Recovery...

Still recovering from this cold/sinus thing.  I ran yesterday, and so today I thought I'd get out and do a bit of trail running.  Of course, running and temperatures above 80 don't agree much, so I didn't do as well as I'd hoped.  I blame my recovery and the heat, but I did make it 2.5 miles, so yay.

The leaves are really changing, the fields are doing their final bursts of colors and flowers and seeds.  I saw a garter snake slither out of my way as I ran by.  I also saw a mother and baby sitting at an overlook near one of ponds.  At least I think I saw them.  I could have been hallucinating.  It could have been me 3 years ago, with my newborn, sitting in the afternoon sun, looking over the fields and ponds.  Maybe I just hit some weird parallel dimension thing where I was overlapping my previous time-line.... Or maybe I just watch too much star trek...

I spent a few minutes after my run walking around, cooling down, and catching my breath. (and maybe restoring some of my sanity)

Some type of Aster finishing out the season.

I drove home the long way, listening to some Decemberists and Goldfrapp, and snapped a few pictures of the slow transformations happening in my garden and yard.

Sugar Maples all over the place are bursting into color quickly.

I think these will be the final roses of the season... going to prune them back soon, feed them coffee grounds and mulch them heavily.   I hope they make it.

Bumblebee enjoying my monster sedum.  Going to try to split this sucker up and put it in one of my new raised beds, along with some of my other unruly perennials.

This dusty-miller, which I thought was an annual, has come up 3 years in a row and gets more and more vigorous.  I like how it sets off the evergreens around it.  If it reappears next year, I'll have to see if I can split it.

The empty raised beds... Makes me a little sad... but hopefully my garlic bulbs will arrive in the next day or so and I can get them in so they can start growing before I mulch them with more leaves.