I have a small collection of head planters. They're not looking too spiffy at the moment, but they look great with the right kind of plant in there.

I had an incredibly productive day.

* I took a small pussy willow cutting from my one pussy willow shrub back in APRIL, and the poor thing sat in water all these months. I wanted to plant it sooner but couldn't find the right spot for it. It needs a lot of room but also needs sun. I tucked it in the ground today, FINALLY. It had quite the root system on it. I will be curious to see how it does.

* I also transplanted one black oak seedling from a bad spot where it popped up early in the spring and put it in a better spot. I have 3 or 4 more I'd like to do the same with.

* I finished cutting down a kousa dogwood. I noticed it a year or two ago; I had mixed feelings about taking it down, but it doesn't have much wildlife value. And then I noticed it was starting to steal sunlight from a nearby oak sapling which I very much want to thrive. In 31 years I've never had a single oak  here, and now this year I have at least 5 or 6 popping up all over. This sapling was about 6 feet high last year and has doubled in height this year. 

The kousa dogwood was a lot of work since this involved cutting up larger branches and then dragging them to a brush pile hidden in the woods. I got almost 13,000 steps in today, and this was a big reason why.

* I mowed part of the lawn.

* I started organizing the garage so I can store lawn furniture in there and all my plant pots. Maybe even my SUV. Didn't quite finish but made great headway. Also filled 4 trash bags with old newspapers I had used a few years ago to suppress weeds but decided I didn't like it as it required mulch on top of it and inevitably the ugly newspaper sheets would show thru the mulch. I'm doing a more natural mulch now of just leaves. Mice had gotten into the newspaper anyway.

* Continued work cutting rampant trumpet vine at the base near soil and then dabbing it with herbicide. There are a zillion individual plants. I feel like I did quite a bit but then when I look around at how it has gotten into every nook and cranny in this area, it's quite discouraging. Yesterday I was doing the same thing and pretty much cleared and treated the vine that had been growing up a very large evergreen I'd like to save. Vines will kill a tree pretty quickly. It's really a challenge to eradicate it because by June this whole area becomes impenetrable and the best time to treat this particular plant is late summer/early fall. So I get just one shot at it all year. I CAN try to maintain some sort of narrow pathways in there in spring and if I can do that, I can at least cut back the vines even if I don't treat them. This can help maintain some sort of control.

Tomorrow we're getting a fairly significant storm, big enough that I charged up my 2 "power stations" just in case I lose power. The big one can keep my fridge and freezer going for 4 days.  So, maybe I'll squeeze in another mowing session before the rain starts in the afternoon. 

We had our first frost last night, which reminded me of the days when I used to do the No Heat Challenge. Ha! As I get older, I appreciate creature comforts more. Though the heat is still OFF; just threw 2 blankets on the bed.

This week I reviewed Kiva loans from Kazakhstan, Ghana and Philippines.

I was just thinking about what photo I would post today when Nature decided for me! Saw this beautiful bobcat pass through my yard just now.

Took my father to physical therapy yesterday and then one of our favorite cafes for lunch. I'm not even sure of everything that was in these, but they were soooo good: tostadas topped with potato, feta cheese, avocado, diced red peppers, a fried egg, black bean spread, oh my. Not a low calorie meal, that's for sure!

This was last night's dinner: a quick stir fry with snow peas from my garden, broccoli florets, mushrooms and cashews over jasmine rice. I'm so happy a few others are doing the Photo Challenge! Makes it more fun!

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We are finally getting some much needed rain today. Not driving rain, just a nice light to medium rain.

We're expecting a possible first frost Thursday night, which may signal the end of my herbicide treatment of tree of heaven seedlings. I'm just anxious to do as much as I can since I will have to wait an entire year to treat again. There are literally hundreds of these things popping up in back and they grow fast. The trumpet vine can continue to be treated until a HARD frost (defined as 24 degrees or colder), and temps are still well above 50 degrees. The trumpet vine is inaccessible until late September or so, so for the same reason, I want to get to as much as possible as it's killed some nice evergreens here already. It's relentless.

Yesterday was warm and humid so I didn't do any of this work then, but tomorrow will be considerably cooler and is ideal for this kind of work.

OK, with this photo I'm caught up with the daily photo challenge. It shows the new chandeleir ("sputnik" design) my handyman installed this morning. I like modern stuff. I liked the one I had before, which was more traditional, but, well, after 16 years living with it, time for a change. 

Aside from that, the only meaningful things I did today was write a two-sided handout for a presentation my invasive plants group is putting on at the senior center this week. I also went to the transfer station with mostly recyclables and stopped in at grocery store for a few items since it's nearby. I also scheduled my father for PT and will be bringing him tomorrow.

I was flooded with at least 6 or 7 pleas for money in the mail from various groups, and I vaguely remembered seeing some sort of notice a while ago indicating that my registry with the Do Not Mail list had expired. So I renewed it for another 10 years; I see now they charge you $6 to do this. I'm not positive it's the same group I registered with before, but anyway....they estimate doing so will cut down on junk mail by 80%.

Opsie. Skipped another day. I'm just busy.

View from my doorway...

In the past year, I realized my house plants were threatening to take over this small space, so I have winnowed down my collection of cacti and succulents considerably. I think I now have 8 now, plus 2 pothos. But I still have this pencil cactus, which loves its spot in my sunny bathroom. I may bring a little Ikea stool down from the attic for her.

This week I reviewed Kiva loans from Tonga, Rwanda, Phillipines and Indonesia.

Opsie, I took the photo yesterday but forgot to post. It's mistflower. It's nice to see such a vividly colored flower in bloom this time of year.

This is what I did today. Been pulling it for weeks. Rather exhausting as it also includes carrying the stuff on a pitchfork about 300 feet from where it's growing. Next stop: dump.