the end of Fall

Sunday 3:30pm in the afternoon, we got snow that stayed longer than it does it Christchurch, this is the north side of my house, no i didn't get the leaves raked in time, the last couple of bags i got today, Monday.

today was windy the house across the street appeared, the leaves are all gone from the trees. today is September 29. how long does fall/ Autumn last ? well i started taking these photos in mid August.
My definition of fall is when there is snow on the ground well this stuff wont stay, 3 weeks maybe, but 95% of the leaves are gone. the calender says that fall only started last week, not the case in Fairbanks.
It was cold today, 20 when i went to work i think it made it to 40 mid afternoon. the way everyone dresses has changed polar necks , warm sweaters. I parked the car in the garage.

Here i will end the the fall series, don't know if you are interested in photos of barren trees , there is kinda ugly time of year now, till we get snow on the ground to stay.
Freeze up will not be far away. Freeze up is considered to occur when the day time high does not reach 32. This will occur between Oct 1 and Oct 15 guaranteed. in 14 years it has not failed me yet. But for now i am done talking about the weather. hopefully there will be more interesting things in life.

Snow

I was out dancing last night and it was cloudy , like snow clouds. it was snowing by the time we left at 9 pm then went out to a friends for wine tasting. got home and there snow , just enough for ground cover. right now at 3 pm Sunday it's 1/2 melted. so tomorrow I will rake the last of the leaves that I was going to do today.
today is sunny so I will enjoy it.

Frost

We had a really good frost last night the car said 28 this morning, just as well i picked what i could of the peppers yesterday. I picked 3 of those baby peppers.
So today in the greenhouse they were looking rather sad. so i pulled the tomatoes, and picked everything.

I got 6 lbs of green tomatoes, that should ripen inside. the first person who gets to come visit gets to share them.

Rolled up the hoses and turned off the heat lamp that i had on for a good week.
( No i don't want to see my next power bill) for some strange reason i left the mint. i 'll look at that in a day or 2 . i have so much dried mint around it s not funny. if you look in my oven what will you find ... drying mint.

Today I had 2 comments at work about my screen saver. so thought I would share it with you. this was taken with mothers camera from the Deck of Catherine's place.(Auckland New Zealand ) just leaning over the edge. Tea tree, or Manuka is the tree and just run of the mill ferns that grow. People at work thought it was some amazing rain forest.

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lost leaves

I am taking any volunteers who want to come rake the back yard. Believe it or not I actually raked them sort of, on Saturday. there are some trees down the street that have lost all their leaves, it was windy ( well that s a gentle breeze to everyone else) on Saturday. the trees strait cross the street are just a blaze of colour. but generally the best of the colour has passed. the more wind we have the sooner we get bare trees. today is equinox 12 hours of daylight for everyone. ( happy birthday Dad)

this photo from accross the road will show up later, when i go looking for daylight in january. for the sun will rise on the left of this house and set on the right. The amount of leaves that are on the trees still in January affects the amount of sunlight that I get. More important than you realise sometimes.

The last ( last ) of my garden

I sit here eating tomatoes, its 40 degrees in the greenhouse, and that's with the heat lamp on. i think tomorrow is the day I should pull everything.
The exciting news is that I have a few peppers , not very large , but I decided they were worth photographing for you. I picked 3 of them but not sure if they will be worth eating, but way too large to let freeze. i think the tomato's will ripen faster inside now.
Mint still grows for course.( photos taken at almost dark with flash)

Tickets to London

With it being PFD week around here i thought i would start to look at those tickets, lots of horrible connections and about 1400 to London.on most web sites
Then i saw on cheep air .com tickets. with just on 2 hour connections all the way around
So for 20 hours of flying i am headed to London on January 10 for one month flying via Seattle and Atlanta with Delta airlines. for the price $1180. this is the score of the century. tickets are booked and paid for.
the next plan is to get to Greece. do i want a one way? or do i want to get a ferry to Italy and fly back out of Rome. i hate committing to dates. but i might haveto once i get to Greece I want to see if i can get a side trip to Istanbul. But i am hesitant to go by myself. ( single woman Muslim country, call me chicken if you want)

Other questions that come to mind Mikonos , Corfu? Mikonos comes highly recommended , but Corfu sound s somewhat touristy. Corfu is on the way to Italy. threare ferry's to Brinsi. and Italian trains are fairly reasonable to Rome. I'd like to go back to Florence, and Venice. but then i would have to back track to Rome to fly back to London.
Watch this space to see what happens. I leave January 10.

Window day

Yes i have new windows.

3 in fact, they have been sitting in the garage for a while but now they are in the windows. they went in really fast, Mathew was great , he and his friend Carl and my room mate Wes put all three in in 4 ours flat.

The were easy too take out. Next weekend Matt will do all the trim, inside and out as well as the trim on the old windows they didn't get trim 2 years ago. i 'll have matching windows.

Then we had a BBQ well i had to feed them all. so we had some salmon. I wrapped it in tinfoil with lemon juice and fresh parsley and a little Italian seasoning , and stuck it on the BBQ. It was wonderful, along with a glass of wine

and life was good.

Just arround my street.

Balane hill road, just for a comparison from what 5 days ago. The weather has turned, no more sunny skies, cloudy and a thought of rain. My street looks great right now. full colours are probably today 13Th September. Some trees have their leaves departing already

the New Morris Thompson Visitors center, and the view across the river.We have this little pond. I am not sure what it will do come freeze up

Now i was thinking of doing another series of freeze up but it might be boring , its only about a week and i can take photos of the river from work

My Long lost Garden

These were taken on august 24 , I know along time ago. I have had the most wonderful tomatoes crop i have ever grown. ( last year it was 4 tomato plants and 4 tomatoes) My parsley the tall stuff is going to see and i have so much of it dried and mint well i have been giving it away to everyone at work till they are sick of it. rosemary was OK, enough, but i only gave a little away

the cucumbers must have got cold some were along along the line but i had a wonderful crop , i lost count at 25. i have 2 pepper plants ( on the right beside the mint)and this week they seem to have fruit , not sure if they are going to be large enough to eat, there maybe more photos next week on that. as of today we still haven't had a frost.

Summers' done

I am done waiting tables, summer is over. yeah !!! this doesn't mean to say that i am done with being busy. leaves are falling everywhere and the greenhouse needs closing down, let alone picking tomatoes. i have some baby peppers that i need to photograph for you.
and tomorrow is window day. I have a friend coming to install my new windows i bought earlier in the summer. the will be photos tomorrow. and a BBQ to organize as well.

September 5

Got invited out for dinner last night. Just had to take the camera the colours are just great, there is quite a difference in 5 days as well
the trees in my yard a somehwat slugish at turning , but that is ok

Schmaps York

well the exciting news for today is that the Guys at SCHmaps from England , welll York , decided that that did like me and i now fall into the famous catogory of a published photographer.
yes my "york city walls" made the grade. I have a published photo , and yes i am going to brag about it. http://www.schmap.com/york/sights_panorama/p=156551/i=156551_24.jpg

I realy ought to get my s... together and book my tickets for vacation back in that direction. i am sure there will be more of that coming up. i have a but one week left of the waiting tables at the wedgewood , and then i will have lots more free time. booking tickets to London / Greece will be on my list.

Earlier this week i thought i was going to get sick. wednesday i was all blocked up and sneezing , then thursday was even worse. so i gave the boss warning and today i actually had a sick day. the first day i have had off work sick in 8 years. I slept till noon and took a nap this afternoon as well. Sleep is a wonderfull thing. and lots of vitamin C to go as well. I'm much better this eveing.

Farmers Loop rd colours

I went fora drive up Farmers loop today going to a freinds place , it was a lovely day again. i even remebered to take my camera. so for your vewing pleasure of the fall colours.

the under growth colours are equally good, the fireweed is dieing off and turns a wonderfull red.

Fall/ autumn is not yet at it full colours we sahould have a week or 9 days to go. more next weekend.

The trees arround my house are alot slower at turning so there will go more quickly at the end of the week maybe.

But i still have 10 days of work at the second job and it s dark at 9 30. Taking photos during the week is tough.

these ones I thought came out really nicely.