What's outside of your picture window today?

Hi Elizabeth, It’s so wonderful to hear that you’re doing so much better! You had such a miserable period there for a while and I’m just so relieved to know that your health is improved and your energy level is up a few notches! It’s so difficult to get anything done when you’re drained and overwhelmed, isn’t it?
Sounds like you’re really making some positive headway in doing some cleaning and arranging. That’s a daunting task! We’re ‘sort of’ doing the same thing. My husband and I had made a good stab of it before my medical drama 3 years ago. We’re slowly getting back into it. We know it needs doing but we’re having too much fun making up for lost time that cleaning and organizing closets and the household isn’t high on the list right now. 😀
The garden pictures I posted say August 24 (2022). Usually by now the garden starts getting pretty yellow. But this has been a perfect year in Wisconsin, or at least where I live in East Central Wisconsin. We’ve gotten just enough rain to keep things green. The garden are is also new from last year. We had the entire back yard redone. The old wooden raised beds were replaced with corrugated steel beds, the pea gravel around the beds was replaced with sod. It all looks so nice now and has saved on maintenance.
Love all your little rescue plants! I bet your doctor was happy to get one of your little ‘snatched from the jaws of death’ plants! 😀

In spite of the fact that moss grows on just about anything around here as long as there's some shade, we had a huge fire two years ago; people are still living in temporary places in many cases. Because our house is surrounded by hundreds of acres of forest sans roads, we've always feared fire, even here on the Oregon coast, which used to have infrequent rain all summer. With climate change, things are once again terribly dry here. There's high wind (80 mph isn't at all unusual) predicted for the next three days, so the entire area of the 2020 fire will have no electricity, as that may well have been the spark that started the big fire then. We're just outside the area of the planned outage, and hope that it isn't extended: no electricity isn't a huge problem, but the resulting lack of running water is! We do have the creek a distance from the house; no electricity means that I need to take a five-gallon bucket down to the creek and haul the water up the hill to force flush the toilet for my husband. With no water, I simply use the woods...isn't that one reason they're there?

Still, it seems unbelievable to have fire danger once again, as we need heat here every morning. No sun when your home is surrounded by old growth! We had hoped that the very long cold, wet spring through late April, May, and early June would prevent fire danger, but everything dried out very quickly. For the last 10 years or so, we no longer have occasional rain most summers, just one sunny day after another.

Same here, the drought is terrible. Moss, yes, but even that resilient growth is suffering. It is so.incredibly.dry.
Day after day with sun and no rain.
Two days ago, in bed, I heard something strange. I didn't know what it was. It turned out to be rain... A little bit fell, not enough for the drying plants, enough to close the window roof though! And it has rained again last night. Just a little bit, again. A far cry from the serious rains we had even a few years ago.
That being said, the last real snow was two years ago but before that we didn't have any for years and years. The temperatures were not extreme either. We sometimes had a bit of 'whitish kind of stuff' that melted even in the air, so to speak.
With the current financial and energy situation I can't afford heating anymore. "Heat or eat" as they put it. A very mild Winter would be great for me! But not for nature.

I just found this website for the drought-stricken world, what an inspiration!
https://www.azplantlady.com/2014/04/tour-of-sustainable-southwestern-landscaping.html

@joyces Living in NH we generally lose our electricity a few times during the winter when the snow is heavy and wet and it's windy out. When we know a storm is coming we fill the bathroom wastebaskets with water so we can flush and fill the bathtubs too. We don't have a stream to get water from, plus in the winter it would probably be frozen.

I hate losing power and not having water. We do keep our bbq on our screened-in porch so if we want to grill something we can but it's generally too cold to do that. I look forward to driving to Dunkin Donuts just to get in a warm car and get some hot coffee.
JK

In response to contentandwell: I can't imagine living in a place where there's white stuff on the ground or, worse, ICE! I bought here 60 years ago to enjoy the mild, damp climate here, never expected it to get dry enough to burn! There have been a few instances (four or five) of a bit of snow in the six decades since I bought this place, but never enough to actually cover the green grass. That's the way I like it!

I just walked the quarter-mile toward the ocean to retrieve my mail, and the sky is an ugly orange, indicating that there are already some fires nearby. Hopefully it won't be a huge disaster like 2020, as many people are only now moving into replacement manufactured homes. There's a very strange hot east wind, just like 2020: here we expect to face the wind as we face the ocean, not the mountains east of us! Time to move the essential items to the center of the living room, ready for possible evacuation.

Hi @hearttoheart1 Summer is quickly turning into autumn in the north woods of Wisconsin. I’m appreciating the cooler temperatures during the daytime and the crispy nights! Great for sleeping! I know you had an uncharacteristically hot summer across the ocean where you are. I hope you were able to keep cool and enjoy your summer, though I know you’re missing Michale terribly and this had to be a difficult season for you. I would expect that his passion for gardening is still bringing you joy when you see the flowers blooming and the plants growing. They have a way of reminding us of continuance and renewal of life…
I just had to share with you the little surprise I discovered one of my apple trees back home! Ripe apples and blossoms at the same time! What do you make of that!!?? ☺️

Have you been able to visit more with your granddaughters? Do you have any pictures of your garden you’d like to share?

It's in the 60s today in Asheville and I see dogs frolicking in the park outside my windows. They revel in the cooler weather and my cat's mesmerized by their romping and playing. But she disappears if I get her leash out and offer to take her outside. (I used to have a Siamese cat who liked walking in NYC on a leash. And she had a favorite apartment building that she'd stop in front of and wait for the doorman to admit us. Then she'd check out the current floral arrangement in the lobby, look in the mirrors, then return to the door and wait for the doorman to pet her and open the door. I don't know why she ever stopped at that building in the first place. She'd never been to it before. But the doorman was amused by her and never questioned letting us in the building. I just consider it more inexplicable Siamese cat behavior. Or cat reincarnation for all I know?)

@joyces Fortunately not everyone enjoys the same climate or we would all be clustered in one small section of the country. I hate humidity and really enjoy the changing of the seasons. I love the beauty of newly fallen snow and the crisp, autumn air, and the riotous variety of colors it brings. We always have an influx of tourists in the fall to see the colors. We call them "leaf peepers".

I cannot imagine living anywhere other than the northeast, except possibly Washington state.
JK

We get a lot of snow in Quebec but the worst is the freezing rain. During the January 1998 ice storm we lived in a rural area and were without electricity, heating, or water. I remember filling buckets with snow and placing them by the fireplace to melt the snow so that we could flush the toilet. Here in Montreal we’re so dependent on hydro electricity for heating, cooling, lighting, appliance, even elevators. We always keep our fingers crossed that we won’t lose power during every storm. There is a generator for basic electricity in the common areas such as opening and closing garage doors.