The Wonderful World Of September

Sunflowers galore, with Seamus and Fergus watching from inside their fenced yard:

The fantail pigeon population has grown a great deal, with more births than deaths this summer. I will have to advertise some for sale very soon:

It takes many hours to mow the whole lawn and I am hoping this was the last mowing of the year. I parked the mower and came in for lunch and a nap before I resumed the job:

 
Japanese Knotweed may be one of the worst of all invasive species, but it is kind of pretty this time of year nonetheless:

And the sunflowers are glorious:

The tree on the north side of the house is producing Golden Delicious apples:

On the south side of the house, my dwarf Red Delicious produced - wait a minute, these are not Red Delicious apples! It turned out that a neighboring, taller tree had sent out a long branch which covered the dwarf tree:

The Rugosa roses are still blooming, but at this time of year, they have other colors to offer also:

Plantain-Leaved Sedge, also known as Seersucker Sedge has grown by the barn door for as long as I've been here, but I just learned what it was:

 If you wondered why it is sometimes called Seersucker Sedge, it is because the leaves are puckered/gathered, like seersucker fabric:

New York Asters began to bloom:

Every day I kept getting more and more sunflowers - and this despite the many I've cut for flower arrangements:

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Autumn

Winston is reaching the age when I will need to trap him in the barn and sell him. It will be a tricky operation, and upsetting for him, for his mother, and for me:

 Blue and Remy have another 6 to 8 weeks in their corral before I can let them loose in the south field. They will be happy to regain their freedom, and I'll be happy that my life will be easier:

 My north field produced a second crop of hay. It was cut, then tedded, then baled. The neighbor did the baling, using the kicker to fling the finished product up into the wagon which was towed behind the baler. His uncle, on another tractor, raked the cut and dried hay into windrows so the baler could pick it up and turn it into bales:

 I love the aroma of hay, both in the field and in the barn. It is also a scenic operation:

I took this photo to show how the baler collects the rows of hay and processes them into bales:

 But there are occasional breakdowns and problems. This stop was to refill the bin with four big rolls of baling twine:

 Flowers were still blooming, so I brought two more vases of them to church. This one contained flowers of Tree Hydrangea, Rugosa rose and Sevillana rose:

 Sunflowers and Daylilies:

I didn't think there would be many apples this year, but like other years, I was wrong. When they began to fall, I was shocked to see there were so many:

 They weren't big, pretty, supermarket apples - but they were good:

 Over on the other side of the house, a Yellow Delicious dropped small apples, and some animal, probably a Chipmunk or Red Squirrel, has been using these old steps as a dinner table:

 The plums began to ripen, but I have learned to wait for them to fall before I eat them. That's how I know they're really ripe and sweet:

The Agony And The Ectasy

This is the northwest corner of my lawn, with two clumps of Lilacs and two apple trees in bloom. A cedar tree and the neighbors' barn show on the left. Views like this are part of the ecstasy of farm life in the north country:

The pink Prairie Rose flowering crab still had only buds, but it is glorious when in bloom:

The agony would be jobs such as cleaning the barn. The tractor is not good at scooping up the urine soaked, poopy bedding hay, so I have to fork it into the bucket by hand:

Then I have to haul it off to the manure/compost pile:

This year's compost pile is on the left. 2017's compost pile was where that brown spot now is. I've used it all up on plantings:


Last year's compost pile is already being used, and I scooped more of it up to use for planting when I was finished with cleaning the barn:

The red flowering crab buds opened fully and the Golden Delicious apple tree with which it is intertwined bloomed also:

A spectacular display, another one of the ecstasies:

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And then to my surprise, the newly planted Bleeding Hearts began to bloom:

Hardy, easy to grow, tolerant of shade and beautiful. It's no wonder that generations of gardeners have loved this plant:

I found a Lilac seedling growing by my back door when I moved here, so I dug it up and planted it at the end of the barn. Then I realized that would not be a good place and moved it again the next year. Now it's doing well and blooming nicely:

To my surprise, it is a different color, more blue than any of the other Lilacs on the property:

The Fullness Of Springtime

The north country may seem as if it's all snow and cold, but springtime and summer are glorious. My PJM Rhododendron began to drop its flowers but the old fashioned Iris right behind it were getting ready to bloom:

I found these wonderful wildflowers, called Bird's-Eye Speedwell, in my lawn:

They are showy and hard to miss:

Growing all around it was its miniature relative, Thyme-Leaved Speedwell:

My red Flowering Crab, which is intertwined with a wild Golden Delicious apple, put forth buds:


So I clipped some off, put them in a vase and took them to church:

The Lilacs not only began to open, but also to perfume the yard. Some of them also went to church:

The little chickens are happy and healthy:

And very friendly:

The first apple in the grove to bloom was the tree in the corner, next to the power pole:

Apple blossoms are surely one of the greatest joys of life on the farm:

And then the whole grove began to bloom. I took this photo from inside the horses' corral. The farm house is on the other side of the grove: