A (Very) Slight Chill In the Air

"Bunny Hill" garden in mid-summer

In October, there are a few last minute things to do to complete the putting-the-yard-to-bed job begun in September. I finished drying and storing herbs, some grass seed was spread, house plants that got to enjoy the great outdoors came back inside. The gardens may look barren, but they're very much alive and just waiting for spring. Bean Hill's plants and people all get to enjoy a little down-time.

"Bunny Hill" garden in mid-Autumn

October is the month when we usually have the first hard freeze. On October 26, the night-time low dipped into the upper 20's, and that put an end to the growing season. This is the month we often see the first snow flurry, and on the morning of October 30, the rain briefly turned to snow before turning back to rain. The flurries melted on contact with any surface, but it still counts as snow, at least here at Bean Hill.

October is also the month when migrating red-wing blackbirds stop by for a day or two, on the flight south, to take advantage of the native plant and human-provided food sources. When they are about to resume their trip, they gather by the hundreds in the tops of trees, and make quite a racket with their distinctive whistling for an hour or so. All at once, they fall silent--every one of them--and then it's lift-off, and goodbye until the end of February.

Frosted zinnia

For you statistics followers: The warm second-half of September led into an October in which sixteen days registered daytime temperatures of 6-17° above normal. Eleven of those days were 12-17° higher than average, a substantial departure from the norm. The average high temperature at Bean Hill this October (69°) was four degrees higher than the historic average.

Eighteen night-time temperatures were above average, with eight of those being 15-20° higher than normal. Despite eight nights of temperatures well above average, the month's average low (46°) was only one degree higher than the historic average.

Rainfall totaled 3.66", which was 1.05" above average. Personally, I'd rather see above average rainfall (as long as it doesn't get carried away), than below average. Drought scares me more than mud and mold.

Red-wing blackbirds gather and then...

The migration resumes

Rebmetpes--September, Backwards

September is a bittersweet month. The long summer days are shortening, the light slants differently, and shadows are longer. Nature changes color as days and nights cool, and all around, there's a busy feeling of pulling inward in preparation for winter. September, like April, is a particularly busy time at Bean Hill. We think of the month as putting-the-yard-to-bed time, with an eye to spring. Ornamental grasses and perennials are cut back, and the flower-heads from the echinacea and rudbeckia are strewn through the meadows to establish new plants for next year. Annuals are removed from pots, and the soil goes into the compost heap. Smaller trees get "caged" to keep the deer from damaging them. Garden statuary and outdoor furniture are stored away. Netting and a heater are added to the pond to keep the fish and frogs safe from predators and ice. Suet feeders that draw in woodpeckers, nuthatches, and titmouses come out of summer storage. The grass gets mowed and the gardens get edged one last time. September is a busy month.

September begins as a warm, sometimes hot month in Central Ohio, but by the time of the Autumn Equinox, the sun's changed position enough that day and night-time temperatures are cooling noticeably. Over the month of September, we usually go from drinking ice tea to hot tea, or even hot chocolate, at the end of a day of yard work. Not so this year.

This September, nature did a flip-flop in Central Ohio, although you wouldn't know that looking only at the high and low average temperatures for the month. In fact, the average high for 2017 matched the historic average high, and the average low was actually 2.1⁰ below the historic average. September's days were evenly divided: 15 days registered below normal high temperatures, and 15 days were above normal. Eleven of the below normal temperature days ranged from 6-20⁰ below the historic average for the day; eleven of the above normal temperature days ranged 6-20⁰ above the historic average. 

The perfect symmetry of the data resulted in a perfectly average "average" high for the month, but doesn't convey the reality of the month's temperature readings. The 15 days of below normal highs happened at the beginning of the month, and the 15 days of above normal highs all came at the end of the month, setting us up for a warmer than normal October. The cool days and nights of the first half of September, coupled with the right amount of rain, caused many of the trees to begin to turn color--ahead of schedule--and some trees shed their leaves entirely. Since mid-September, however, the trees have stopped in their color-changing-leaf-shedding tracks, and are in much the same state as this time last year, still pretty green. (Last year most trees stayed green well into November, and dry weather muted colors when leaves finally did begin to change.) Don't get me wrong--there's nothing wrong with green, but those joyous reds, oranges, and yellows bring a smile and make the hard work a bit easier.

A Near-Perfect Summer---If You Live at Bean Hill

Self-seeding cosmos

Common teasel relics

This has been a beautiful summer at Bean Hill. Plentiful rains made everything green and made it stay that way. Perennials bloomed in abundance. Because of an early start to their breeding season, the birds have also been in abundance. It's been a joy to see hummingbirds, honey bees, and butterflies every day--very different from last year when these were hardly ever spotted.

August's average high and low temperatures, like July's, were slightly below the historic averages. The seven very warm days, when daytime temperatures ran 5-12 degrees above average, were balanced out by the seven nights when temperatures were 5-12 degrees below average. Although the dog days never really materialized this month, we were 2.3" below in expected precipitation, but since all but two of the previous seven months have seen above average rainfall, I'm not too fussed.

Cosmos and clematis make a "creamsicle"

 Typically in August, the gardens take on a different look. Most showy perennials have stopped blooming, and have been cut back. The echinacea and daisies have nearly finished their second bloom. The meadows are turning to browns and olive drabs. There are fewer bird sounds, but lots of noise from the cicadas. Late summer plants like mums, cosmos, and autumn-blooming clematis have emerged--as has the golden-rod in the meadows! The vegetable garden's plants look spent after all their high-yields. The summer crop was so successful that this August, for the first time, we planted lettuce, carrot, beet, and radish seeds to try for a late fall harvest.

Chrysanthemums

Milkweed pods and meadow

The near-perfection of this summer at Bean Hill could make me forget that beyond our little sanctuary there are extreme weather events spawned by a warming Earth. Words like "historic" and "record-breaking" are heard all too frequently for comfort. In the U. S., the summer began with days of such extreme heat in Arizona that commercial jets couldn't fly, and businesses covered their door handles with cloth to keep customers from getting burned. As the summer winds down, extreme heat in the Pacific Northwest has not only shattered records but fed dozens and dozens of wildfires. And then there was Hurricane Harvey that dumped 27 trillion gallons of water on Texas and Louisiana in six days, and set a new record for rainfall--51"--in the continental United States. As I write, Hurricane Irma, one of the biggest Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded is churning toward Florida after destroying a couple of small islands. I think about the weather disasters that occurred and are occurring as I sit in our beautiful sanctuary, and wonder how those in the highest level of our government continue to deny that climate-change is real. Their refusal to believe the science showing that much the Earth's warming is literally fueled by human action is not just ignorant and irresponsible, it is immoral.