The Good
The garden is still providing goodies. I picked these raspberries and put them in my son's lunch. Some of the green beans have been frozen for later, and the rest are ready for dinner this week. The fall color is starting to peak here. Our first fall in Minnesota, and it is beautiful! I heard reports that this should be the best fall color in a decade thanks to the wet summer we had.
Despite the transplant from southern Wisconsin at the start of their growing season, the dahlias have all perked right back up. Some are sending out massive amounts of blooms, and others are sending up giants in lesser quantities. In my years of dahlias this is certainly the largest flower I've grown. 'Kelvin Floodlight,' was almost dinner plate sized.
The Bad
On the other hand we have not had measurable rainfall in 5 weeks or so. All the grass is dead. The ground is painfully dry and cracked. I am soooo tired of watering my plants! And our garden at our rental house not only has the worst decade's worth of weeds I have ever seen, it has hundreds of snakes. At first I was FREAKED out. But not I'm okay. I march around the garden like a fool so they know I'm coming. They live in numerous spots around the yard, but mostly cilmb between the siding and foundation on the back of the garage in the owner's storage room. My husband picked one up yesterday so the kiddos could get a closer look. The boys love the snakes!
The Ugly
Well I guess s/he's not altogether ugly, but by a majority of definitions this spider isn't beautiful.
I love them. I am recovering arachnophobe, and these banana spiders helped me overcome my fear. I let them live wherever they've decided to. I stay on guard because they frequently move their webs, but the boys and I enjoy watching them do their thing. This one has doubled in size since s/he moved in, no doubt from the bees s/he dines on!
