Farm Stands and Fall in RI

I visited Emilie at URI a couple weekends ago and spent the day.  It was a beautiful warm fall day, so we stopped and had a nice lunch, then visited a couple of the area farm stands. The fall flowers were still in bloom and looked amazing.  The assortment, sizes and colors of pumpkins and gourds was overwhelming.  One place had some unusual and creative fall decorating offerings, e.g. straw chickens and ponies, as well as real face molded pumpkins.

Once you get off the beat'n path Rhode Island is a beautiful state with quite a bit to do and see and visit!

It's All About Me!

A tad difficult to see but there's a UPS truck parked on the right side, just past the white box truck on the left.  It's frustrating how people just don't think or just don't care is more like it and pull a stunt like this.

Some drivers become catatonic when it comes to another vehicle double-parked in their lane and don't know what to do and are fearful to try and pass, so you can just image the problems these two truck caused.

The UPS driver didn't seem worried or that he cared one bit.  He pulled over, rooted around in his truck for a bit then stepped out and slowly took his time walking to deliver the package.

Honestly, what is wrong with people today?!

Welcome to Fall

Here are my fall decorations - a mum and three pumpkins.

Simple and easy, for both displaying and then disposing of, when the time comes.

Barrels and Barrel of Acorns

Yup, I raked up this many acorns from our front yard!!  The bag is about half full too.  We've been here in the house since 2000 and I don't recall ever having this many acorns in one season.  Not sure if there's any coloration to the upcoming winter but folklore does refer to an abundance of acorns in the fall as an long cold winter...

 

URI Move In Day - South Side!

Another bittersweet but proud accomplishment - we moved Emilie into her dorm this past Labor Day weekend 😭 for the start of her sophomore year at URI.

She moved into a suite that she shares with three other girls.  Each have their own rooms, two bathrooms with showers in both, a kitchen and a common area.  All this in a newly built dorm called Brookside, that is next to the football stadium with easy car access to get to and from.

Hoping that with the new rules, policies and procedures in place at URI work to keep this foolish pandemic in check so Emilie, and all students from grade school to grad school, can get back to normal and enjoy their times!

I couldn't be prouder of Emilie!

Closed For The Season. See You Next Year!

Hurricane Ida missed us and was more of a tropical storm by the time it made it's way to our area.  However, we did get a ton of rain!  Local streams and rivers were overflowing and roaring.

Our pool was about as full as I've ever seen it!  The ideal level is really the second screw up from the bottom on the right side of the skimmer box.  You can see the skimmer is completely covered -

Since I had to drain some of the water anyway, I just decided to do so in the process of closing the pool for the season.  Here is the water level dropped to just below the return jets.  Need to lower to this level in order to blow the lines out of any water, so they don't freeze -

The finished product after two days of the closing process.  All closed up and ready for the long winter ahead.  Until next spring -

It bittersweet for sure having to close the pool, which means the season has come to an end, but always nice when this weekend long chore is done and behind me.

Tanlines

The sad reality 😟

Ugly Yet Unique

I found these Redhumped Caterpillars all over one of our blueberry bushes.

Fall is not upon us yet but I noticed the bush was loosing a lot of leaves.  Well, here was the cause!

I took the handful of them and introduced them to our chickens (Apologies for the blurry pic. I didn't realize how bad it was.).  They didn't last very long at all in the coop!

The circle of life.

Find The Critter

Can you find the critter in the photo below?!

Hint: unfortunately, the watermark covering her.

My Walkabouts...

This silly little thing is the pedometer I've been carrying in my pockets for years now.  It's part of a program through my company where you can earn rewards for certain milestones. It gives me a idea of how many steps I take in a given day.  There's a iPhone app that goes with it too and I upload my steps each night.

As of this morning I've walked (at least) 7000 steps each day for 104 straight days in a row!  All of them include at 2+ mile walk each of the 104 days, and in many cases, e.g. weekends, so many more steps from working in the yard.

It's made a noticeable difference to me - I've dropped some weight.  I feel better and I have more stamina.

Out Of This World Good!

We're having another good year for our California Wonder Peppers.

I planted just (4) plants but they have oodles and oodles of peppers on them!  We had some super BIG peppers out there, both red and green, that I picked yesterday afternoon.  Although, our tomatoes aren't the biggest, we did have several, so I picked them too.  JoAnne made the Greek rice stuffing my mom used to make and stuffed all eleven peppers and tomatoes AND THEY WERE DELICIOUS!

Already, looking forward to leftovers for tonight's dinner!

She Was A Peach!

Well hello there!

I was VERY surprised to see that this adult woodchuck got caught in my trap, HA!

This is the one that resided under the neighbors shed.  I'd often see her out there sneaking out for a snack and if I scared her off, she return to the shed and just before skootching under she'd flip me the bird, honest.

So, it was VERY bitter sweet that she fell victim to fresh peaches and a perfectly placed trap.

Here she is showing her displeasure and attempting to give me a scare with those chatter teeth.  I know better and wasn't having any of it -

I Recon So!

Not Garden Friendly, Shoo

I call them grasshoppers.  This particular fella is a Black and White Grizzly Locust.

My farmer friend will squash them whenever he has the chance.

Grasshoppers can decimate your garden. They eat around 50% of their weight every single day. No matter where they are in their life cycle, they'll chew away at both the stems and leaves of plants in your garden. If left unchecked, this damage can become severe, leaving your entire garden without leaves, unable to grow.

My chickens love grasshoppers.  Turns out they like Black and White Grizzly Locust too!

Simply The Bestest!!

I picked our first batch of Silver Queen corn the other day!  Boy-O-Boy were they delicious, my favorites by far!

There's more to pick and more coming in, so we'll have corn fresh, home grown corn coming in for a couple weeks now.

I Thought Unique But Diseased...

From what I've been able to determine some of our echinaceas, more so the Purple Coneflower but some Black-eyed Susan's too, have a disease called "Aster Yellows". 

Aster yellows is a viral-like disease caused by a phytoplasma (formerly called a mycoplasma-like organism). Insects that suck the sap of plants, especially the aster leafhopper.  There is no cure, treatment, pesticide or insecticide, to control aster yellows. That's why early diagnosis is crucial. Promptly remove any infected plants from your garden and dispose of them so no more aster leafhoppers can feed on them and spread the disease further.

Reluctantly, I've been pulled the affected plants and putting them in the trash, versus compost, to ensure they're gone so not to infect our others coneflowers.

Our Tax Dollars Hard At Work II!

Here is another example of how our Franklin tax dollars are being spent on shoddy workmanship.

The town is getting our schools ready for opening day.  There's been a bustle of activity at the elementary\middle school just down the street, bot inside and out - weeding, edging, mulching, pruning, mowing, etc., right down to fresh white paint in the parking lots.

As you've seen in previous postings, and in my opinion, the town of Franklin Ground division does a poor job in general. I could go on with example after example but why, clearly by the workmanship shown, the folks who run the town certainly are not bothered by any it.

Here is a good example below.  WHY, would you have the parking lot repainted without first properly prepping?  WHY, if you worked for the painting company, would you let your team paint over weeds?  WHY was there no one checking the work being done, especially the town and before paying for shoddy services rendered?!

Also, as you can see in a couple pictures, the parking lots actually should have the numerous cracks sealed BEFORE painting the lines and BEFORE the winter hits making a bigger issue when it freezes and thaws, freezes and thaws...

Peachy Peachy!

Our peach tree is loaded with peaches.

The tree was planted by the previous home owners, so it's over 20+ years old now.  It had some sort of fungus when we moved in and it's only gotten worse over the years, slowly killing it.  I've been pruning the dead limbs each fall for the past several years, so there's really not too much left.  The peaches are super tasty but they too have something going on with them - they have, what I'd call, rust spots on them with some oozing sap.  Although, there is a lot of fruit hanging, sadly not too much is edible.

Our last rabbit, Jack, loved this time of the year and gobbled the peaches as fast as you could put them in his cage.  Even some of the chickens we've had in the past would enjoy them but not the ones we have now.  I swear these chickens we have now are like many kids today; fussy, entitled and spoiled, and want noting to do with peaches.

So, the wild rabbits and woodchucks eat their share but all others that fall end up in the compost pile.

I've been contemplating cutting the tree down, so I can reclaim that area and possibly have a shed installed.  This fall just might the time...

Toad - Anaxyrus americanus

Here are a couple pics of  American Toads.

The first one I named Henri after the recent hurricane scare.  I caught him on the eve of the storm as I was rushing to get the lawn mowed.  He got to spend some time and have quite the photo shoot with Emilie before being released in the pool area.  Hoping he continues to keep the slugs and ants in check.

This little fella I named Splat.  I spied him on my walk the other morning, contently sitting in the road.  I firmly believe had I not happened by and spotted him, he would have fallen victim to some vehicle.  A couple quick pics and I moved him safely away from the road.

I would have brought him home but was too far from home and didn't think he'd appreciate being carried for a half hour in a sticky and sweaty palm.

Unmentionables Used To Predict GW!

There you have it, proof of global warming!  It's hard to argue with this evidence...

Blue on Blue

We have (5) Hydrangea bushes and, frustratingly, only get flowers from two of them. One of the two is flowering for a second time this season, which is unusual, for our plants anyway but of course welcome.

Although, the weather has been very hot and humid, the mornings have been beautiful.

Shhh, be Vewy Vewy Qwiet, I'm Hunting Wabbits

I thought word in the local woods here was to stay out of Stephan's garden, however, youngsters just don't want to listen.  They think they know it all, pfft

Well, this littl'n learned the hard way and got a very stern talking to!

So darn cute, I must admit.  Actually, I miss raising rabbits, they were a lot of fun.

This newbie wasn't a fan of being held but eventually calmed down and was fine.  Emilie got to hold and spend some time oohing and aahing over it. No surprise she wanted to keep it but NOPE, as much as I miss it, as stated above, I have no desire to get back into that business.

We released in the backyard, near where I caught it, with a heaty warning to stick to the clover and grass only, NO veggies or flowers.

Finders Keepers

I found this lovely Elle 925 necklace on my walk the other morning!

According to Mr. Google, it's worth about $150.00!

One Christmas present out of the way, HAHAHA.

Faces Needed...

This is how I tested a new video conference feature being released referred to as Neat Symmetry.

Neat Symmetry combines advanced AI with a high-resolution sensor to detect everyone in the meeting room, zooming in to individually pinpoint and auto frame each person, then presenting them up close on remote participants screens.

Since there are very few folks in the office I had to improvise, and these photos of characters from The Office worked pretty well.  The new technology, although still in beta, is pretty darn cool!

Listen to Burgess!

Mickey Goldmill wouldn't steer you wrong...