October Red

Carolina Rose seems like a strange name for the New York State flower but that is the reality.  Now more than ever before the actions undertaken by politicians seem to be devoid of logic or general benefit.  Monetary donations to campaign funds appears to be the ruling force.  How that factor influenced the selection of our State Flower remains a complete mystery.

We found this native plant growing along the fence line separating our land from our neighbors.  We secured his permission to dig on his land if necessary.  As it turned out, the desired plant was totally on our land.  A single pink flower carrying a deliciously sweet scent is this rose's claim to fame.  We are pleased to have it in our garden but it deserves a better location.

This close up shows both the prickly surface of the red rose hips and the long thin sharp thorns that line the stems.  These thorns pass through gloves or sleeves with ease delivering a painful stab.  We need a location for this plant that is far away from routine cultivation.  Hand weeding under this plant is always painful.  That is why that task is seldom completed.  We are still searching for a good spot for this plant so it remains in a nursery bed.  Actually, most of the original plant has spread into the nearby stone path where it attacks lower legs.  Beauty often comes with a price and in this case the price is pain.

Sumac is a more docile plant that is held in general disregard.  These trees are short lived and messy.  We have this trash tree defining our shade garden near the road.  At this time of year its red leaves are stunning.  During the summer they provide a shade cover that appears to be tropical.  Soon both the leaves and the stems that hold them will drop to the ground.  The fallen leaves are not a problem but the tangle of cast off stems is messy.  Since we plant under these trees raking up the mess is out of the question.  What is required is some quiet time under the trees picking up individual stems.  That is not a bad way to spend some quiet outside on warm blue skies days.  We also get to check on the progress of recent transplants.

Late Autumn Color

Just when you think that it is over you discover that it is not over yet.  In many nearby places the hills are covered with leafless trees.  Where some leaves still hang onto the trees they are a dull yellowish brown.  Moving down into our dead ice sink, I discovered this wild blueberry bush ablaze with bright color.  It is quite a find.

Our new computer has an automatic enhance feature that it applies to all of our pictures.  We turn off that artificial brightening of our photos one at a time.  We prefer to see the colors as they actually exist.  Believe it or not these colors look just like what I saw with my old eyes.

Looking up out of the dead ice sink, my location for taking the recent pictures of our nearby ridge can be seen.  Today I was facing west.  The ridge is behind me to the east.

Sumac is often regarded as a trash tree.  Its soft fuzzy trunk does not inspire respect.  Death is common among relatively young trees.  Deer frequently use the trunks of sumac to rub the velvet from their horns.  Rub scars tend to be large and seem to last forever.  The red leaves seem rather majestic especially when compared with the overdone blueberry leaves.

The still green tree in the background is an oak.  There are many different varieties of oak trees here and we remain totally ignorant of their proper names.  Last week as I drove past Otselic, a distant hill came into view and it was peppered with purple leaved oak trees.  The contrast in colors was stunning but I was not moved to look for the proper name of this seasonally beautiful tree.