An Old Year and a New One
Gardening
Autumn
Halloween is over with and the leaves are finally starting to fall.
This pumpkin has a curious nose.
One of the best bits of Halloween is getting candy… my daughter say they were allowed to eat as much as they wanted…oh my!
The Winesap apples have finally arrived and are very crispy and tasty.
I currently have an obsession with dried up dahlias…
almost time to chuck them.
A fallen leaf on 20th street.
Stuff from a garden on Long Island
and acorn cups.
An arrangement of acorn cups and rosehips in a cup by my assistant (aged 3). Doesn’t it look like a weird clock-face in the acorn cup upper left?
and the joy of fallen leaves…
Veg Therapy and How to Try to Keep Semi-Sane
In these unsettling and most peculiar times I look for diversions
like contemplating a lovely dessert with blackberries and figs
or maybe quinces – but am not certain what I would do with the quinces. I like the look and the name but not the taste really.
Apples are easy but the Winesaps won’t be here until next week.
Teeny, tiny pears all sheeny with wetness.
Then I’m delighted by pinkness and buy dahlias which will only last three days – but lots of nice things last even less time than that.
Oh my! what a dazzle for the eye!
The mescalun looks as if it has been arranged – but it hasn’t.
Romanesco is worth mediating on  – all Fibonacci and architectural – look at the little group of singers at the top in their soft green dresses under the coral overhang – or make up another story entirely. Or, according to Mee (the friend who did the cookbook) bake it inside a Godzilla cake and astound the kiddies.
An orange nose has poked itself into the ghost gourds.
This decorative gourd is all warty and weird – maybe it’s enchanted. In the end I brought the dahlias home and took their photo on the dining table.
And that was my morning avoiding watching the news or doing any writing or anything remotely useful. And so we go on!
October
October is one of my favorite months – the beginning of the turning of the year and a little bit decaying and mystical…
Nothing like an old baking sheet background for gloomy…
This is a sunflower squash
posing as a space alien.
These are some pears
and more pears
and a pomegranate from a street cart and flowers from Bobby’s garden.
Some meadow flowers hanging on to summer at the green market
so joyful.
but pumpkin season is upon us
and acorns
and an eggplant with some sort of message –
when we get to the beach
I find a poor fishy who is unlikely to send any more messages…
Today
A lovely tree catching the last of the autumn sunlight.
Fall Thoughts – assorted
A rather sepia-tinged time of year – my favorite really.
Last week it was 85F but time for raking leaves thought there weren’t enough to make a jump-able leaf pile.
A season of very round things
and more round things
and a giant sunflower seed head.
Time to get out the water colors and work on images for my Jane Stories.
And look at the light on Robert’s notebook!
Halloween approaches and Berch has been busy on the local diner window. The light was so clear and bright yesterday afternoon that the paint thew splendid shadows.
This makes the window paintings extra good.
In the later afternoon a walk by the Hudson. So breezy and clear.
Saturday Morning
A hint of autumn in the air.
Such a good color tissue with the sunflowers and hydrangeas.
My friend Frances spotted Bill Cunningham who takes such amazing photos for The Times. Very chic in a French workman’s smock and very charming.
Absolutely no filter – what on earth are these pears? From one of my favorite stands where the fruit would never pass muster in a supermarket – and all the better for it.
Strange notice: ANTONOUKA dry but juicy. Very old (or odd)!
The Bethel look better – or worse.
But the star of the show are the pears with their speckles and gray leaves.
So wonderful I had to put in two photos.
Bread looking picturesque.
And then on the street walking home, three paint cans just sitting there.
Chelsea Physic Garden
What bliss it would be to overlook the garden! I hadn’t been there for many years and a visit was much overdue despite horrid cold changeable weather. The oldest botanical garden in England after the one at Oxford.
I ended up buying a red plastic poncho from the little hut in the middle background of the picture. The poncho prevented me from getting drenched.
This almost looks like the countryside – right in the middle of town. Cow parsley – so evocative of wet walks many years ago.
Arum lilies evocative of church.
Wicket fences which make me think of useful projects I’m entirely unlikely ever to do.
The sky reflected in water
and again.
Such green
and more green!
And all so assiduously tended.
Random Images 