A very dry September

September is always one of our drier months, but locally our rainfall is less than half of the average amount.  The Phactors have done slightly better than the general area and our gardens are parched.  Very large, old trees are showing signs of stress.  Leaf fall is starting quite early and the lawn has a nice crunch when you walk across it.  Several poorly established shrubs, mostly sort of new, have already died. So far a lilac, and a male winter berry have gone belly up, several more look very sad.  A few things may survive and reappear come spring, but some will go missing.  And it isn't as though we have not been watering.  This is a drought.  We've had one 1.25 inch rainfall for the whole month.  Fall color is going to be a bust as leaves simply turn brown.  And do remember winter is mostly about dry conditions, so unless things turn around, we'll be watering some things in December. The cool August & early Sept. followed by hot weather, and lack of rain have some plants very confused.  A "Christmas" cactus is covered in buds, a non-hardy azalea that usually blooms in Jan.-Feb. has a couple of flowers open. 

Ah, September!

TPP likes this month.  The 2017 version is typically enough driving us crazy.  First, it was way too cool, although any time you don't need AC in the summer, we be happy.  Now, it is hot again, and combined with a typical enough drought, it is sort of an insult added to injury, here in late summer.  Listen, our new Pinus bungeana is calling for water.
Yes, we consider the first half of September to be late summer.  And as some of you know this means TPP has an anniversary celebration: fish soup, in lieu of a birthday, and this year it is sobering to note that this is the 35th fish soup.  So as usual TPP pays the air fare from Maine to the Midwest for some seafood.  This year the process was interrupted by a red tide recall on 10 pounds of mussels (dang dinoflagellates!) but the timely replacements were excellent, so were the clams, and a certain craving was satisfied for awhile at least.  That being said Mrs. Phactor's contributions, fresh Italian bread and apple pies were excellent as always.  No one goes home hungry.  Oh, TPP was home!
The gardens are bone, bone dry!  Trees are dropping leaves and ferns withering into drought induced dormancy, which is hopefully not permanent.  Newer plantings need attention. Trying to raise some late lettuce and bok choi, but keeping it watered is proving to be quite a chore.  Some bell weather plants have been watered 3 times since our last significant rain.  At  least the number of mosquitoes has declined to a tolerable level due to the dry.  Football has started and already Chi-town is playing for draft picks.  Baseball continues beyond all reason.  Play the world series already!  

Happy posts!

September is a nice time of year when you are not a student or faculty member for whom the month is quite hectic. Enjoying September is a great side benefit of retirement. And it includes TPP's birthday and his annual birthday celebration of cooking for his friends a once a year special dish. This tradition began with the idea of not doing birthdays any more, but just doing "fish soup", but now the number of fish soups has begun to add up too, so to continue the enjoyment of September TPP has been staying away from depressing blog topics which abound!
Middle Eastern Conflicts/Refugee Crisis - Didn't any of these world leaders play Risk while growing up? Depressing.
T-Rump, Fe-fi-forina, Sanctimonous, Chucklebee, and all the rest remaining. The GOP's view for America is deeply, profoundly depressing.  Cymbalta please with a side dish of Citalopram.
Discrimination called religious freedom. While you are free to believe as you wish, you may not impose those beliefs on others especially if you have a government job or run hospitals like St. Whatever's. Sad and depressing.
Garden fatalities - It was a tough year for a lot of plants especially because they got either too much water or not enough. A long-time garden resident, a bristle cone pine looks to be in a fatal decline, as do a couple of small Japanese maples.  The golden chain tree suddenly died early this summer, and after looking great last year a small cluster of Oregon grape bushes (Mahonia) crashed. Some replacements have been purchased and now must be planted. Nothing like yanking out dead trees and digging big holes to brighten your day. Did get a nice bottle of wine from the local nursery and a keep up the good work card.
Apples. Local source of Northern Spys had a crop failure for that variety, but the Jonathons are superb this year. Eh, that's farming.
However on the bright side and to keep from ruining the good September mood, the Chi-town Cubs are still winning more than losing and usually by mid- September they would have been in the sub-basement of the league for at least a month. TPP doesn't really follow them, but so many friends do that the Cub's success is brightening the moods of many friends and colleagues.
Bernie Sanders' candidacy. Don't know it he would be a good president or not, but he makes TPP smile. Just going to Liberty University was a political tour de force. He's like a T-Rump antibody.

Soggy September weather

Usually September is a fairly dry, fairly nice weather month. August had above average rainfall, so things entering September were not too dry. TPP made the observation 3 days ago that some rain would be nice or a few things would need some watering.  Hoo boy!  With a total rainfall approaching 4" in the past 48 hours, everything is well watered now OK. Usually this time of year the lily pond needs some topping up, but now a couple of inches will have to be drained off. Newly planted greens will have had plenty of water. On the down side, this much rain clearly demonstrated where the chimney flashing problem is located, and a contractor will have to be hired to fix things up on the roof side and to replace old (ancient) plaster below that has been degraded gradually over a number of years dating back to before our ownership. As they say, when it rains, it pours. Not sure how this will affect our prairie or the maize crop that is predicted to be a bin buster. With cooler and wetter than average weather, this area may receive an early winter.

New look at September

September has always been a hectically busy month, so much so that it was never much fun, and yet it's a nice month, one that starts with some leftover summer and ends with the beginning of fall.  In academia everything, everybody wants to get things going after the summer: classes, students, reports, groups, activities, so many demands upon your time that you simply lurched from one to the next. For the first time in many decades this is not the case, so September gets a chance. The estate is in pretty good shape having been baby-sat for the month of August there having been adequate rain and only a limited amount of beastly hot weather. Yesterday was 90 F and muggy, and a front moved through last night bringing rain, and this morning dawned with a temperature of 59 F being enjoyed by a couple of suddenly energetic kitty-girls. The kitchen garden pretty well collapsed, but TPP already got some fall greens crops into containers for October salads and such. Somehow the weeds have done extremely well so a lot of garden cleanup awaits. Remember, weeds do grow faster. The last hostas and fall anemones are providing some garden color. As remarkable as this seems, today was the Phactors first visit to the big Saturday morning farmers' market! The produce looked great; summer produce at its most diverse so we stocked up except for that greedy lady who bought all the basil in sight. "Sorry", she said, "pesto". Having just returned from Italy we totally understood. BTW the grocery store pesto in Italy was just so good, and so much better than even our home-made pesto that we must re-evaluate our approach. Any tip-top pesto makers have suggestions? Early Jonathon apples were available, so Mrs. Phactor will convert them into pie as only she can. 
September is also a month for birthdays it being 9 months after new years parties. TPP is supposed to have a birthday, but he hasn't celebrated that many, many years. An long time friend is turning 80 and he'll get a nice birthday surprise from his friends. Most of all TPP loves all the September deadlines. As Doug Adams used to say, "I love deadlines especially the whooshing sound they make as the rush by". TPP is truly enjoying being able to ignore all the deadline rushes. This part of retirement is great, but September is still feeling pretty weird, still trying to find his balance, getting into a new groove.

Elvis is dead and I’m not feeling so hot myself

There was a distinct flavor of fall in the air this morning, and that’s how life in general is beginning to taste as I begin counting down my 7th decade. The Phactor wasn’t so sure how he felt about this, although it helps improve the attitude to have a new, authentic Hawaiian shirt, but while lots of things remind me about getting old, the spirit of a 20-something is still in me at times, but it just can’t ignore the aging package or the accumulated common sense and do stupid things anymore, and that is probably just as well because you can still enjoy living without doing stupid things even though the very young do not believe this. You come to understand that when you grow up, and up, and up. This somewhat morose feeling that old age is creeping up on me gave way to the pleasantry of the morning as the sun began to slice through the mist and tree leaves on my stroll to the coffee shop and then to my office, and the knowledge that this most certainly will be a beautiful September day as so many of them are. So it is good to be alive in September when good apples begin to ripen, and it just isn’t worth making a pie before they are; now if I could only remember where my apples were?