Arbutilon (Flowering Maple)*

The temperature dropped to 38 degrees F last night, but has risen to 82. today. The schizophrenic days of Fall continue. I will never complain about warm weather, but the air is still and the atmosphere is dusty. The sun looks red and the light pallid through a veil of dust.. The only signs of activity outside in the garden are the Western Fence Lizards, scampering in and out of crevices in the rock walls and doing push-ups on top of the sun warmed rocks. They love the Summer end of Fall.

A new study shows these wonderful "little alligators" may play an important role in preventing the spread of Lyme Disease. If they didn't like our rock walls so much, I would build special mansions for them! They seem to like our house, but that's going a bit too far on my lizard hospitality scale , so I usher them out again.

As the nights cool and draw in, we hear the owls, who talk to each other from the nearby trees. OilMan would love to have a resident owl or two, since they eat lots of gophers and rats. (Unfortunately nobody eats moles and that's what we seem to have a lot of here.) He built an owl box in Sebastopol and nobody came. He's contemplating building one here, but since they seem pretty happy as they are, he may talk himself out of it. We will be hearing more of them since the owls like the winter end of Fall.

While some things die or dry out all summer--the grasses, the creeks and the atmosphere itself, the things that thrive in the wet weather of Winter are beginning to make an appearance, green grass, cabbage and chard, darker clouds, overwintering birds. There is a sense of hushed anticipation of the rain to come, which will wash things off.

For people, the winter end of Fall means covering the barbecue and the citrus trees, turning down the irrigation, putting out suet for the birds. Red wine and pots of hearty soup and stew simmering on the back of the stove replace salads and white wine. Fires in the fireplace replace fires outside. As for me, I am trying not to think of the C word until at least after Thanksgiving....

*Can continually bloom if given warm temperatures and lots of sun.