Biannual Institutionalized National Jet Lag

 

Begins this weekend or so I'm told.

All I can say is ugh.

And it froze hard last night. Latest hard frost I can remember. Time to cut down the cannas and dig them. A terrifying job, as they grew several feet over my head this year and bloomed right up until yesterday. The corms are going to be the size of these!

First Frost Last Night

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Just a small one, but a few things got singed. Cold morning for birding too, but there are still Yellow-rumped Warblers around.

Sometimes they look back at me
Song Sparrow

Odd little birds. It is no problem to see them as they fly straight to me as soon as I go into the field where they are feeding. A little harder to get photos though as warblers almost never sit still.

White-crowned Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

Anyhow....brrrrrrr........

Will She or Won't She?

Freeze that is. Only the One who controls it all knows for sure. 

Thus decisions must be made. Many of the tender house plants have been brought indoors already. Most of the heirlooms, many of the prettier geraniums, especially Grandma Peggy's old doubles and the ones I've grown from seed over the years. The big jade has been sacrificed, beheaded, uprooted, all in and all done. I was sick of it tipping over its pot and taking up half the living room. I can get a new one going in case I feel like I need a plant with fifty pounds of greenery.

Maybe we skate by at 33 as we already have a couple of times. Hard to say, but there is a frost advisory for tonight, then a stretch of nicer weather to come. Guess I will be hauling plants in and covering the big tomato and the sprawling little purple ones, and whatever else can't come indoors.

I sure hope we don't lose the Heavenly Blue morning glories. No way to protect them and there were EIGHTEEN blossoms yesterday. 18! So pretty.

By way of our little almanac, I spotted the first two winter sparrow species yesterday. In the morning a White-throated Sparrow was hanging out with a bunch of Song Sparrows over behind the barn. Late in the afternoon, a White-crowned Sparrow bopped into the bushes with another little flock of same right in front of the house.

Seems as if Song Sparrows form nuclei, around which less common sparrows gather. All through late summer a single Field Sparrow hung around with the same little SOSP flock behind the barn. Before they left, the very loud chirping Indigo Buntings seemed to serve in same manner, particularly attracting migrating warblers to the good eating spots. 

It is quite a thing to be outdoors these days, what with the colors changing, fall flowers blooming, insects racing to be ready for the silence, and the magical flux of passing migratory birds. I love it.