So, I pretty much emptied what was left of our garden today. Picked the last few peppers

[Atticus]

and green tomatoes, snipped off the parsley and picked a last bouquet of zinnias. The forecast calls for 29 degrees tonight here in southern Illiinois and that will end our growing season. Dug the sweet potatoes and pulled up the turnips a few days ago and they are stored in the basement.

I wrapped the green tomatoes in newspaper and layered them into a basket on the basement floor. A few will "go bad" but most will ripen over the next few weeks.

The front that blew through a few days ago took down a lot of the leaves so much of the autumn color is gone. The starlings have gathered into sometimes massive flocks and our hummers have fled south. Wedges of geese will soon fill our sky.

At 71, I am in my own personal "October" and some of what i see makes me smile while some also brings a quiet tear.

I wonder if I will be here when our hummers return in April.

Will I ever taste another ripe tomato just picked from my garden?

Will I be able to cut and split firewood next fall?

Such thoughts bring memories of parents I still miss daily and I wonder if I will be remembered with such love and fondness.

I do not own tomorrow, but I do, so far, have today. I choose to spend it being grateful and content and loving.

If the above sounds pretentious or maudlin, I hope you will forgive me.

[The Wielding Truth]

1. It's likely you will be here. Stay safe and vote. It will be a good new year if we clean out the Re

publican mess that has corrupted our country.

[58Sunliner]

2. Time for the winter garden!

[Sherman A1]

3. We did the same yesterday

Right now I’m taking all the flowers for a walk onto our back porch in order to keep them from freezing overnight.

[cyclonefence]

4. I am not a believer

but every day I find myself remembering this:

"This is the day the Lord has made;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it."

Sometimes this (plus catbyte's animal posts) is the only thing that keeps me going.

[Wicked Blue]

5. This is beautiful, Atticus. Thank you.

Like you, I'm starting to think about these things as well. I'm 68.

There was an overabundance of figs on our tree his year. They should continue as long as the mild weather holds in Maryland.

I often wonder whether the next owner of this house will appreciate the figs and the big blueberry bushes. Or cut everything down and turn it into a chemically treated lawn. I've kept this yard free of chemical pesticides and herbicides for 22 years. If they rip it up, I believe I'll come back and haunt them.

Will they destroy the native plants and perennials I've planted over the past 22 years? Spicebushes, Carolina allspice, Virginia bluebells, mayapples, bloodroot, orange butterfly weed, spring beauties, storksbill, meadowsweet and many more.

We've planted two hybrid chestnuts, but the squirrels always beat us to the nuts. A red maple, a river birch, two kousa dogwoods and a hybrid dogwood, Celestial, developed by Rutgers, my alma mater. Several Leyland cypresses for a windbreak. A variety of viburnums and azaleas. And various members of the mint family that deer won't eat. They eat anything they can get their teeth on. This year they got the Asiatic lilies, all the hostas, a self-seeded pumpkin vine and a volunteer cherry tomato plant.

The vegetable garden is fenced, but I've turned 3/4 of it into a butterfly-attracting wildflower bed, a bee-attracting bed, and a bed of self-seeding giant zinnias. Just no physical energy for the kind of gardening I did 10 years ago.

One of my dearest wishes is that someone else who loves gardening will buy the place.