I Love Autumn.
Ooh, autumn! I love you to bits! I've been sitting on the cottage verandah watching Minimus my cottage cat chasing the autumn leaves fluttering gently down from the Silver Birch. Actually, it looks more like a 'Golden Birch', leaf-wise.
Autumn Trees in the Pond Paddock
Non-Gardening Partner (whom I've temporarily retitled Non-Romantic-Gardening Partner) rather spoils the moment - he remembers me wanting to cut it down. Did I really? Surely not! I deny all.
Thursday 18th April
The sheep are grazing peacefully near the Chestnut tree (another golden autumn beauty). And the Maple by the side window of my cottage is slowly turning red. Wow. Such beauty, everywhere, colours changing daily. It's an exciting time, and not a day can be missed. Beautiful, beautiful autumn trees. And still lots of beautiful roses flowering, too.
Graham Thomas Rose
Start The Bonfire...
I'm going to start my bonfire and get all of the driveway gum leaves piles burnt. I'll shut all the house windows, and I'm prepared to get smoky. There will be no trite eulogies for gum leaves, by the way. They are full of nasty chemicals (well, I reckon they are), and they won't compost in a million years. But boy do they burn, with their Eucalyptus oils unleashed!
Lunchtime...
Three hours burning, and hardly a dent in my piles of combustible rubbish. But there have been some satisfying garden threads. I've burnt all the orchard climbing rose prunings - I can remember being strong minded, well-gloved, and extremely destructive in that long, hot pruning session. I've burnt lots of dry Iris confusa, which I can remember decisively ripping out of the Dog-Path Garden last summer. Back when the days were oh so long...
The Driveway Garden in Autumn
Because of serious self-smokiness I've gone apres-gardening early, with a completely clean set of clothes on. This will provide me with a grand excuse to stay clean for the rest of the day, hee hee.
+5Oddly, I always get cat company when I'm burning things on the bonfire. Big Fluff-Fluff has been balancing on top of the smallest fence post all morning, watching the smoke and flames. Even if one has a fluffy bottom that can't be comfortable!
Much Later...
It's difficult to describe autumn leaf colours. I've been wandering around with Rusty the dog and my camera, photographing the muted golds and reds, some still tinged with their original green. These shades are complicated, evocative mixtures, and likening them with the fiery colours of flames seems inappropriate (I do have some experience as a bonfirewoman).
- ‘Autumn, you're so cool!’
- -Moosey Words of Wisdom.
There's a muffled, subdued feeling to autumn - and it tends to be cool. Autumn, you're so cool! That's a compliment, by the way. What a lovely season you are...
Friday 19th April
Aha! Light drizzle. Do I feel like having my third bonfire of the season? Or technically, is this just a continuation of the first, a re-ignition, so there is one long bonfire that lasts for two months or more? Aargh!
Ingrid Bergman Red Roses
Later...
Well, I burnt ten barrowfuls of dry stuff before lunch, then I zoomed off to a singing rehearsal (blessing the rains down in Africa, a Toto song), then I zoomed back to continue the Great Autumn Bonfire. Seven more barrowfuls, and after collecting them I poked and prodded at the fire, pretended I was a famous, noteworthy gardener, and interviewed myself out loud. The height of egotism? My dog watched, looking very bored. What is she going on about? Am I supposed to be listening?
The Autumn Bonfire Again!
So that's my day, and it's been just grand. Every autumn day is like that, really. It's such a delicious time of the gardening year.