frost

On Friday, we had a very severe frost as I mentioned in the post below. While it wasn’t a hoarfrost killer it was still an intense frost. I think these images from one of our potted Dahlias tell the whole story. The irony is the first image was photographed on a cold grey day a week or two ago and the second on this marvelously warm sunny fall day after the frost. I love the Mandela in the first image. The second image is almost abstract except that I know what it was before, although I can also love it for what it is now.

pre-frost dahlia

post-frost dahlia

GP

fall is upon us

Well we had a serious frost last night, not the absolute killer of frosts but good enough to freeze any plant that bares a lot of water. My begonias, lilies, and the rest all lay withered with their life juices staining the soil or patio, as the cold wringed every ounce of water and colour out of them. A sad sight as these plants, the impatiens for example, are always at their best just before the last frost freezes them back to sleep. Hell for me is a cold place, the kinda cold that burns like fire – a touch to dry ice.

Yesterday I took my dog for a short walk out behind the Monastery of Precious Blood Sisters where I work. This was what I saw looking to the north. Yes, the Nuns are in the city near the University of Western Ontario. Its beautiful here: considering London is a 350,000 people city, we still have lotsa open spaces where you can collect your thoughts, the nuns have it good at their monastery plenty of time to pray and spaces to do it in peace.

What I saw on my walk was the beginnings of the true fall – I took the image below for you. After last night brutal frost, the leaves in our yard were falling so fast in a gentle breeze. You could hear them touch the ground with a tic – tic – tic. Like a good kabouter (gnome), I was outside putting up storm windows and getting ready for the winter. For the next two week’s we’ll start to see all the leaves fall and the barren trees they sustained with life.

GP

grey days

For the most part today was a cold and grey fall day.

Then this hot air balloon traveled right above my head so that I could look up at the gondola and see the people flying by. It made me feel better about the day to wave up and hear them say hello.

GP

the grasses of the field

We had our first frost last night. It wasn’t a killing frost but the roofs of our homes were covered with a fine white frost by around 2:00 am this morning. The car windows needed to be scrapped if you woke up early, I didn’t, but I saw it before sleep. I am happy to see the seasons change; it’s a complete cycle of life.

I see this seasonal change in the grasses that we grow in our gardens. We grow several varieties of ornamental grasses - I’m very fond of grass :) I also like grasses because they conjure up in me the words of Moses’ prayer or Psalm 90. When I think on Moses word's, I am reminded of the ephemeral nature of life itself compared to the age of the cosmos and even in our smallness, there is love - discussed in my post below

Chasmanthium Latifoilum - ornamental grass
on a warm fall day in september

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Psalm 90 v. 2-6, 14-17 “Moses’ prayer.”

2 Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3 You turn men back to dust, saying,
"Return to dust, O sons of men."
4 For a thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
5 You sweep people away in the sleep of death;
they are like the new grass of the morning-
6 though in the morning it springs up new,
by evening it is dry and withered.

14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.
16 May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children.
17 May the beauty [b] of the Lord our God rest upon us;
establish the work of our hands for us— yes,
establish the work of our hands.

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Chasmanthium Latifoilumin
in the cool short evening light of october

Just some of the grasses from the field and our gardens.

GP

Thierry Henry

This is Thierry Henry celebrating his home goal in front of the Tottenham Hot Spur “away fans section” at Highbury during Arsenal’s unbeaten season of 2003/2004. Arsenal are the first English team to have broken this record for more than a hundred years. Arsenal 2 – 0 Hotspurs. It is one of my favourite Arsenal images as the Spurs fans jeer at Henry, this being his hundredth goal. Arsenal later went on to win the English Premier League that season in an away match at Tottenham Hotspur – White Heart Lane - London, where Henry also scored the winning goal. This goal and his back heel under pressure goal against Charlton last season are two of my favourite Henry goals, not necessarily his best just my favourite.

In my opinion, Henry is one of the greatest strikers to have ever played in England, Europe, and the World. Just to watch him play is like looking at fine art. His pace, vision and skill at dragging defenders out to the wings before running into the penalty area only added by his ability to score – what a finish. To quote Dennis Bergkamp “I would say that Thierry is the complete player. It is quite amazing he can do so many things at this level of football”. As an Arsenal supporter all I can say is “We’re not worthy”.

Thierry Henry, scored two goals today in Arsenal's Champions League match with Sparta Prague to beat them by 2 – 0. In so doing, Henry goal count surpassed the highest goal scorer record at Arsenal held by Ian Wright at 185 goals. It took Henry 303 games to reach the new club record of 186 goals and counting higher every match, he plays.

I salute you Thierry Henry, thank you for brining so much pleasure to my life through football / soccer.

GP

ornamental cabbage

ornamental cabbage

I really don’t know what more to say other than another spiral of delight. Standing here looking down from above it becomes “Entropy inside a cabbage”, which sounds firmly rooted in the earth somehow. Yes the universe is unfolding just as it should it be.

entropy inside a cabbage

GP

last of the Cosmos

last of the Cosmos

Catchy title don’t you think. The last of the cosmos; now that is a real dilemma!

Here I sit pouting over the inane, my winter doldrums which begin with my “last of __________” syndrome, the last hummingbird, flower, dragonfly, leaf or songbird. It is ironic that “the last of the cosmos” has a much more serious ramification because it is so absolute: the very last of, no more, all gone. The very last of all the zillions of creatures, organisms, and beings that cohabitate this huge cosmos. Now that is a real depressing thought.

As depressing a thought as before there was cosmos there was nothing, then something sparked through chance and time (how something comes from nothing is beyond my cognitive conception) and from the gaseous clouds, we were born on this blue planet in this cosmos. How meaningless is life if it is predicated on a notion that love is just an evolved social behaviour, a human anthropology. The highest act of love we consider one person giving their life for another – you know, if I could have died instead of my child I would have given my life for them -- and you actually can give your life so that they can live. Don’t tell me that love is just what monkeys do after a billion or so years of evolution. They simply find or evolve love and then even go as far as to anthropomorphize it into spirituality. It’s not how many monkeys could end up writing a Shakespearean play, no it’s how many billions of monkeys did it take to evolve love. Now that’s a real depressing thought.

I’m all fixed and everything is humming along that way it should be: cured of melancholy (sounds like a bad sausage “cured melancholy sausage”). The last of this year’s cosmos flowers, as celebratory as these blooms are of life and our senses, is thus nothing to fret over. They grow back, and I know the simplicity of nurturing them. That would all change if it was the last of the cosmos because then these might very well be the last of the cosmos in the cosmos.

If God is love and created the cosmos for his pleasure, so that we creation, could enjoy it forever then how big is God? It is really a mute question because any interaction we have documented on God does not talk about God’s size, so it doesn’t matter. That said, if the God of love could create this universe by fiat, God must be immense, bigger than the soup of gravities that hold all the planets and stars in place. Looking out at the cosmos means God is big.
The funny thing is that God always choose to reveal him/her self in the smallest of ways; other than being the spark igniter in that nothingness before there was something and which we marvel at when we look at these small Cosmos flowers. Yes these simple flowers.
Another poignant example was when God came to visit the prophet Elijah.

• 
  “11 The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"
  1 Kings 19 versus 11 – 13.

After all these monumental, earthquakes, storms, and fires God was not in them but rather God was the gentle whisper, which spoke out to Elijah. How deeply profound for is that not how love speaks. God didn’t want a temple or a graven image just honour, is that not love.

I have never seen Neptune but I know it is there. While I can see Venus and Mars in the night sky, I know they are real because we have probed them with our machines. I digress, I wonder if Martians see our space probes as anal, similar to those probes described by the hundreds of citizens of this planet who have received such probes by Martian abduction.
My point is that I have never seen God except in a way that could be described as anthropomorphic to science, but ever fibre of my being has seen God. I see God in love and I see God in these flowers both of which are unexplainable in this unfathomably large cosmos – how love, why flowers.

I’m healed of that silly “last of _________” syndrome, but still on citalopram / Celexa :)

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Here then are the last of this season’s cosmos.

GP

hydrangeas - one bloom of love

only the one bloom

Nature like life, in as much as life is also nature, provides some real whacky shite at times. You can love something in nature and by the fact you do, you make it so happy that it doesn’t flower for you. It’s weird really because you’d think it would be the reversal -- more love more flowers, more money more art, more pills more happy feelings, more is less unless of course less is more, more of more, more, more, more… and the one with the most toys at the end still dies
So, I have this large Japanese Hydrangea bush, which I have given an inordinate amount of attention to this season. Short of going out and talking to it, (my neighbour already thinks I’m weird), this plant has gotten everything else. When the heat of the full sun causes it to shrink into seclusion, we’d water it, with all the other amenities a gardener gives. I wanted to see the glorious bundles of large blooms covering the entire plant and with a sulphur bath; those petals are a stunning washed out cobalt blue. Well as it where, when Hydrangeas normally bloom there was nothing happening on our shrub, nada, nix, didily squat! You’ve got to wonder.

the bloom of love

So here we are on this ladder of depression as it ascends into the purification of winter and what should suddenly appear, one bloom, the bloom above. Before the frost and with no time to form seed this one bloom reveals itself. It defeats the laws of nature! My hydrangeas have been exceptionally strange this year. What with a recent planting forming an exquisite handicapped bloom (what many discard I treasure – see below) and now this one pinkish bloom, I’m scratching my ass and wondering.
What’s worse is that I suck at tuff-love, next year I’m going to have to deal it out in order to make the shrub and the new planting happier. Weird, you bet. It’s like anti-depressive medication you take it to feel happier but who really wants to be there, meds for happiness, I’d rather just be happy without the meds. What do you do? You have to wonder when a plant wants tough love to make it happy.

(what many discard I treasure)

GP

tuberous begonias - can't shake the "last of" thing

I’m back on “the last of” theme, well sort of. By the way no one has offered me an alternative frame of mind to get away from this depressive “last of” mindset which so dominates me this time of year.

As the fall progresses, I’ve noticed that certain plants really put on a great show of bloom, almost as if they know they are soon to be frozen. Plants that hold a lot of water seem to do this most. It’s like their “swan song” before the bulb goes into hibernation for the next season.

So, from the mundane to the exquisite my Tuberous Begonias put on a fall display of bloom which truly makes them one of the most brilliant shade flowers.

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The last of my Begonias before the big freeze.

GP

orchids - happy thanksgiving

Up here in Voltaire’s soon to be “four hectares of snow”, we’ve started to get our first frost warnings. Last night it went down to 4 Celsius and the last two days the mornings have been rather cool. I actually turned our central heating on yesterday to take the chill out of our house. More signs that fall truly is setting in. Beautiful bright and warm days with cool evenings, real fall days.

my fathers Phalaenopsis Orchids have come into bloom

It seems fitting then that up here in Canada; this is also the weekend that we celebrate the harvest with “Thanksgiving” weekend. Yes on October 10th and not in November like our cousins to the south of the 49th parallel. I think it makes sense as our harvest just happens earlier than in America, were we to wait until November 24th all we’d have to celebrate is barren trees, hoar frost and maybe a slight dusting of snow.

So today me and mine went to my parent’s home to take part in the pleasure of our greater family and thanksgiving. I enjoy seeing my nephews and nieces, sisters and my entire wife’s family also. Today being Sunday, is a gloriously sunny day and the leaves on the trees are starting to show some fall colour change, but not fully.

My father, Martin, had been a landscaper for more than 40 years until he retired a few years ago. When I was growing up we had greenhouses and my life has been surrounded by plants and trees, as well as a lot of turf management. My dad has always prided himself in growing plants and has a real passion for Orchids. I took these images at his house from just one of his orchid plants, which has recently come into bloom. They’re beautiful things orchids are.

my dad’s orchids

I have a friend in New York; he is an executive for a very prominent global corporation. That is his work, but for the rest he’s an Orchid grower and what a privilege it is to go to his home and see very rare Orchids that bloom only for a short time every few years. I love them and visiting with him is one of my favourite and privileged things to do when I am in the City of New York. I also mention him because the few times I’ve been in New York on American Thanksgiving, he and his wife have had me over for the holidays with their entire family and have always made me feel at home: their son Tommy is one of my closet friends in NYC. I have a lot to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving, not just my family but also my friends.

Jim and Mittie's home in Upstate New York

I don’t have enough time to dedicate to this passion and I’ve substituted other plants as my “poor persons orchid”. There is a lot to be thankful for and I wish you all the happiest Thanksgiving. Thanks for reading my blog!

sweet peas – one of my “poor persons orchid”

iris - another poor persons orchid

GP - can you name a few poor persons orchids?

why the last - clematis

the last clematis bloom on this vine before next season

You know, the more I think about it the more I can start to see how my mind begins its slow sojourn towards winter depression. It starts with the means I communicate to myself during the fall. What I mean is my thinking process. For example these images of Clematis, above and below. This Clematis bloom on this vine is probably the last bloom it will have this season. When I saw it there reaching up over the gargoyle on our back deck my initial reaction was – oh the last bloom of the year. When I see the roses, I think the last roses of summer. I start to preface my thoughts with “the last” of what ever may still be blooming in our garden. So, with everything I see in our garden being framed in “the last”, I realize that I’m already planting the seeds of depression. The last of anything is a depressing thought. Think about it yourself for a minute - the last whale, the last bird, the last flower; it is all too depressing isn’t it.

Now, I’ve never been one to think much of the power of positive thinking. To me that concept is a lot like wearing a clowns costume, you can paint on a happy face and adhere a big red nose on the face of it, but it doesn’t change the facts. You can put someone in a fancy ornate coffin but they are still dead. Sometimes I think positive thinking has away of making some people half full of the glass they are drinking from. You see this all the time in the most bizarre ways: when the old woman is hit on the way to doing groceries, you can’t spin it happy by saying “Oh well, now she doesn’t have to get the groceries.” Here’s one for you: he was a ruthless dictator but a benevolent one – you can’t be a benevolent dictator.”

At the risk of sounding like a real sap, maybe I should just paradigm shift my perspective of things when fall comes. It’s not the last Clematis bloom just the last one before the new ones. The ones that are coming after the frick’n freezing, ice, and snow, sometime close to eight months from now. Alternatively, these are the final blooms before the radiant fall foliage, just before the leaves blow off the trees and the branches pray to heaven for the sun to return.

See I’m feeling little better already. I lied.

Someone help me spin this in a healthier light than my dismal view please! Help get “the last” out of my lexicon.

detail from one of our last clematis blooms

GP

sedums - dragon's blood

I mentioned Sedums in yesterdays post. Today I’d thought I’d show you one of our Sedums photographed in mid summer and today in the fall.

Before I do, I’d thought I might go back to yesterday “Blue Monday”. After writing the post, I went on with my evening and couldn’t get the idea out my head that my comments on winter and the preparations it requires of us here in Canada, might somehow seem like complaining. It’s not really a complaint more than it is a fact, similar to societies of the past we must ready ourselves and our homes for what can be a brutal season. I just don’t like doing it but it’s not all doom and gloom unlike societies of the past we have “big box stores” and super grocery stores. Otherwise we’d of been canning and pickling all summer getting ready for winter.

That said I wouldn’t want anyone to think that while I observe the signs of fall all around, I’m not enjoying the beauty, which surrounds me, all the while fretting over winter. I strongly believe in “stopping and smelling”, the air, the earth, the fragrance of the flora and fauna of all four seasons. I’m grateful for the beauty of my habitat, this beautiful country, and all beautiful countries. Yes, even winter provides its own incredible beauty but after more than 40 of them here in the Northeast I’m very inclined to the South of France or South Africa throughout the winters. South Africa when you’re poor as it’s so cheap there, our winter is there summer, and the south of France when you’re just rolling in money so it doesn’t matter what things cost there. South Africa is just amazing and if it weren’t so far away I’d spend much more time there, I just love sitting on the patio next to the pool and hundred-year-old geraniums while watching the Sacred Ibis in the palms above our head. I also like sitting on the beach near Durban, by the Indian Ocean, watching the large waves roll in with surfers trying to catch a ride. I did a photo-painting of the Indian Ocean near Durban for my website: to illustrate a friend’s poem we published there – to view this page and read Chris Angell’s poems click here.

The Indian Ocean looking towards Durban 2001

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Sedum – Dragon’s Blood

This herbaceous perennial, is from a large group of plants with succulent green leaves. Its foliage and flowers are both attractive and change marvelously throughout the seasons. Another quality is that it is very drought tolerant and does well on poor or dry sites in the garden. We have several different genuses but I like these the best. I regret that I can’t tell you which genus ours are just that they’re Sedum. I also like the common name of Dragon’s Blood as it conjures up interesting images as you see its fall foliage.

Sedum in midsummer

detail of midsummer Sedum

the same Sedums - Dragon’s Blood photographed this afternoon

detail of fall Sedum reveals why it’s called Dragons Blood

macro of Sedum petals

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GP

feeling blue on a monday

I’m feeling rather “blue” today. A bad day, a Monday.

I hate shopping at a “big box “store when you need help and there’s none to be found for a hundred aisles. When you do find someone, they tell you it’s at the complete opposite end of the store, in an area were you would have never gone only because the aisle description is almost antithetical to what your looking for. Like looking for dairy in the meat section of the supermarket, it’s just not kosher. Sure, one could say dairy comes from a cow thus an association, but why would anyone look for screws in a plumbing section even if they were both made of metal.
The only good thing to do at a “big box” store is window shop; if you’re in a hurry forget it. Hate them.

I’ve started on the annual process of preparing the house for the forth-coming brutality of ice, wind, and snow. A few of the windows in the house need to be modernized in terms of insulation. When the house was built they we’re not as fussy about insulation. With the current prices of fossil fuels, we have to be to keep the house, snuggly warm for all the little dwarfs and gnomes that live in our rafters and crawl spaces throughout the freezing time. You know that clear sparkling night when the house has a ½ metre of snow on it, with icicles cascading from the edge of the roof as the north wind takes relent from its fierce blowing. Beautiful yes, but bitterly cold, so cold that bricks of the chimney crack.

Fortunately, we’re not there yet. I worked without my shirt in the sun but as I worked, I looked all around and saw all the signs that the fullness of autumn is soon to unfold. So I’m feeling blue – saddened.

my Asters slowly fade away with fall

as do my Daisies

The last of my Asters are slowly withering away, as well as my Daisies. The Sedums have begun to change colour, some of which I’ll show you in the days to come. The tops of distant Maple Trees have started to change colour, not a sudden change to the brilliant colours after a killing frost. Just a natural change of colour with the loss of a leafs chloroform, that happens at this time of year. The sun is hot but the mornings are damp and cool with dew thickly coating everything. While the windows are open tonight, we’ve had to shut them a few times already because of the chill in the air.

I’m feeling blue and on a Monday. Sounds like a song?

GP

jack in the pulpit seed

Jack in the Pulpits in May

Remember these “Jack in the Pulpits” from my May 15, 2005 posting of the same name.
Below are the seeds, which these above plants produced. I think they are simply amazing as they start from the Pulpit turn into these large green berries and then as fall comes turn to an orange then a brilliant red. Laying on their sides because of the weight of the seed these simple plants produce a cornucopia of seed.

The Jack in the Pulpit takes a few years to develop into a mature flowering plant from the seed. I grew all my own plants from seed. When you see the above image from spring and these seed pictures from fall, you can see why I enjoy these plants as much as I do.

In some ways the seeds are more interesting than the flower in terms of vivid colours. What a blessing the garden provides in all its stages throughout the seasons.

I wonder what Jack is preaching from his pulpit?

Jack in the Pulpit seeds Sept. - Oct.

GP