Autumn is right around the corner now. I love this time of year! The light has softened, the plants are recovering from the heat of summer, and wildlife is on the move again. A flight of geese flew over me last night, barely clearing the treetops, and this morning a hawk supervised my watering out front. Butterflies are everywhere, and I am suddenly seeing a fresh rush of life in my garden. The squirrels are standouts in this: they are going crazy digging up my planters and the flower beds as they create caches of peanuts and other goodies for the coming winter.
Mateo caught that leafbug (katydid) as soon as I let him out onto the catio after returning home from a weekend away. Poor thing! He definitely did the bug some damage (part of a leg is now missing…) but I put it into a nearby bush hoping that it would survive. The next morning, he caught another one. I’ve never seen a leafbug at my house before, but it is part of the resurgence of life that I’m seeing after our very wet spring this year. Look at what is happening in the garden:
Okay, Hannah isn’t exactly in the garden, but she kind of fits into the theme of the day, don’t you think? Everything is in shades of pink at the moment. The standout star is the stonecrop (upper left photo) that has been blooming like a champ for a couple of weeks now to the delight of every dang bee in the vicinity.
It was my birthday this weekend and I spent it up at my son’s place. He drove me up to The Loopy Ewe so I could find some yarn for a new sweater, and the drive took us up north through the countryside past fields of corn and sugar beets. Hawks sat on light poles, and the ditches were filled with flowering plants and some pretty interesting weeds that I wanted to get some cutting of (I know, I know… this sounds strange but… biogeek!) I had my portable oxygen machine with me and it served me well as I searched for the yarn to knit a Weekender Crew this fall.
I had to get that dellaQ bag to go with the yarn. Perfect, right? The color of the yarn isn’t quite as bright as it appears in the picture, but it is a nice happy color called Wilted Roses. Just what I need for fall, don’t you think?
I’m kind of stuggling with getting started on the new sweater. I have been knitting PICC line covers and (pink) hats like crazy the last couple of weeks, and I’m finishing out the week with a set of large sized PICC line covers that I plan to turn over to Frayed Knots on Saturday. Then I can knit sweaters!! I am going to wind the yarn for my La Prairie cardigan and the Weekender at the same time, and I’ll be knitting away on them both I think. If it snows, the Weekender. If it is warm, La Prairie. If I feel like purple, La Prairie. If I feel like pink… well, you get the idea. Knitting options. They are really important. There are also some socks, hats, and scarfs calling my name. So many projects, so much (pink) yarn, so little time. It’s like I’m making caches of knitting projects for the coming winter. Did I mention that several of the projects involve pink?
I feel a little bit like those hyperactive squirrels in my yard.
The Autumnal Equinox is this Saturday. Happy Autumn everyone!
Embrace the pink this fall.
Yarn, Books & Roses 
Belated birthday wishes! I’m glad you had a good time out, seeing family, looking at the landscape and … buying yarn 🙂
I was nice to get out into the farmlands north of town. We even got lunch at Chili’s!
Belated birthday wishes to you, what beautiful yarn your son got you. The garden looks fabulous, we’ve had so much rain its been hard for me to get out and photograph the garden for my garden blog. I think I’ve picked my last cucumber today….if I had kept count of how many I got I think it would be easily 80+! I have thought to myself next year I may plant more pretty flowers (like yours) and less cucumbers hahaha
Thank you. I’m now getting quite old. 🙂 We could use a little more rain right now, I’m sorry that you have so much. That is a lot of cucumbers! Are they the kind that you can turn into pickles? I’m working on making the gardens bloom year round; slowly I’m getting to the point where something is always blooming except in the worst of summer’s heat.
Garden sure is looking good, Marilyn ! – and aren’t those katydids amazing ? Nature is just .. well, when it comes to designing camo, She is without peer, I reckon ! If the katydid would just stay immobile, Mateo wouldn’t notice (perhaps ?).
Happy birthday in arrears, m’dear ! Just wait till you’re as old as me – and Colorado, who’s only 3 months older – and you won’t be wanting anyone to remind you. Your boy is a good ‘un, is he not ?!
Gorgeous yarn. Do you ever buy yarn already wound ? Your swift and yarn-winder must get an awful lot of work ! 😀
So happy that he portable oxygen thingy is improving your life !!!
Katydids certainly are a stunning example of adaptation. Once I had put in into the leafy bush I couldn’t find it again because it blended so well. My son is just wonderful! I don’t get the yarn wound for me yet it isn’t good to store yarn that way. For a sweater like this I’ll lay out all the skeins (unwound) to order them from light -> dark so that the color does a smooth transition as I knit. Then I number the skeins to keep the order when I knit. I do spread out the winding because it can be tiring.
The portable oxygen is just fabulous!
It’s very heartening to think that the medical companies are developing stuff so that one never knows when next Something Good will appear, eh ? 🙂
All your followers are looking forward to seeing what happens with the pink. But that JL cardi is a colourway that actually changes – I’m pertickly keen on seeing how you handle that !
One color at a time, my dear! I just love making fades like La Prairie.
Happy Birthday
I love seeing and hearing about your projects. I am the world’s slowest knitter so I never post. I am working on the lazy day shawl. . It is grey cashmere with accent metallic sequins. A nice project for Xmas or new year.
Grey cashmere with metallic sequins?!!! Wow. That will be fabulous when you get it done, and no one will know how long you worked on it. 🙂
That’s a lot of pink, and it all looks lovely! My garden only has one thing still blooming in it—a white rose that just refuses to stop—but the squirrels have been going non-stop crazy for sure. I look forward to seeing the pink sweater take shape!
It’s like the universe was screaming at me to buy pink yarn, right? Hopefully I will get started and able to make good progress this weekend during the football games. I’m a CU Buff, so suddenly football is fun again.
Pink instead of gold. How refreshing. A whole new take on fall! Everybody goes nuts about our aspen gold but (don’t tell anybody) I still think the multicolored hardwood forests in the Northeast are prettier. The only color in my yard is out by the front porch where a neighbor’s cosmos decided to take up residence. Zero effort on my part. My kind of flowers!
Happy belated birthday!
I know, right? Fall should be like rose gold as much as it can. I do have a maple in the back that has some fabulous color, but like you most of the trees around me are just different shades of gold. Seems like I should be able to knit a sweater in those colors…
Thanks! I’m getting really old now.
I didn’t think of myself as old until I hit 80 in April. I’m still trying to adjust to that.
It’s all about the attitude. Try out some pink!!
Happy birthday! How great that you were able to drive all over with your new mobile oxygen concentrator. What lovely yarn and what a happy hat. There’s no way I could feel grumpy looking at either of them. As for the autumnal equinox, well it’s all yours. I feel cheated where summer is concerned because of so much time spent inside, keeping safe from breathing the off-the-charts forest fire smoke. Yesterday was finally clear and 97, and twelve hours later it was 43 and slated to be chilly from now on. So, phooey on fall. 🙂
Oh, summer was mostly a nightmare for me. Ironically, I was just taking screenshots of the barometric pressure forecast to get ready to write another blog post. It was really hot for weeks on end, and there is less oxygen in hot air, so I was trapped indoors on oxygen and unable to even go into the yard for most of the summer. Now that I have the dependable portable oxygen things are better, but I feel your pain. Last summer I bought Vogmasks that worked pretty well in filtering out all of the smoke, but I think that it depends on how bad it is. I’m so sorry that winter arrived without balmy fall air as a buffer. You are definitely plagued by the weather stinkers!!
Thanks. If a rotten summer and no nice weather for the intro to fall is all I have to complain about, I consider myself lucky, even though I don’t feel it when I’m going through the weather/smoke PITA events. I’m glad there’s more oxygen in the air for you, now that it’s cooled off. Lol, even the air molecules quit doing their hot temp happy dance when cold air hits.
The weather is always a challenge, isn’t it. Let’s hope that we don’t have extreme cold this winter.
Yes! Here’s hoping.
Happy belated birthday from a fellow September-born person! LOL.
This Florida girl is envious of your cooler weather. It has not even started to cool off down here yet… sigh.
We September people are the best, aren’t we! Thanks for the BD shout-out. Oh. Florida. I’ve been there three times in August, and each time I was just miserable with the heat and humidity.
Yes, August (along with July) is a super hot month down here!
Natalie, I’m envious in a nice way of your living in Florida. Because I grew up on an island with sand between my toes, I miss the Gulf coast. Despite the Florida humidity, allergy laden earthquake country, often with less-than-quarter-mile visibility in July and August because of smoke, can’t compare with it.
Hi Bea, there’s nothing like the Gulf Coast sand, that’s for sure. I love the beach! 🙂 Good point about the smoke—I just recently moved back here and even though it’s hot, the air quality is phenomenal. My nose and throat feel so much better!
I grew up in the San Diego area, and I miss the beaches so much!
I think Wilted Roses is the perfect color for fall! Thanks for sharing. I love reading your updates.
Thank you!
Oh I don’t know how I missed this, I hope you had an excellent birthday!
Thanks!
Belated Happy Birthday!! Glad you have so much pink and so much life going on in your garden 🙂