Fall is Here?

It's hard to imagine that two days ago we had 100 degree weather. Today we had lovely overcast clouds, even a slight sprinkle. It was the perfect day to go outside and capture the beginning of Fall.
I spent the cool morning cutting back a lot of the browning that occurs from summer, but took the time to notice a lot of our fall bloomers.

We also spent a large part of today checking out our friends in the garden, our beneficial insects.

Today's chores included pulling a bunch of our tomatoes. Argh.... I hate this part. Especially this year as it has been a horrible year for tomatoes! I was really hoping they'd rally, but it never happened. Too bad, so sad... lets hope the winter garden makes up for it.

It really is hard to imagine it's Fall when there is so much color still remaining in the garden. Normally we have several days of 100+ weather, and my plants appear to be fighting for survival. This year most of them are still lush and green.

Day lilies starting to bloom now, when we're almost in October? Um...okay.
The plants seem to be just as confused as I am.

But my handy sidekick and I ventured outside today anyway, despite the forecast of rain. Her new magnifying glass that she got for her birthday from her friend Emma is a delightful addition to the front yard garden.

We spent the morning cutting back spent blooms, and checking out the various bugs along the way.

The purple hyacinth bean seems to be going through a second flush. We got seeds for this vine a few years ago from Kristi. In some locations we have new blooms (as you can see above), and in other locations new pods. We're also finding dried pods, which when opened up have these beautiful black and white seeds.

This morning our goal was to find a praying mantis. We ended up finding about ten of them in just a few minutes. They are so friendly, and seem just as interested in us as we are of them.

This evening we went outside again, so that we could show my husband just how many of them there were. I guess when we said "There's like a gazillion", he wanted to see for himself. Our neighbor, Millie, checked them out with us as she dropped off a copy of the article that was in the Sacramento Bee of last weekend's Arden Park Garden Tour. It is always a pleasure to chat with Millie; she has always been so appreciative of what we're doing in our front yard. She says it gives her husband something fun to look at through the window of their home.

Outside activities today included taking a sunflower shower and golfing with pebbles. I'm pretty sure no one else I know did these things.

We finished up the weekend with some extreme hopscotch. The kind of hopscotch that people should not attempt unless they are experts. Since we have our own, permanent hopscotch....we consider ourselves experts.

This weekend has been a false Fall for those of us in Sacramento. The temperature is supposed to rise again this week into the mid-90's. I hope you enjoyed the Fall teaser we had, but all Sacramento residents should be used to the fact that Mother Nature likes to tease us :)