November 2009 Archives

 At the beginning of October, my husband and I had the chance to visit his family in Saskatchewan and Alberta for Canadian Thanksgiving.  While in Austin, the heat was only just abating, in Canada, they were experiencing an unseasonably cold beginning of autumn, following a chilly summer.

The week before Thanksgiving, it started to snow in Saskatchewan and Alberta.  Sure, it's colder in Saskatchewan than it is in Texas, but the Canadians I talked to assured me that it's NOT normal for these mountain ash trees to be covered in snow even before they've lost their leaves.

I was stoked to pack the scarf my best friend knitted for me and spend a little bit of time in the cold weather, but to our Canadian family and friends, this early snowfall marked the end of the line before many months of cold, snowy weather.


















When I admired the big fluffy snowflakes falling from the clouds, the Canadians groaned inwardly and smirked at my Texan naivete.  It's true that it's much easier to admire the snow when it's a novelty, and when a long, warm autumn awaits me back home.




But maybe because the snow was so novel and interesting to me, I had the chance to catch some fine detail... 



...like these snowflakes leaning so delicately against the leaf buds which sprouted during the short Indian summer that preceded this unseasonable cold snap.
 
Fortunately, and to the relief of our Canadian friends and family, the snow melted completely before we left, giving us beautiful weather and safe roads for our long drive to the airport to return to Texas.  In fact, I caught these photos of the snow at the last possible opportunity: it had all melted before I was done.
 

Well, hello! 

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, though I did joke with my fellow Austin garden bloggers yesterday that I may be turning into more of an event blogger than a garden blogger.

My busy, hot, dry, depressing summer is over, the Bermuda grass has taken over, and I'm back in the garden, doing my best to conquer it.  More on that frustrating topic in some other entry.  Maybe.

I did the bulk of my photography yesterday at the San Antonio Botanical Gardens, and I think I spent most of my time there in the "Piney Woods" section, admiring the reflection of the Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) in the small lake.  As I was rushing back to meet the group, I spotted a great egret perched in a cypress across the pond from me and stopped to catch this reflection.

I like the bisection of this photo, but oh how I wished for a longer lens (with better glass) and maybe a tripod to better capture this guy.  I love photographing egrets - comes of growing up (as a kid, and as a photographer) on the gulf coast.

Anyway, fall color.  I spent a lot of time photographing it yesterday.








Fall color...


...fall color...



...fall color...



...fall color.  Here in Central Texas, we have to savor our fall color when we find it.

 

Agave.  Here's the thing about agave:  It's gorgeous, and incredibly photogenic.   Just the other day, someone remarked on another garden weblog about the imprints on the tender leaves, and I will probably never look at agave the same way again. I like polite plants.  I like plants that won't take over my yard (and agave won't), but I like plants that won't try to eat me, and I can't figure out how to plant agave in my yard so that it won't impale me or poke out my dog's eye.  How does that work exactly?   I have a hard time envisioning it.  (If agave will use its ominous shark teeth to eat my Bermuda grass, though, I'll plant a whole yard of it.)

Fundamentally, I'm a touch gardener, so maybe agave just isn't for me.  Maybe I can get my next-door neighbors to plant agave in their yards, so that I can photograph it. 



I think all of us got exactly the same picture of the sparrows feasting on grass seeds.



I think this is Gulf Muhly (Muhlenbergia capillaris), not Ruby Crystals ( Rhynchelytrum nerviglume), although it's hard to tell in this photograph.  I saw lots of both of these, and they're both gorgeous this time of year.  But Gulf Muhly is native (to Texas, anyway), and Ruby Crystals is not.



Some kind of palm frond.



The monarchs were practically swarming the botanical gardens.  This one was loving the pentas.



This one was loving something else.  Mandevilla, maybe?



Giant insects have invaded San Antonio.




I, for one, welcome our new exoskeletal overlords.