Pseudo Carpet

A leafy carpet

Deceptively inviting,

Too wet to walk on.

Excessive Frugality

Do you "save" your microwave seconds left behind for the next person to use? If not, you're throwing away, or wasting, time 😂 - have you ever thought about that?

Admittedly, we (my family) are a bunch of weirdos who love to joke about silly things such as this. We're NOT serious. It's fun being absurd sometimes.

Do you do things that are more excessively frugal than us?

The Projects Begin

We've been looking at our home on the lake with new eyes as we prepare to sell ... and we've realized just how rotten some of our house cladding was. Oh dear! Another project, but at least the weather (when it's not raining) is pleasant for doing outdoor labor - not too hot or too cold. One of us even stripped a shirt off to cool down!

We needed to cut and remove the lower sections that had rotted, and replace them with materials that match our repairs on other parts of the house.

Though I was the assistant through most of this job, I also got to do the task I love most of all - being the boss, and painting!

We began working on this task on October 10 and only finished up on Oct 25 - phew, my toes had started getting cold, so I'm glad we're done.

My arthritic finger joints are painful and need a bit of rest now.

Awestruck

 Scenes like this uplift me and fill me with awe

So much beauty to imbibe.

Shameless Manipulation

I have started a new "tradition" in our house - every time my favorite driver, Max Verstappen, wins a Formula One Grand Prix race, we celebrate with scones, strawberries and cream. Dale does not support Verstappen, but this is how I manipulate him into cheering for my driver and being excited when he wins - he'd never turn down an opportunity for fresh baked scones! Sneaky me!

Sometimes a few weeks go by without any scones, so that makes rooting for him all the more necessary.

Slowing Down

Magnificent fall! 

Golds enhance the deepest blues

Stillness claims its place

Life Changes Updates

Our lives are still in limbo as we try to sell our MA home (we need the funds to buy a house across the pond), but the good news at least, is that our tenants will finally vacate our home on November 1, despite their notice being up on August 31. It has taken a lot of pressure and sweetened deals to achieve this, and we have been up and down in fits of despair since potential buyers don't want to 'inherit' tenants who won't leave. Spending time in our own tranquil Maine haven has helped temper us through this.

In the interim, we've been scrolling online at every possible moment for the perfect home for us - we want lots of nature, a place with character, not the suburbs, no stairs, a walk-in shower, a workshop, a kitchen with more counterspace than I currently have, and a room big enough for our bed, and something not going to break the bank!

This week I came across a cottage named Avalon (restorative place), that has an acre of natural woodland that is not part of a broader nature conservancy with tight regulations (we can install solar panels and don't have to maintain public walking trails or bridal paths) but ... it needs some work/updating inside. The price and setting are perfect, but there are stairs to the downstairs bedrooms, the kitchen doesn't meet my above-mentioned specs, and we would need to do some remodeling of bathrooms. The deck and view are amazing though - it looks out over the trees

to the hills beyond

but there is an aging bathroom to contend with, for example .... what do we do? Bathrooms can be redone, but neighbors can't be moved or trees restored overnight. I'm interested, but we can't commit or buy without a sale here first, and then this might have been snatched up. So we keep looking and try not to fall too heavily in love with a property in the meanwhile.

Community Celebration

Our home association celebrated its 50th anniversary on October 18. It was a fun event, with great weather, great food and a great turn out.

Retired art history professor Gan Xu volunteered his skills at his portrait station

Dale sat for him as his first customer to get the ball rolling - what a great rendition! Something precious to cherish.

There was food, games, pumpkin decorating, and a table for collecting memories of Arrowhead, to be enclosed in a time capsule.

PALZ hosted a table of Lake Curiosities,

and ran a nature scavenger hunt with candy prizes

It was really lovely meeting so many community members interested in our lake health and ecology.

(All photos, with the exception of the last, by D. Schultz)

Vibrant Milfoil

Can you believe I took these photos of variable leaf milfoil during October? They look like fresh from-the-gate bursts of spring life!

What happened to fall senescence and decomposition? This 'beast' is still thriving

Pressing Things

I decided it was time to formally dry and press some bladderworts displaying the air shoots I've been finding.

This first one is Utricularia macrorhiza, one of our common native bladderworts - there are some fine filaments visible on the herbarium sheet near the top of the plant, which currently has bulbous winter buds at its tip, making pressing a little more difficult.

This next one, Utricularia inflata, is often confused with our native bladderwort when not in flower. The air shoots on this species have a small round bulb at the tips of the filaments, and appear to be found all along the length of the plant.

Autumn Gold

Invasive beauty,

Despite not belonging here -

Much to be admired!

 

 

Past Prime

The fly-agaric mushroom I posted on Sept 30, once a vibrant yellow, now looks like this! Though much more short lived in its reproductive time frame than us, it too becomes brittle and wrinkled 😃!

Vigilance

Our great blue heron spent hours just standing on this log at the entrance to our cove, not actively fishing, just enjoying the exposure to the warm sunshine, is my guess. So magnificent and regal in the fall splendor.

Needle Patterns

Pine trees are shedding

Sloughing off dry, brown needles

Creating patterns

Weird Place Names

Here are a few more weird place names I've come across since looking at houses in Britain:

STEPASIDE

UPTON SNODSBURY

PRATT'S BOTTOM

TITTY HILL

Senescence

Spring's promise revoked -

Senescence: cold days and nights,

Cell division stops.

Flower or Foliage

This spectacular fall foliage belongs to Tall meadow rue, Thalictrum pubescens! Its magnificent mauve colored leaves look amazing, having spent all summer in a green cloak. So pretty.

Violet Pod

 This tiny little curiosity in the center of my pic is part of a violet seed pod - a little gem!

Intricate Details

 Something to puzzle over - a beautiful closeup of .... what?

This is part of a spider's web with dew and a pine needle embedded in it.

Waning Glow

Sunlight glows, then fades

Enriched colors darkening

Reflections wane, too.

Mystery Eggs

I don't have definitive answers as to what this glob is. It was picked up by one of my patrollers, initially arranged as if they were packed like orange segments, but they glided apart when she handled them. They were in a mucous sac, and definitely look like eggs or seeds (passionfruit likeness).

Most suggestions online think it's possibly frog eggs, not toads, since they present in a long strand. Another suggestion has been salamander eggs, which also seems likely to me since they come in a mass similar to this.

I wonder if they could be snails? Or could they be plant seeds? I can't imagine they'd need to be in a jelly, though. They separated out into individual blobs when I collected them.

Royally Impressed

The American royal fern (Osmunda spectabilis) puts on a magnificent display in the fall  - look at how spectacular it is: 

Sublime Stillness

All that I can hear:

The rich sound of water drops 

Breaking the surface.

Spikerushes

I think this is blunt spikerush, (also called a spikesedge) Eleocharis obtusa, an American native. It's an annual with erect, cylindrical stems. Quite lovely!

I think this is sand spikerush, Eleocharis montevidensis, another native. It's more slender and less robust with a brilliant green tinge. We had all remarked that it looked just like lawn grass, and then I read here (Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center) that it is 'good as a lawn replacement for low, wet areas.' This spikerush is a perennial and spreads through runners.

Unusual Larva

When I found this strangely shaped dark 'pod' floating near the surface, I thought of a vanilla bean pod - it looked exactly like a seed case, with one end tapered as if it had been attached to a plant by a petiole.

Of course, I had to get a closer look, and that's how I noticed the segments on the 'pod' and checked a little further ... to discover that this is the larval stage of a black soldier fly (Stratiomidae), and that the 'petiole' is actually an elongated segment used as a breathing siphon in aquatic species.