Hello friends!

For the last weeks of this October, I’ve been admiring the late autumn vignettes glimpsed through windows which look out upon the garden. My favorite views are those seen while gazing out from a long, narrow window in our bathroom, which just happens to allow several distinct views. When looked upon at the left angle, it’s possible to use the bathroom vanity mirror to see far to the right and at angles which would otherwise not be possible without concerted efforts to crane the neck for a look. The mirror trick allows the gravel pathway to pop into view with its pleasurable trek around established beds as it leads out beyond the shed building. When looked through straight out, the window offers a view of the large hawthorn, with itself taking up most of the view, with just splashes of color catching the corners of your eye in either direction left and right. The hawthorn is oft visited by blue tits, who perch among the many branches while taking a break from their activities searching for seeds & bugs and their general socializing. The other angle out of the window grants you a viewpoint out towards the walnut tree. A crab apple also shares the frame of view, as do the rose bushes further out.

At various times of the year, and through the several years I’ve been gazing outside my windows, so many views have changed and altered. As trees have matured and grown larger, they have begun to fill the entire view. But it’s not just trees. There are also a few bushes which have joined ranks with the volume of the trees, and they too have grown to fill their spaces. It sometimes takes a bit of effort, especially when the branches are covered in leaves, flowers, and fruit, to see structure. But, once the leaves have started to thin and drop, and blossoms are just a memory can you really see through, and among the many branches jutting this way and that, to rediscover depth of field, the structure of the plants and trees. The forms are right. The structure is right. The layering is right. How in the world did I get this right? It’s amazing! I still find it a mystery how this all has come together.

With the drooping of branches due to rainfall which carried over from last night, and which only just cleared up late this afternoon. A walk around the beds reveals a garden which is not quite yet resigned to sleeping, but which is still pushing out the last blooms of asters and rudbeckias, and a few green leaves abound in clusters here and there. Perennials are spent and showing the strain of recent rains, the coolness of both daytime and nighttime, as well as diminished sun exposure have begun folding in upon themselves and each other in heaps and mounds. High winds have passed by, but none lately, and without a recent visit the remaining leaves look like they are content to hang on till the end, or the next big blow. Rain and cold notwithstanding, the evidence suggests there’s still a might bit of living still to do for the wee and the braw which are taking up presence in my garden. Oh. the days and hours are numbered, no doubt, and old man winter and his maker of frost are but a month away. But until then, we’ve a bit of the autumn finery to warm our hearts and bedazzle the eye.

Enjoy the autumn finery in your next of the woods, or wherever you may find yourself!

Until the next time ❤

I’m sharing some of the finest of our autumn foliage, that which remains that is, and what has developed thus far in the proceedings of autumn closure.