Cold without Frost

Weather: Snowed Monday. About a week ago the weather service hinted at the coming change of seasons when it suggested the storm was being driven by the jet stream rather than the hurricanes in the Pacific. It didn’t say that exactly, but that’s what I understood to be the definition of summer and winter.

Hurricanes are still forming off the western coast of México, but those northern winds are directing the waters from Vincente and Willa into southern Texas.

We did get some residual rain late in the afternoon Tuesday, and winds on Wednesday.

Last useful rain: 10/16. Week’s low: 29 degrees F. Week’s high: 66 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, silver lace vine, sweet peas, Maximilian sunflowers, chrysanthemums

What’s blooming in my yard: Calamintha, chocolate flowers, blanket flowers, Sensation cosmos, African marigolds

What’s blooming outside the walls and fences: Bindweed, greenleaf five eyes, chamisa, senecio

What’s red or turning red and orange: Sand cherries, spirea, snowball, Virginia creeper leaves; Russian thistle stems

What’s yellow or turning yellow and orange: Sweet cherry, peach, apricot, pasture roses, cottonwoods, catalpa, globe and weeping willows, skunk bush, caryopteris, grape, milkweed, Maximilian sunflower, goldenrod, daylily leaves

Bedding plants: Sweet alyssum

Tasks: Monday I passed people who obviously had planned to work outside before the snow started falling a little after 7 am. One was loading tree limbs that had been cut to make room for a trailer. He was standing beside his truck warming his hands. Two younger men were cutting the tops of ornamental grass. When I passed them, they two were taking a break to warm their hands.

I took advantage of the clouds on Wednesday to cut winterfat in the afternoon.

Animal sightings: Small brown birds, geckos, sidewalk ants

Weekly update: Monday’s cold did not bring frost; the snow landed on leaves after 7 am, and soon melted. Plants sped up their preparations for winter, especially the purple asters which went out of bloom. Almost none of the so-called weeds are still blooming in my yard.

Cultivated plants responded differently. Those classed as cool-weather bloomers, like roses and sweet peas, continued their late flowering. The annuals grown from seed, like the Sensation cosmos and African marigolds, apparently were able to stay warm enough to stay alive.

Some shrubs, like the sand cherries, turned color long ago, and others like the choke cherry are bare. But many others, like the cottonwood, haven’t begun to slow down their metabolisms enough to lose much color.

Notes on photographs: All pictures taken 19 October 2018 after two mornings when temperatures fell to 31, but before they day they went down to 29.

1. Blanket flower (Gaillardia aristata) grown from seed; this was the second or third year for ths particular plant.

2. Perennial sweet peas (Lathyrus latifolia). They went out of bloom in August and started blooming again the first of October. They picked this location themselves.

3. African marigold (Tagetes erecta). The seeds were planted in mid-May, began growing after rains in July, and started blooming mid-September. They’re in a sheltered area between the black locust to the west, Maximilian sunflowers to the south, and wooden fence to the east.

Outbuildings

Weather: Each year when we reach this time in October when we get some rain, I stop watering and let the plants adjust to nature’s water levels.

Last useful rain: 10/14. Week’s low: 38 degrees F. Week’s high: 70 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, silver lace vine, Russian sage, datura, sweet peas, Maximilian sunflowers, chrysanthemums, zinnias

What’s blooming in my yard: Calamintha, chocolate flowers, blanket flowers, Sensation cosmos, African marigolds, morning glories

What’s blooming outside the walls and fences: Bindweed, silver leaf nightshade, greenleaf five eyes, chamisa, broom snakeweed, senecio, purple asters.

What’s red or turning red and orange: Sand cherries, spirea, Virginia creeper leaves; prostrate knotweed stems

What’s yellow or turning yellow and orange: Sweet cherry, choke cherry, peach, apricot, catalpa, skunk bush, caryopteris, grape leaves

Bedding plants: Petunias and dwarf marigolds locally

Tasks: It’s a hard time of year to work outside. My body has no problem adjusting to changing hours of daylight, but my mind is another matter. It’s used to my doing physical labor right after breakfast, and then getting on to other more cerebral activities. When I can’t because it’s still too cold, it doesn’t want to go outside in late morning.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, small brown birds, geckos, hornets, sidewalk ants

The Maximilian sunflowers are out of bloom and the leaves turning yellow. Earlier today I saw the first batch of birds harvesting the seeds. They probably were goldfinches that blend into the pied foliage.

Weekly update: Last year at this time I had hired a dumpster and was cleaning out the garage. I was forced to that expense because I could never find anyone with a pickup truck willing to work, and I simply couldn’t get rid of stuff one trash container at a time.

This problem seems universal. Even when people have trucks to haul away trash, they seem to limit themselves to taking away brush, large weeds like Russian thistles, and crop debris. Manufactured objects just take on roots.

Once upon a time, when men had to build their own storage sheds, the labor acted as a deterrent against amassing stuff. The adobe ones mostly are ruins now, and few wooden ones exist, perhaps because of the cost of wood, perhaps because frame construction isn’t as indigenous as block.

Businesses of different sorts offer easier alternatives: self storage units fill vacant lots and portable sheds are hawked. The problem with these is they fill up, and rather than clean them, more sheds are installed.

Very often the first is well done, but the next is more ephemeral.

I’ve lived in Michigan, Ohio, and west Texas where tornadoes are always a threat. When I drive by these sheds I wonder about how well they are installed. My one neighbor put a cement slab under his first, and had the sellers erect it and its mate.

Another neighbor put his on an existing slab, but probably on some kind of blocks. He told me that’s where the ground squirrel lives.

Like you I’ve been looking at photographs of destruction in western Florida. The winds apparently got under metal surfaces and lifted the sheets away. They show buildings stripped of their siding, and not just the usual trailers. If such winds every happened here, all our sheet metal roofs could disappear.

One child was killed when a carport flew into her house. Those metal canopies on poles are ubiquitous here. I’m not sure it mattered in Florida how strongly they were attached, but here I wonder about them in the spring winds.

Notes on photographs: All taken in the area on 23 May 2018.
1. This began as a garage and attached carport. A few years ago the carport was walled. Later, the metal barn was added.

2. The one on the left was first.
3. Two wooden buildings.

4. Another outbuilding was installed first. Then the one on the left. After that, the one on the right was built.

5. I’m not sure of the order for the carport and two sheds. You can see both sheds are perched somewhat unsteadily on blocks, unlike the ones in #2 which were professionally installed.

Season in Review

Weather: Another hurricane stayed west of the Rockies, giving us only mist. This year, they ones from the Pacific that sometimes come up the valley either have been kept south to go into Texas or stayed beyond the mountains. Since Tuesday, winds have come up every day around noon and continued late in the day.

Last useful rain: 10/2. Week’s low: 33 degrees F. Week’s high: 84 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, silver lace vine, Russian sage, datura, sweet peas, Maximilian sunflowers, chrysanthemums, zinnias

What’s blooming in my yard: Calamintha, chocolate flowers, blanket flowers, white cosmos, African marigolds

What’s blooming outside the walls and fences: Bindweed, silver leaf nightshade, greenleaf five eyes, chamisa, broom snakeweed, senecio, áñil del muerto, pigweed, Russian thistles; purple, heath, and golden hairy asters peaked. Seeds from tahoka daisies have become a nuisance; the tridents stick in my pant legs.

What’s red or turning red and orange: Sand cherries, spirea, Virginia creeper leaves; prostrate knotweed stems

What’s yellow or turning yellow and orange: Sweet cherry, choke cherry, peach, apricot, catalpa, skunk bush, caryopteris, grape leaves

What has fruit: Apples have been dropping for some time. Pyracantha berries are bright orange in the area. My purple grapes are turning into raisins, uneaten this year by the ground squirrel. The privet berries finally turned black and glossy. The Woodsi roses are the only ones with hips in my yard.

Bedding plants: Petunias and dwarf marigolds locally

Tasks: It’s too late to clean beds; plants are dropping leaves to cover themselves this winter. I can get out the pruners and go back to removing winterfat that’s grown in places I don’t want. I stopped earlier this year because I couldn’t burn the debris in the drought.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, small brown birds, geckos, hornets, sidewalk ants

Weekly update: Usually when the heat passes in summer, some annuals come into bloom. This year, only one neighbor has zinnias. Mine have peaked and never got more than six inches high.

Sensation cosmos usually are blooming now, but I haven’t seen any yet. The white ones always have done better in my yard, and the Purity have been blooming since mid-August, even if they remained short. The rose-colored Dazzlers I planted in early June put one their first flower this week. The yellow, which are a different species, came up, produced one flower per plant, then quit.

I’ve only seen a few of the mixed morning glories. My neighbor’s came up and covered part of his inside fence, but produced no visible color. My Heavenly Blues finally began blooming this week.

My bedding plants have all but given up. The sweet alyssum that came up from seed has replaced them. The past two summers the French marigolds died in August, but the gazanias stayed in bloom until frost. This year I planted only gazanias, but had to accept a different variety. Like the old marigolds, the plants shrank all summer. While a few have bloomed since, most never did.

The other thing that usually happens this time of year is perennial buds from early summer that didn’t open begin to flourish. A few neighbors have some nice roses, but not many. Betty Prior has had only one cluster open at a time. Some other roses that didn’t appear in the spring are like the yellow cosmos: they put out one late flower.

I have some red hot pokers blooming, as does my next door neighbor. Two weeping yuccas in the village are blooming, as are the Arizona yuccas.

Otherwise, one branch on the Rumanian sage is back in bloom, and a few Jupiter’s beards have put out flowers.

Notes on photographs: All were taken 4 August 2018.
1. Red hot poker (Kniphofia uvaria) that self-seeded.

2. Heavenly Blue morning glories (Ipomoea tricolor) growing through wire mesh put down to keep the rabbit from eating the seedlings. Purity cosmos are blooming with them.

3. Purity cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus).