Weedwhacker said: Happy Halloween everyone! The weather is unusually nice here today, normally Halloween weather is windy, wet, cold, gloomy - but today is sunny and dry, with a predicted high temp of 59°F

Same to you and all, 3 or 4 people who read this site.

Not sure any candy will be left from the bag bought 2 weeks ago.

crawgarden said: Not sure any candy will be left from the bag bought 2 weeks ago.

The number of kids coming here has dwindled, and we rarely got more than ten, due to kids growing up and the Chinese Virus killed off the last two years.
I bought twelve candy bars , full size at Gopher Bargain Center just in case this very warm Halloween bring some stragglers over this way.

We never have any trick-or-treaters, just too far in between the houses out here... however, we DO always buy some candy "just in case"

I finished burying and covering my roses today; technically I should have waited a week as 3 days from now we hit solid twenties and teens weather for at least a week.

You are supposed to have a true hard freeze before covering to zap diseases and such but while I have chiseld out soil to plant late season roses, twenty years ago, besides Sharon harping on me, and the low thirty temps. today did not bother me, I just am not a good a gardener as I once was.

I wore a vest and a short sleeve shirt, if you are working, the cold does not bother you till you take a break or some dork comes out and whines about it, at that; Sharon cannot tolerate cold weather at all any more, and there were times she would tolerate double digit sub-zero in the past for hours on end.

Heading home probably Wed. to do the same to the rose garden down there and put the hose laying on the ground away, plus stack some leaf bags on the North side of the house; bags stop North wind which it faces.

I have not covered the roses yet , but the bugs and diseases must be getting the cold to keep them down.

Fall has arrived with nice summer weather.
I have to mow lawn every week now and the tomatoes, cucumbers and chiles are still going strong.
70 degrees with rain supposed to hit in two hours.
We had a pretty good rainfall last night; never got around to getting a new rain guage but the one bird bath was full after being empty.

Marigolds and Zinnias are flourishing.

Happy Fall back at ya…

Fall colors are always something to look foreword to. Take a train ride thru the city is a fav thing to do to see all the gorgeous colors presented throughout the fall landscape. Lots of fall limbs , seed pods , leaves, grape vine etc ready to gather for fall arrangements.
Fall is my fav time of year . It's natures colorful farewell to the past productive season and movin on to the next.

Went home and got one side of the garage one final sanding short of being ready for priming.
Pulled the last stands of corn stalks out , cut the root balls off and bound together bunches for shocks.
It rained on and off and was very windy so I decided not to make the shock/s yet as fighting a strong wind with corn bundles over ten feet high and wet, is not on my bucket list.

Pulled the husks back on all the corn cobs, and made bundles with some to hang out side the one porch; put the other cobs in plastic tubs for future use.
FINALLY cleaned the kitchen floor and partially cleaned the porch where I did some of the corn cob work.

Had a bunch of branches and twigs that keep falling out of a Maple tree, so cut/broke them into sticks small enough to put in a charcoal broiler.
Saved most but decided I needed a charcoal cooked meal so I bought a large thick pork chop, it weighed over a pound, and cooked it over Choke Cherry wood and old dried corn cobs; UMMM , UMMM , GOOD!

Trimmed some Lilac bushes with a bow saw as they have not been trimmed shaped in over a decaded, plus their wood is good for cooking; I will cut them down to size when I go back.
Was going to leave, but pulled the chiles as there is not enough time for them to go from green to red and I was in the garden pulling stuff.
Left one bushy tomato but pulled the other one.

South Roses look healthy and some bloom now and then.
Got back up North to see I should have ignored the other half's whining about fertilizing the lawn as I will now be mowing at least once a week till hard freeze.

Maple trees have dropped leaves heavily, but others not, so while I need to start planning collecting leaves for the roses, too early now.
North garden still has tomatoes and chiles producing but I am deciding if I should pull or wait for a freeze finish them off.
Zinnias, marigolds and Mums are doing very, very well.

We don't seem to have any freezing temps in sight for at least a couple more weeks - but wind coming straight out of the north today made things pretty chilly! Lots of peppers that still need to be harvested - and then figure out what to do with them, pole beans are in a "second childhood" after I gave them some compost and fertilizer when they started going into a slump, and the butternut squash plants are still growing. I just received 100 onion sets from Johnny's Seeds to plant in my small hoop house for an early harvest next year; this worked incredibly well for me last year! Part of me is ready to be done with the gardening, but mostly I would just love to keep it going ... probably because most of the vegetable freezing and canning is done now .

Mowed the entire lawn up North today; did it barefoot as that is the only way not to fall down the steep boulevard, but, I am surprised how cold the ground already is.

Took a short break to warm up my feet.

We're suppose to get enough frost to kill some things tonight. I moved the few containers that I would like to keep for a little while more up under the covered part of the patio. I've already harvested all the veggies that I wanted except for a few carrots. The volume of tomatoes and peppers were overwhelming so pulled the plants a while ago just because I didn't want to deal with more. Gave away as many as I could but had enough canning. Now starts the big job of cleaning up the flower gardens.

I found out while trimming Lilacs last week why I get red blood blisters on my arms now.
They are red blotches, that if you cut/prick one open bleed like SoB.

I have had these for several years, they come and go away and as I literally never pay attention when or where I get skin abrasion when gardening, they just confused me, and made other people look at my arms with cocked eyes.

Well while cutting the Lilac bushed, at one point my arm was brushing against prickly lilac branches, leaving 3 inch long scratch marks; I adjust the bush so that stopped and kept cutting .
Now the actuall scratches heal quickly but when I looked at it later in the day the blood blotches appeared where the scratches were, SO, to make a short story longer, It appears I am allergic to many bushes as working with the Bridal Veil bushes give similar results but I never paid attention.

Odd thing is, I have been one who is not concerned with getting bloody scratches while doing gardening/landscaping.
Many times other dudes have said, "You're bleeding" to which I would replay "no shite".
The red blood blister though are some thng that have really shown up in the past few years.
The most annoying thing is prick/cut one and bloods starts flowing, i.e. you start dripping blood and then you have to see where it is coming from thinking you must have really gashed your self some where, and it is just a tiny prick or cut on one of red blobs.
Doc asked me once how I got them, so I told him they were from gardening/landscaping and he said, OK, and said nothing more.

Sounds like an old age thing to me, RpR . (I've had some blood spots that look like flat blood blisters on my arms, from hitting them against some rough wood at the entrance of my hoop house, but maybe something entirely different from yours - I've never had them open up and start bleeding.)

Weedwhacker said: Sounds like an old age thing to me, RpR . (I've had some blood spots that look like flat blood blisters on my arms, from hitting them against some rough wood at the entrance of my hoop house, but maybe something entirely different from yours - I've never had them open up and start bleeding.)

Oh they are blood blister; today I rammed my are against a rough surface while carrying some thing and the skin ripped of two of them and out came blood.
Thankfully they are several days old and there was no blood gusher , just enough to leave a streak on the wall, and now I have to peel the skin off and put a large bandage on .

At least I now know where they come from; as I get older , my allergies seem to be more aggresive rather than going away.

Nothing seems to get easier with advancing years, that's for sure!