yummy yummy full tummy…
Isn’t it funny how good friends sometimes seem to know just what you need? Once again, my dear friend Andrew was right. What I needed to help beat the blues was some good old fashioned comfort food. So I just got done filling up on home made apple fritters. They are a once-a-year fall celebration for me, something from my childhood. Just like my mom used to do, I make a meal out of apple fritters with syrup. For some reason we always had green beans as a side dish when we had apple fritters for dinner, it seems to make sense to me, but when I suggested it to Bernie he thought I was crazy. Nowhere near as crazy as my brother, who used to put syrup on them!
We used to sometimes have pancakes for dinner, too, with creamed sausage gravy, syrup, and green beans. Or French Toast for dinner — but my mom used to make it in the electric waffle iron. I will never forget when I was going to camp with the Girl Scouts, and we were planning our menus, I didn’t know how they could make French Toast while camping, because I didn’t know where they would plug in the waffle iron. The entire Girl Scout troop laughed at me. Well, we never had home made waffles, my mom just used to make French Toast in the waffle iron.
I have been indulging in one of my other favorite mood-lifters for the past couple of days, despite the on-and-off damp and cold weather — working with pretty growing things. First I went to a couple of places looking at the last of the fall plant material and Halloweeny outdoor decorations. Then I bought some small mums and planted them on my parents’ and grandparents’ graves, something I have been wanting to do for a while now. The flowers I planted there this summer were still trying valiantly, but looking pretty tired. Now they have nice cheery fall flowers, and I pulled the weeds growing around the gravestones, too.
On Thursday, I went to the Trenton Farmer’s Market, where we usually go almost every week because Bernie just loves the fresh sliced ham and bacon from the Polish deli. I bought a pound of ham, a fresh loaf of nice, dark, heavy multi-grain Russian bread, and a half a loaf of day-old sweet poppyseed roll frpm the sale table (yummy with tea or coffee). From the various farmers in the market, I got some of the last of the Jersey fresh field-grown tomatoes, green peppers, zucchini, a small basket of apples (McCoun, my favorite kind!) a couple of heads of cauliflower and a gallon of cider. I had to keep running out to the truck to drop off bags of stuff because I couldn’t carry it all!
I also picked up a bundle of cornstalks to dress up my front yard-lamp-post, a bunch of indian corn and a couple of small pumpkins to put in the wheelbarrow by my side door, which I had planted with decorative flowering cabbage and kale the other day. On the way out I stopped at the little stand that sells locally grown honey, and got a big jar of wildflower honey and a bag of crystallized ginger slices. I also got a half-dozen of Terhune Orchards’ highly addictive apple cider donuts. I live not far from Terhunes, but haven’t gone out to the orchard yet this fall. Have to put that on the to-do list for sure.
What a wonderful combination of purchases — yummy homestyle goodies and pretty natural fall decorations…
But I wasn’t done yet — yesterday I went to the farm stand up the road and got three mums for my yard (some of the last decent ones around, almost everywhere the mums are just about gone) a bale of straw and three big pumpkins. I also got another bundle of cornstalks because the squrrels had demolished the ones I put up the day before, looking for the last remaining kernels of corn. I made a nice little fall vignette out by the lamppost, next to the front steps. I would have liked more mums for my flowerbeds on the side of the house, but I think I may be too late.
Then I went over to Home Depot and bought some spring flowering bulbs. Since I found out this spring that the deer eat almost everything but daffodils, I bought 100 assorted daffodil bulbs. Bernie likes to plant bulbs, so he will be helping with them. We both love seeing the daffodils poke their heads up early in the spring. So they will be going all over the front yard, blended in with the new landscaping. I also bought some crocus bulbs for tucking under the trees and shrubs, and mostly for the back yard, where I can see them when I let the dogs out. I always look forward to the first crocuses of the spring, they often come up even through the snow! I also bought a few bearded iris bulbs. And I got a bag of 40 mixed tulip bulbs, for inside the backyard fence where the deer can’t get to them. I planted them yesterday where I will see them out my bedroom window.
Last weekend I moved some perennials from one side of the yard to the other, and dug up all of the bearded irises from the flowerbed on the side of the house, and divided them. What started out as a few clumps of light pink iris, and a couple of purple ones, now has turned into over 30 plants, that I will be planting in other areas of the yard. The smallest roots/bulbs (actually rhizomes) will be replanted back in the flowerbed where they were growing, along with another 18 that I just bought — three new colors — yellow, blue and yellow bicolor, and light blue, because it seems that flowerbed is a good place for starting new iris plants.
Yesterday I planted some of the larger irises in the backyard along the fence, behind the daylilies I planted this summer, in the same place where I put the tulip bulbs. That should make a nice changing view from my window, when one type of flower finishes blooming it will be time for another. I still have a lot more of the large irises, which I will be working into my front yard landscaping (hopefully deer don’t like them) and the small ones to go back in the flowerbed with the new bulbs.
I tried to take some pictures today, but my digicam battery is dead. I only got one, and it doesn’t really matter because Xanga won’t let me post pictures right now anyway.
Tonight we have a frost warning, so I brought in the houseplants that were on the patio and porch, and bernie’s hibiscus tree. Bernie picked the last of the chery tomatoes off our one remaining patio tomato plant. I already composted the other three tomato plants.
Ahh, well, it seems that fall is moving right along, and winter is just around the corner. One thing that we don’t have much of here at the old homestead is decent fall foliage plants. Most of our trees are either evergreens, or swamp maples (silver maples) which don’t make pretty fall colors, the leaves just die and fall off. We have two Norway maples which turn bright yellow, but they always are the last to turn. They are still really green. Our crab apple trees have lost most of their leaves, they aren’t really pretty in the fall, and the red Japanese maples are red to begin with. I tried planting an Autumn Purple Ash tree last fall, but it is the one tree that didn’t make it. The deer mangled it to death. I had no idea deer liked ash trees so much.
I guess we will get some yellow fall color out of the weeping willow and two little birch trees we planted last fall and this spring, and a few of the new baby shrubs change colors some, but I think one thing I need to concentrate on next year is getting some plants that will provide fall color into my landscape. Meanwhile, I think we are going to take a drive tomorrow and indulge in the classic fall pastime of “leaf peeping”
Have a great weekend, whatever you do!
update: Xanga is apparently over it’s issues with photo posting — so here are a couple from the back yard:
this is where I planted the irises and tulip bulbs along the fence, around the daylilies.
the bamboo grove is in the background.
another photo of the bamboo grove, taken by Bernie last month
the bamboo plants have really grown a lot since we planted them early this summer
this is what it looked like when the bamboo was first planted.
we got a new, bigger buddha statue since then, too
(bet you thought the buddha grew as well 
)
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