Fall Clean-Up and Thanksgiving

Post 56

I should write about Fall clean up, which I should be doing, but I'm not, since I've got another cold. So I'm posting some pics of my last blooms to make up for lack of weightier content.

Orange-leaved Crepe Myrtle, cobalt Wolfsbane and purple dried Hydrangea--an unplanned color combo that delivers quite a pow. The hydrangeas, right before they go brown, turn extraordinary shades of purple.

 

 

Aside from some of the easy roses, what other plant gives you so much umph from Late June to early November?  Late blooming anemones are also dramatic against the changing foliage.

Has pink ever looked so strong?

And of course the last bloomer, the perennial chrysanthemums with residual mistflower and geranium.

And the remnants of other flowers here and there.

 

In Thanksgiving for a lovely gardening season, Happy Turkey Day.

Wissahickon Style VIII, Smaller Hidden Kingdoms

Post 55

Hidden kingdoms can be hidden in plain sight. Like here, with blue Wolfsbane receding behind bramble and pink anemones.

I was lucky that I had parents who knew how to look for beauty and who taught me the habit. So when I come out of Weaver's Way in Chestnut Hill and am loading my grocery bags into the car, it is not unusual for my interest to be piqued by this...

 

  

Hmmm, what is the old stone wall from and these ruined buildings beyond.  And beyond them,  is that a charming garden I spy?

There is something about an expanse of old wall that excites curiosity.

What is this stuff and how did it get into contemporary, built-up Chestnut Hill?

So, imagine my pleasure when I was garage sailing one morning and a lovely, gardening couple allowed me into their back yard, where I was lured forward by lulling sights like this...

To turn to one side and see...

That I had stumbled upon one small hidden kingdom without even knowing it.  For here in this charming garden that I had hitherto only imagined,  lay a reality far more charming than I had been able to imagine.

The gentleman of the couple explained to me a bit about what he had heard about the ruins. Once a farm with its own s smokehouse (which explains the barn-like structure,) the property had been bought by Ruth's Funeral Home, where in that very smokehouse, they stored the cold dead bodies.

So--Boo! Ha! And  doesn't this recent discovery make for a perfect All Souls' Day post?  So the next time you're at Weaver's Way and see that quaint old barn thing...

Remember that the lovely body you are filling with such healthy food is but a bit dust and ash in the long haul!

And that some think something may or may not lie beyond. Of which we can not discern much. But rumor does ascribe great beauty and even greater charm to what, for now, we can at best only imagine.

 So prayers now for the beloved dead, if that is your wont. And isn't that a neat lamp on the back of the smokehouse? And, yeah, yeah, the light beyond, etc. Had no idea I was going to go all symbolic when I started this post. But the metaphors just seemed to line themselves up.
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I got to be part of a Halloween celebration that entailed wearing a costume to work. I work in a complex place and it was a complex costume --having something to do, I think, with Katherine Hepburn and time travel and the makings of: a currently mislaid, silent movie from the twenties that inexplicably stars an almost 60-year old Hepburn; "Bringing Up Baby, " and; "The Madwoman of Chaillot."  To stifle my usual long-windedness  I nicknamed it for the feminist literary crit. classic "The Madwoman in the Attic."

And while I rarely show myself in this blog, I figure this isn't really,  me-- so what the hey? Therefore, mix well this small dusting of ash with a big pinch of salt.