Deeper Into Fall

Autumn leaves don’t fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this their only chance to soar.Where the Crawdads Sing,  Delia Owens

And just like that we are deep into fall. First lake effect snow with bitter cold making roads messy, but not a lot of snow. Just enough to add a bit of beauty and magic for the season. And oh the sunrises right now are spectacular, greeting me on many mornings.

Starlings were gathering in the hundreds on the tall electrical towers. Murmurating periodically during the day before moving on to warmer weather south.

The wooly caterpillars are said to foretell the winter season. Black means winter weather, while the orange denotes a warming trend. This year, November was chilly with a bit of snow, while the weather forecast is said to be warmer through February. Maybe wintery weather in January or February. Sometimes even March and April. Of course, the forecasts change as the season goes along.

And these woolies couldn’t make up their minds either. This one was foretelling of a cold, warm trend with little snow and warmer than average temps. Not too far from the warm up we have been seeing in our planting zone. Less snow, warmer temps and more ice and rain than snow.

I found a few milkweed pods still letting go at the dead end pond.

So stark and brown and dead…so still with barely a sound except a crow. The foliage of the plants brown and dry. Waiting for the snow and rain to beat it back to earth where it will compost and make ready for new green shoots of life in spring.

The garden is still spitting out a few blooms as I left some plants to flower and see how long they could last this fall. These Calendula will bloom through many frosts and freezes if there are periodic warm ups, which we have had. These plants were blooming to the end of November.

I thought it best to cut off the buds, and see if they would open once I brought them into a warm house.

Aren’t they gorgeous with the dark brownish red-orange painted on the underside of the petals.

And indeed they opened, and I expect them to last a long time. In the Language of Flowers, calendula means joy, remembrance, grief. A perfect description of this vase as we go deep into fall. I’d say this was a very fortuitous vase of flowers from my later fall garden. I hope there might be one more surprise in my garden before it’s all done soon, and winter is truly here.

With this vase, I am joining in with the wonderful meme, In A Vase On Monday, from Cathy at  Rambling in the Garden.

All the pictures shared in this post were taken with my Nikon Coolpix or iPhone camera, and manipulated on my iPhone using the apps, Pixlr and Prisma. You can follow my progress with #the100dayproject in my Instagram and Facebook feed.

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