In the good news department, the two woodchucks (Marmota monax) that had taken up residence in our gardens, one under the shed, one under the dining pavilion, took the bait so to speak, a piece of cantaloupe, pretty succulent when its been dry. Both were relocated to a wilder area some distance away. Both were quite handsome, darker coated beasts, and one was exceptionally wary & TPP had tried several times to entice his entry into a trap, but to no avail. Nice animals but they eat too much and dig, dig, dig, so bye-bye. Almost as bad as tree rats.
Finally it rained; about 1.3 inches in our gauge, and we could use more. After more than half a month without rain, things were mighty dry. Stressed trees were dropping leaves. Ferns just shriveled and died back. Watering could only help the newer items.
Some very good friends brought TPP a bag of Northern Spy apples. Wow! They are so good!
Identified some sunflowers for a Master Naturalist. Their garden was being overrun by black-eyed susans, so TPP also loaned them the "Sod-buster 5000", a tool of his own making. Nearly lost in the fall prairie vegetation was a Helianthus divaricatus, a woodland sunflower, appropriately in a shadier portion of the garden, and then some Helianthus tuberosus, sunchoke or Jerusalem artichoke. Here's the former showing the big petalled ray flowers and the little disk flowers. Hope that's bloomin' enough. Note the leaf blade is decurrent down the petiole and is three veined at the base.
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