Autumn 2024

Gourd-gous

Posted by

2

Pam’s Pictorama Post: The season is suddenly tipping hard in the direction of the holidays and winter. Last night I ordered a new long down jacket online – at the end of last winter the zipper finally broke one I had been wearing happily for decades. (My mother gave it to me so many years ago – it might predate my meeting Kim!) While perhaps not the most stylish of long down coats it was thick and toasty warm. I have tried new zippers on down coats before and for some reason they are especially recalcitrant however.

My office these days, and the hospital, are along the East River, overlooking the FDR highway. The wind and water are always worse there than anywhere else, even our apartment building which is only one block west. While walking a half hour to and from work is lovely in some ways, come the middle of the winter it will be less charming. I was a bit ill prepared last year when I started in January and am tackling the impending winter pro-actively this year – boots and coats.

An earlier leaf incarnation I snapped a pic of.

Thanksgiving is late this year and in my mind I kept pushing it forward until now suddenly it is upon us. I am using the few days to go to New Jersey (and visit the Jersey kitties) and plant some spring bulbs. We are experiencing a well publicized drought right now so I am concerned that the ground will be as hard as a rock when I try however. Nonetheless, the thought of tulips and other flowers blooming in the spring will drive me forward. Time to take the dahlias in and wrap them up in the chilly garage for the duration of the winter. The hibiscus and a small olive tree (seen below still out on the deck here) are already living their winter life in the kitchen there although I understand that the cats are too interested in them and I think they need to relocate to the bedroom.

Late summer and fall dahlias are more than worth the effort to store them over the winter.

Work and other commitments have kept me from trips I had hoped to make there in November so this week will be the first time I am there in quite a while. I am looking forward to the very last of the tomatoes and a solitary cucumber that is being saved for me.

Back in October I decorated the front stoop with some warty pumpkins – I love them! They are appropriate through November and until it is time to add a wreath to the door and some swags of greens to the railings.

While I am missing access to the Jersey late autumn, Kim has supplied me with a mini-fall here in the apartment. These gourds came from the local grocery and are as charmingly wart filled and interesting as you could ask for. Like mini-pumpkins, they perch (and are occasionally buried by paper) on my desk, little happy harbingers of the season.

Kim has followed that up with an assortment of fall leaves which have started appearing. Not surprisingly, the man has a great eye for leaves. Their passing extraordinary colors attract him and he has collected and attempted to save them (largely unsuccessfully) for years. We tried pressing, the microwave and just letting them sit. He has put them under the plexi on top of his desk. This year he has delivered them to my desk and I have been enjoying the somewhat fragile random harvest of them and they are the season to me this year.

Ode to October

Posted by

2

Pam’s Pictorama Post: October is a favorite month for weather here on the East coast of the US. It is when we start to pull our sweaters on and jackets, but we have not yet moved to burrowing in our warm coats and many woolen layers. The holidays and the end of the year still seem pleasantly far in the future. (This year with an anxiety fraught election in the offing, we are staving off thoughts of November.)

When I was a kid it meant you were weeks into a new school year and while the shine was still on the year and the slogging had not started, it wasn’t so new that you were adjusting to it all as you had been in September. All those back to school clothes that were a little warm in September were working better come October and by now your stiff new shoes were getting better worn in.

Late strawberries and the olive tree, residing in the blue pot, which has much bright green new growth. Am hoping it is willing to be coaxed through the winter inside.

Having spent my whole professional career in fundraising, it is the signal to the tumult of year end which is always very busy. (If it isn’t something else is entirely wrong as it was my first year at Jazz.) The summer has been spent laying plans for these last months of the year and we execute them at breakneck speed. My new gig combines the end of the calendar year with the finish of the fiscal year and tops it off with a Gala at the beginning of December – dizzying. (Driven by the close of the tax year for donors, many not for profits will bring in 25 to as much as 50% of their annual income in the last quarter of the year.)

Given my choice (although I rarely have been), it is the time of year I would travel and sometimes I have booked my business travel in the fall when I had an option. (I often did not – fundraisers tend to do things like go to Florida in the winter, or in my case formerly, follow the orchestra somewhere in February and March.) I had the good fortune to travel to Germany on a trip with the Met in the fall once. Lovely!

A friend suggested cutting some of these and drying them to keep inside which was a nice suggestion. These hydrangea have turned this lovely pink late in the game.

But New York is hard to give up in October as it is the time the leaves on the trees start to change which never fails to enchant. The City has whipped itself up for the fall, exhibitions opening, concerts scheduled and more, and is in full tilt. All of the dates with people I had deferred far into the future are appearing on my calendar.

For that reason I am especially pleased Kim and I got married in October. It was an event I got to schedule and choose and October was a lovely day and is a lovely moment for our anniversary. Although our level of celebration is low-key (watch for a maybe post next week) fall is a nice time to be out and traipsing around a bit together.

A friend staking these in my absence. The apricot one is the first I have seen from that plant!

I head to New Jersey tomorrow (the heating system needs to be serviced and turned on), where I get reports that the dahlias are full tilt. One I had never seen bloom before has turned out to be a favorite apricot color. Zinnias which took their own time about flowering are finally hard at it. I will plant more (and perhaps earlier) next year though as they are very jolly.

Cabbages – thoughts anyone?

Some errant cabbages have taken hold and I am not sure what to do with them – will they become more like heads? How do I cook these? Also, something is eating them. Sadly the cucumbers may come to much fuss about nothing and not produce that much in the end. Maybe I will even get to sit out with the fire pit tomorrow night. I never seem to be there for the right weather.

My vulnerable young fig tree needs wrapping in burlap soon and the hibiscus and olive tree, in pots, will need to move inside for the winter. The dahlias will need to be dug out and stored too once they are done, but that is more like a trip in November.

Saved this hibiscus from a damaged half-price shelf at Lowes and it is lovely.

However, I find this fall haunts and chases me a bit with hints of sadness for the waning year. Perhaps just too much change with mom passing, job shift and the like – I don’t respond to change well in general. The fall is not filling me with optimism and energy the way it usually does. However, a day in the garden tomorrow, cuddles with kitties and a anniversary day with Kim next weekend should do much to set me right again.