Color in My Kingdom

I still have some really nice autumn photos from the past few days, but I think today I'll just show you what's going on in my corner of the universe.

Here's the female mulberry tree. The male one didn't look too healthy this year. I'm hoping it's not going to die. These two trees have given me several fantastic photos- see link at end for two of them

This is the paper birch I planted about 30 years ago. It's probably too close to the house, but oh, well. It almost died, and then came back, so part of the trunk is ugly. I have to keep trimming it away from the roof. It sheds leaves all over my front flower bed. That creates a big mess to clean up in the spring, but I think it has also improved the soil there tremendously. It's always golden in the fall.

The Sedum elecombeanum that I like so much in the rock garden with its yellow-green leaves all summer and bright yellow flowers in June- turns red-orange in the fall!

There is a big patch of Winged Sumac just out into the field a little ways. I missed the peak of its color, but here is proof that maybe a week ago it was bright.

Here is a picture from last year that shows how beautiful that clump can be.



And my parting shot is one of those "huh?" moments. I posted last year that the maple tree I planted as a sapling about 6 inches tall in 1991 got autumn color for the first time ever. It's the darker orange tree behind the yellow mulberry. That was taken October 31, so almost exactly a year ago.



Here's what it looks like this year. It has very little interest in changing color for me. You can see a few hints of orange/salmon on the edges of some leaves. But it's a nice tree, and I planted it, and it lived. So I like it.

I slept in this morning because I did not sleep well last night. Still got a fair amount done and took my 3-mile road walk.

Miles hiked in 2025: 416.2

See Pink, Blue, and Red

The Last of the Color?

Today was crisp, and maybe the last day for the beautiful fall colors. I don't think they will all come down right away, but we may not see much of the sun for a few days. There may be a hard frost Tuesday night, and that will loosen the leaves.

First shot in the cemetery.

One of the twin mulberry trees here that I've featured quite often in different lights and moods. This almost looks like spring colors instead of fall.

This picture doesn't do this line of trees justice. This is behind a garden center- thus the piles of mulch. But there are always a variety of colors here.

And the sky was clear, October blue. Right after I took this, the clouds started moving in.

I edited, I wrote, I researched, I did some volunteer stuff, I went shopping, I worked on trailer prep. The rest of the glue came today, so tomorrow I should be able to finish the underneath layer of insulation. I guess I did all right!

See Other Fall Colors

Golden and Wet

  Not much to say about today. It rained all day. I read all day. OK, I talked myself into doing about two tiny things I should do. But that's it. I ate too much. But the mulberry tree is pretty!

See Pink Blue and Red

Light!

 
We had sun! For about 7 minutes this morning before it slipped under the clouds and left us with a gray and rainy day.



But those seven minutes were wonderful. When the sun blazes through a slit in the clouds it usually lights up objects to the west, and today was one of those days. I liked the stripes across the driveway leading to a pine.



And it hit the twin mulberries as so often happens. This picture is very like one from a year ago.



And, I've started another watercolor pencil attempt. I'm doing these on regular drawing paper because I don't have any watercolor paper. So they end up wrinkly and it takes a while for it to dry before I can add the next layer. Here's where this one is so far. Remember, I don't know much about what I'm doing... I'm just fooling around yet.


In other news: I spent most of the day trying to get the page numbers and headers in Dead Mule Swamp Mistletoe to work right. Finally got that done, and am working on my next newsletter. Be sure to give me your email if you aren't on the list and want to be.

	See Morning Light
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Looking Homeward

 
There are a couple more interesting things from Dow Gardens, but I think it's time to return home for a while. First of all, let's have a show of hands from all those who thought I could refrain from playing with plants at home entirely. Yeah, I don't see any.

It's like this. The garden stores have now marked bedding plants down to 50%. So I came home with all these for only $6. I'll keep you posted on how it looks in a few weeks. This makes me smile every time I walk out the door.


Yesterday on my walk I watched some redtail hawks circling. They soar with wings flat, but this one was actively flying. Just luck I caught this picture.



Today, I drove to take a hike on the North Country Trail. Did six miles. The red pine plantation is always a magical place of light.



Looking down, there was a forest of moss sporangia just as dense as the pines on a smaller scale.



A male Ebony Jewelwing damselfly was playing hide and seek.



Of course, I see this huge burl every time I walk this section, but today I took its picture.



It seemed as if it might rain, so I hurried back. No rain, but the humidity was high and I was soaked with sweat, so hopped in the shower. The sky has now cleared and lovely cumulus clouds are building across my back yard.



The mulberry tree is really loaded this year. Even though most aren't ripe yet, the birds are already going nuts! I'm going to try to capture some for myself. Maybe tomorrow. Certainly this week.



In other news: I wrote a chapter in The Bigg Boss. I lamented over the fact that I accidentally overwrote all the edits I did the other day. I walked six miles on the North Country Trail (Hike 100 Challenge is at 34 miles). That doesn't seem like much, but it took all the time.

North Country Trail, north from Timber Creek to 8th Street and back- 6 miles total

	See Adventures on the Way Home See Ebony Jewelwing
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Pink, Blue (and Red)

 
Today's images:

The sunrise was pink, and the light was so intense it lit up the mulberry trees. This is not looking into the east, but to the west where the light was cast.



Later in the day, when I got home from working, the same trees had blue sky in back of them. I like the contrast.



And in between, I liked these two scenes with the focus on red. But notice that a tree is an important part of both pictures.





Work tonight. Not sure I'm mentally ready.

	See Mulberry Mystery for more about these two trees
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My Kingdom Today

Another beautiful day here. The colors in "my kingdom" (we don't own all the land I roam and enjoy) are getting quite intense. This picture doesn't quite do this view justice. I think it's too far away to show well in a picture. But I sort of judge how good the fall colors are coming along by the looks of that cemetery edge. It has various oranges and yellow, and the lower staghorn sumacs in front are red.



We also have a patch of winged (or shining) sumac. I did a previous post on several kinds of sumac. They all tend to turn red, but this one starts out dark red and then peaks at a pure, bright scarlet.



Here is the mulberry tree that features prominently in the summer too. It wears gold!



Finally, even though this is fuzzy, I'm really happy to have caught this picture. This is the red-tailed hawk. I heard it cry (it says "keeeeer"), and just managed to catch it flying to a clump of aspen.



I also tried something new today, that is amazing! I blogged about it at Grazing the Ditches

	See Sumac Times Three
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Mulberry Project Part 2

The day began at 4 am when Om's car wouldn't start. We finally got him on the road at 5 am, but by then I was awake. So, I decided to finish the mulberry project before it got too hot. But my brain (as you know) doesn't work well in the early morning. I forgot to take a picture of the next step.

Basically it wasn't much to see. I put the juice in a pan with sugar and simmered it till it reached 215 degrees F. That's not quite to the gel stage.

I had discovered this recipe a few years ago, and was interested because it is supposed to be for jelly without added pectin, but I learned back then that it doesn't really work- it won't set up into jelly. I'm sure it would with the addition of a green apple, which adds natural pectin, but the resulting syrup was a lot more interesting to me than jelly. I really like syrups.



Here is what I got- 6 half pints of mulberry syrup, and the jars all sealed.

I didn't make waffles today. No, no, no- way too hot. This is a picture from another time, with syrup from the first batch on them. But you get the idea.




We had big thunderstorms all morning, and then the heat and humidity kicked in again. It's supposed to be cooler tomorrow. I hope so.

See Mulberry Project Part 1

Mulberry Project Part 1

It was 10 days ago that I was trying to harvest mulberries- way to early, as it turns out, even though a few were purple then. So even though it was beastly hot, I went out today and shook enough branches to get a gallon plus of berries. They needed to be checked over for bugs and sticks and ones already gone to seed. That took a good hour.

Next they got simmered in water for an hour.



After that, I set up my jelly bag and strained the juice.



The juice is now in the refrigerator. What will I do with it? Not jelly. We don't seem to eat hardly any jelly. Come back tomorrow and see what happens.

See I Cleaned and Baked, Just For You See Smart Balance Eliminates a Great Product

Mulberries Not Ready

Look at the mulberry tree! The branches are just loaded with fruit this year, and I want to be sure to collect enough for some syrup or juice or something.



You can see that the berries are starting to ripen. The purple-black fruits are the ripe ones. The birds have been screaming at each other and fighting for control of the tree all day. So I thought it might be time to start collecting berries.



This picture may be hard to figure out. The best way to collect these fruits is to put old sheets under the tree and then shake it. That's what I did, but hardly any fruits came down, and a lot of the weren't the dark, ripe ones.



This means I'll just have to try another day. Tomorrow is supposed to be hot... that might ripen them right up. This mulberry thing is a really messy project, but it looks like such a good year for the fruit I'm hoping to do it.

See These Birds Are in the Wrong Tree See Mulberry Mystery