Thursday, September 22, 2005

First Day


According to my trusty calendar from Jesse Israel & Sons it is the first day of Autumn. It also says that it is a good day for fishing. And did you know that the gestation time for a squirrel is 28 days? This calendar is chocked full of useful information. I digress...

The sumac, dogwood, sourwood, tulip poplar and hickory (as shown in the photo) are starting to change. I love Autumn here. It seems to go on forever. You can watch the gradual change from the higher elevations down to the valleys. It's truly beautiful. I've heard that on some trails you can actually hike from "winter" at the top of a mountain, down into late summer at the bottom. I'm feeling the need for a long hike.

Another seasonal phenomenon is occuring. The house is surrounded by big, fat, brown spiders spinning giant webs. I continually run into the webs and then do a crazed dance to make sure no fat arachnid has attached itself to me. It is a good thing we have no close neighbors. The spiders are everywhere. When I go for walks in the morning with Gigi I'm constantly doing the fat spider evasion dance. Then I feel like I have spider webs on my face all day. Yuck. I am no fan of spiders, but I leave them alone and hope they will do likewise. Except for the black widows I've been finding lately (three in two weeks!). They die swiftly and horribly. Yuck. Can I say "Yuck" one more time? Yuck.

Today's Egg Count: 4

2 comments:

  1. I saw a GIANT spider yesterday. Ugh.

    So you have sourwood trees. Have you had sourwood honey? I haven't, but I overheard a long conversation while I was at the pruning workshop about how sourwood honey is the best honey on earth. Someone near us sells it...I'm thinking I should stop by.

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  2. Yes, lots of sourwoods. There is even a sourwood honey festival each August in Black Mountain, NC - a few miles away. It is yummy. We are thinking of starting a hive or two of bees, so maybe we'll have some in a year or two.

    There is a little farm that sells various types of honeys (it's harvested according to blooming times of the trees)and you really can taste and see the difference. I'll have to look for them at the farmers' market and get more info. That would be a good post!

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