other cats less so. Like the one in the photo above.
Just in case you think she didn’t really mean no, here’s another view:
Okay, we’ve decided this will be a gingery Christmas e-card photo session. Or at least, for the time being. Tessa, Viola, your photo time is coming!
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Because next week is shaping up to be extra jam-packed with job work things, not to mention trying for that Colehaus Cats Christmas e-card, we’ll be away from blogging for a week and will be back a week from Monday on the 27th. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and thanks for visiting us!
We’re getting into mid-November here at Colehaus and that means lots of fallen leaves, vibrant autumn colors, chilly nights, and finally, lots of rain. While our summer wasn’t quite as dry as last year’s, it was close. Hurray for spreading water-saving, weed-blocking bark mulch early!
Tessa insists she most certainly did not dig some of those old red pecans out of that basket to bat around the room. “So what if I did?” she adds smugly. You’re not doing yourself any favors there, Tessa.
Here’s a super easy pollinator plant to grow – Sedum Autumn Joy. This is used in a lot of neighborhood road mediums/roundabouts here and we think it looks good almost all year around. We like the bluish gray-green foliage and the bees LOVE the early fall-blooming flower heads. We just wish we knew people who wanted some. We have three medium-large patches and may need to eliminate one of those next year.
Years ago, we had a red, upright Japanese maple, variety Bloodgood, along our back property line, and after fifteen years, its roots began outgrowing the narrow plot it was in. While we absolutely LOVED this tree, we liked the cement sidewalk better and when it started lifting because of the maple roots, Mom had to get out her trusty Saws-All and chop it down. But not before finding and pot-planting a single seedling from the tree.
Seven years later, that Bloodgood maple, still in a large pot and pushing 7 feet tall, desperately needs to find a home. A neighbor waffled over the past three years on whether he wanted to dig a hole for it on his property, and finally confessed last weekend he didn’t want it.
Mom says next spring, it goes one way or the other. We don’t have any room for it and it cannot live another year in its pot without strangling itself. She’ll list it on NextDoor and hope the ghosting trend doesn’t continue (people who swear they want something and after making a commitment and the item is pulled from advertising, never show up and don’t return messages – ha ha, funny isn’t it?) and at worst case, its going into the yard debris bin; a sad, sad end to a little seedling that was babied and loved for 7 years. Sigh.
These are also seedlings from two tiny plants we got in 2021. We’re collecting seed from these to sprinkle out back where a sad thyme plant misses his columbine buddies that raccoons dug up back in August. Bad raccoons.
Quint agrees. This year’s raccoons weren’t nearly as destructive as last year’s batch, but they still tried to reach that bar. We held them off from uprooting new transplants using rocks around the plant bases and keeping in mind anything left outback will be seen as fair game. What used to be a mild annoyance finding patio furniture pillows scattered about came to an end when one pillow was forced to give up its stuffing to an overly curious and bite-y baby raccoon!
We always forget that it’s not the crepe myrtle and the Autumn Joy sedums that are last to bloom for the year, but it’s the pineapple sage! We grew two 3 years ago and divided those two into four plants after the first year. Relatively short lived, two didn’t make it through last year’s winter and another we removed due to planting it in a bad location – blocked a sprinkler head, blocked access to a fence gate. The fourth one however, grew big and healthy and our overwintering hummingbirds love the flowers. Next year, Mom’s probably going to move this one (if it survives the winter). She says it’s way too close to the heat pump and she’s certain that someday, a hummer’s going to get sucked into the heat pump vents. Not good odds that that will ever happen, but Mom’s imagination goes wild sometimes.
Mom’s cyclamen is still doing well, remarkably so! This greenhouse grown gift plant (from Dad back in 2017), usually doesn’t last more than a year or two in most homes. But Mom has a very hard time tossing out perfectly good plants (see sedum and maple dilemmas above) and tried her luck with planting it directly into the ground in a mostly shady area. Last year, this little plant weathered all but the very deepest snowfall when Mom put a plant cover over it for 2 weeks. And it rewarded us with half a dozen blooms in spring.
Inside, Mom’s hoya (wax plant) went into bloom making her wildly happy. She’s had hoya plants in the past long, long ago but was never able to get them to bloom, and in fact, questioned whether they really bloomed at all. She also heard they have to be old (they don’t) and that the blooms smell very sweet (they don’t). The flowers lasted a lot shorter time-wise than she thought they would and again, she’s very happy she got her photographic proof.
Lastly, we found a good, traditional recipe for Biscotti and made a couple of batches. Ours have chopped almonds, rehydrated dried orange rind, and anise flavoring. Eventually, we’ll explore other ingredients like dried fruits and flavorings. But for now, these baking in the oven while the rain pours outside brought fall home.
