Front Porch Mirrors

 

This house in Camp Hill interests me because of the mirror on the front porch. Well, it is a lovely and well kept house also. Has anybody ever heard of a mirror on the front being some kind of tradition? I tried to look it up on the net but was unsuccessful.

Fall for Japanese Maples

 

This is the view of my Japanese maple and bottlebrush buckeye. It will almost put your eyes out, it's so bright. The plant beside the yellow one is also a buckeye but is our red buckeye. It cheers me just to see it.

Sleeping Hibiscus

 

 

This is Malvaviscus arboreus, called sleeping hibiscus, turk's cap, and several other names. I received it as a small plant from my Mother-in-law in south Alabama quite a few years ago. She had it growing in the shade of some giant oaks, and it was pretty spindly and had few flowers. I planted mine in full sun and it is more beautiful year after year. It speads by underground runners, but mine now occupies as much space as I am willing to give it.I keep it in check by ripping out runners after it gets growing in the spring and early summer. Frost cuts it to the ground in our area (zone 8) but it springs back each year and by late summer is putting on quite a show. It continues it's bloom right on till frost. It attracts literally clouds of yellow sulfur butterflies. This year there seemed to be a bumper crop. You have to keep a watch out for those sulfur butterfly larvae though. They seem to really enjoy the buds and blooms of other flowers (that is other than sleeping hibiscus)and will decimate geranium buds. Hummingbirds also enjoy sipping these hibiscus, but of course that is no surprise. I do not feed hummingbirds. I don't have time to sit and watch them anyway and I prefer to let my flowers feed them.
Sleeping hibiscus root like a house afire at any time of the year. If you have adequate space, they are well worth growing. They have no pests to speak of, and their dark green leaves and bright red flowers can start you in the Christmas mood already.
Oh yeah. It is very drought tolerant.

Backstreet of LaFayette, Alabama

 

 

I remember the first time I saw what the buildings in LaFayette looked like from the back. What I actually remember was how horrified I was. I had seen them from the front and 50 years ago, they looked quite a bit better in front than from behind. (Maybe most of us do, too.) Then again, maybe not. But I digress.Fifty years ago, LaFayette was a thriving place, with all the buildings on the square occupied by stores. Now they are mostly empty and dilapidated, and no amount of window dressing is going to change that. I don't think they look much worse from the back than they did then.
What I do not understand is why someone in town does not come up with a plan to try to save the town instead of tossing a few flowers on the graves of the dead businesses. What would lead people to believe that a statue of a dead boxer will become a tourist attraction? If the town wants tourism, or anything else for its citizens, it needs to try to lure new people and business. It needs to provide suitable entertainment for it's children and teens, it needs to promote the value of education, and turn away from the easy route that does not work.

Chambers County Lake

 

 

 

I always enjoy a trip over to Chambers County Lake, but especially in the fall. We used to go when the children were still at home and just wander around and look for bugs and leaves, etc. We never fished as far as I remember. We did picnic a couple of times, and usually fabricated some excuse for dabbling in the water in the spillway. The reflection of the trees in the water is a beautiful sight anytime but the colors of fall make it extra special. Sweetgums are great fall trees. There can be a myriad of colors on one tree, as there are on the one in the top picture. Purple, almost black, bright and dark shades of red, orange, and yellow, with some green thrown in for good measure. The bottom two pictures are of the race to the spillway. You can see and hear the water in the spillway by going here.

Flatworm

 

The other day while moving some plants into the greenhouse for the winter, I discovered a flatworm under a pot. I do find them occasionally under pots and have often thought of experimenting on them. As I remembered from biology you could cut them in half and the one without a head would grow a new head. But memory being somewhat faulty, it turns out that growing new heads is largely limited to the planeria, which are members of the flatworms, but not the kind like this.More than half of flatworm species are parasitic, causing some serious troubles like Schistosomiasis, tapeworms and other type flukes. The one pictured here is a free living flatworm, found in shady moist areas like leaf litter and rotting wood. I suppose they eat detritis or other equally unsavory things, but an interesting thing about them is that many kinds do not have an anus. They push undigested food back out their mouths. Don't be too hard on them though, because they are a very primitive organism and lack either a respiratory or circulatory system. They just do the best they can. I made 3 videos of this one crawling about. The first one is somewhat fuzzy, while the other 2 are clearer.

Video 1

video 2

Video 3

Pumpkin on the Edge of Compost

 

I have taken quite a hiatus from my these entries. It's not that I haven't been thinking, I just haven't been recording anything which for many purposes is tha same as not thinking. (If nobody knows of the thought, was it really there?) but most things I think (as well as most other people ,I suppose) is not really worth knowing about.This is one of the many reasons that I would not want to be a teacher:someone who talks all the time is bound to say some goofy and untrue things. Sometimes you are bound to have your mouth engaged while your mind is in neutral.
Mother died on October 24th, 2 1/2 years after her stroke. She held on as long as she could , but in the end she was completely used up, and prayed for God to take her. After a rough period of hours, she stopped breathing in her sleep.I have been at peace about the situation because I knew she was ready to go. She had lived a good and long life (92 years) and was well loved by her family,church and community. I think she loved me as much as anyone can love me, and she never waivered as far as I know in her Christian devotion or her prayer life. Her prayers are the thing that I will miss most.
Halloween has come and gone and as is my habit, I have set the jack-o-lantern to watch over the compost until such time as he takes a dive into it himself.I suppose this is a somewhat macabre, but I watch his face as the smile gets more crooked and his chin slowly folds under. In the end he will become good compost....