August Scrapbook / While Gustav Hits

Yikes, it's September, my birthday month again! How can this be?
It must be time to update the blog, as well. As the remains of hurricane Gustav whirl by outside, let's see what pictures have been piling up in the 'upload' box lately...
Four gratuitous frame grabs from Monty Python's Flying Circus, of which I just had episodes one through nine in house recently. Interesting to watch them in proper order. I had forgotten that Terry Gilliam's animations get the biggest laughs in the early shows, and the first audience applause as well. That stuff was insanely shocking even for public TV back in 1971-72. Much of it was funnier than I thought I'd find it. I've waited for years to re-watch some Python stuff and hopefully dig it again.
I love the stuffed cat panelist below.


A recap of August, 2008, when the walnut trees had already started dropping loads of leaves--they are indeed the last to leaf out, and the first to let 'em go; we had a nasty hot spell, after a pleasant break from temps in the 90's; and I've been going mad in the national inter-library ordering system digging for treasures to be sent in to my tinytown library branch.
The bees in the maple tree have blown their hive right out of the limb and it is a busy bee clubhouse. If I could just get up on a ladder and get a few feet closer I'd get a better shot, as these are zoomed all the way, but it's a pretty busy bee highway, and I don't really want to stand up on a ladder right under there to get the picture, even though they'd probably ignore me and fly right around.

Some hot days there is quite a roar coming down from that busy hive; just over our back porch, so you kind of walk under it to go anywhere. When they get excited and ALL come out it is quite a sight and sound.
Dawg and Termaters. I walked up on this and felt that it "looked like a picture".
Birdhouse, bone, neighbor's barn. Near the dark, jungle-y 'northwest corner'.


Let's tour the yard and see what's blooming in August. This arbor is going off, for one {I forget their name}. Then there's some Cosmos, next, just below.
I transplanted several wild Fox grapes over to an empty arbor, so next year will see a very bushy archway where we had none. I've also put out maple tree volunteers, betwixt us and the neighbors. Even though the property is full of trees, there is that one strip between the houses that I want to fill with a row of fruit and shade trees. This spring's crop of maple tree seeds produced fine starters all over the yard {wish I could save 'em for my friends in Woodland}. I used a refrigerator trick, with the moist jar of soil in the dark 'fridge, to try and sprout apricot seeds, from someone's yard apricots, but they refused to pop. And I usually have good luck starting seeds, too.
This merely strengthens my resolve to grow an apricot tree.
My biggest enemy in the yard-jungle, after poison ivy, is those darned Hackberry trees, which grow incredibly fast and profuse about the place. Those things must be quite the pest in this area- they basically choke out everything else wherever they grow. Boy, another tree that I'd like to donate to Green Darner Farm, good grief, with a drop of water, they could cover that acreage in a year or two.

These Surprise Lilies are funny-- they have huge non-blooming growth in the spring, then they die down completely for the summer, eventually sending up totally different-looking shoots in August, and then blooming.
July rained and rained, with intense sun in between, a great year for flowers and gardens. Keeping up with the length of the lawn grass was tough. Now the mower is in the shop, so I've had a few weeks off, after the initial slowdown in August, when the ground finally dried out.
Hey, I think that's one of those stubborn, sneaky Hostas, on the left of the right-hand photo. We waited so long to see a bloom out of those big leggy things.
The humble Petunia. Hearty, though, and they bloom almost all summer into fall.
My dahlias finally came up! I guess the yellow one wasn't blooming yet when I shot this...


A neat sign from a recent library book. The party table! You can't destroy it with booze or cigarettes! Perfect for my friend Renee and I!
I love the couple working it in the picture. The sign is apparently printed onto an actual tabletop.
Sequence of a squirrely-bob in the hollow maple tree, shot from my second-story window. This is the same limb that houses a very large and busy beehive.
At first I thought that he might be after some honey, but apparently he had some goodies stashed in there. I looked out momentarily and saw a critter looking out at me and I had to grab the camera. These are 'macro'd way in and shot through two panes of glass, and thus not the greatest optical quality.



Termaters on the back porch awaiting some kind of processing. This is our breakfast nook, as well. My mother's ulcer won't abide 'maters, so these displays torture her; she used ta love 'em.
Sun-drying of tomatoes goes on and on. Too many plants this season, but it was amusing to watch 'em go, just the same.

Detail of the front porch screen door.
A short sequence taken when last week's storm broke right at sunset, and the sky was glowing brilliant yellow all over. This was just a day or two before some volcanic dust produced extra-red sunsets. Pictures cannot do justice to the lemony intensity of the yellow light that evening, the entire sky was fiercely yellow, not just a few clouds or an area, but ALL of it, and lit everything with an uncanny warm glow.

Lovely Armour tin sign, from a recent library book acquisition of advertising signs...
Now the remains of GUSTAV pound at my windows, rain is pooling everywhere, temperatures have dropped 20 degrees since yesterday, and I'm tying up plant limbs; welcome to Autumn!