We certainly had a touch of frost last night. I'm glad I covered my tomatoes. This morning is absolutely beautiful - clear except for a few scattered clouds that seem to be mostly keeping away from Joe's Pond and crisp temperatures not yet above 50. It should be a nice day for the Autumn on the Green in Danville. We probably won't go down - there is work to be done and we know we need to take advantage of the nice weather.

The foliage hasn't seemed to be as brilliant this year as most years, and now lots of the trees are pretty well stripped by the rain and wind from last week. Theses views from our deck is still very nice, and the water is a lovely blue under the sun. There is some color along our driveway, but still one has to hunt for really nice color.

Most of the flowers are past prime, but these tall yellow late-bloomers are still thriving. I am not sure what they are called - someone said "golden glow" - and that's fitting, but a quick check on the internet makes me wonder if that's correct. The description fits except the flowers on mine have far less petals than those shown in the picture. Perhaps that's because mine are heritage and those shown may have been altered a bit over time to produce fuller blooms. They grow 4-5 ft. tall, the leaves and stocks are rough, and they do not flower until mid or late September and withstand light frosts, but not heavy ones.

They have been in our family a long time, and could very well be the "backhouse flower" mentioned on the web site. My grandmother Bolton had a large bed of them (no backhouse to decorate - we were fortunate to have indoor plumbing) under the big maples on the front lawn at the farm - large enough so we little kids could crawl into the middle of them and be completely hidden. They towered over us and were rough on bare feet, but we loved our secret spot - until my grandmother shooed us out and scolded us for crushing down the flowers.

What I have are probably from that same bed. We had some at our house below the farm and I imagine my mother brought some with her here when they built their new house. I've planted them in various spots around the buildings and find they thrive in any soil and are indestructible but they do have a habit of taking over the territory, so there are always clumps to dig and transplant. Sadly, there is no trace of them left at the farm as far as I can tell. A garage has been built on the spot where they grew and several of the maples are also gone.

Now for some lunch. Fred is working on his woodpile, but will be in soon. I will give him a hand this afternoon - I like to pile wood although he and I have definitely different styles when doing it. We tolerate the differences in order to get the job done.