I got a cutting of this purple passion from my bilas, putting it in a glass of water when I got home. It started to sprout roots after about 1 week, then I planted in in a small pot with soil. When I noticed that the roots had grown extensively as to show under the pot, I trnasplanted it in a bigger pot. It is very much an indoor plant. At first I thought the white thing was the flower, then after several days, the yellow one appeared! Probably the white pom-pom like thing there is already at the seeding stage. 

We stopped on top of a hill, though quite out of the way, to get a glimpse of the big Moosehead Lake, the same lake showcased in Greenville (in previous post). The mountains show a spectacular display of colors, making it appear golden from afar, despite the fogginess of the day. 

This was taken in Greenville. I love the contrasting colors of the trees' foliage ranging from yellow to red to maroon against the green... And in this area, the water is so serene. The view was breathtaking despite the gloomy grey skies. 

This tiny adult frog was stiking on our French doors at the master's bedroom one rainy night during fall. I took a photo along with my thumb for size comparison. It was the littlest frog I have ever seen. 

This is how the trees look like at the first few weeks of fall. We are lucky to have had an Indian summer in that after the hard frost, we had very nice days that followed, almost as if summer has not yet ended. 

This is now my vegetable garden, the morning just after the first (and hard) frost hit us. The field is still covered with a sheet of ice crystals. Temperature went down to 20 deg F that night. 

Fall Starts (False Start????)

As my flowers are bidding their final goodbyes for this year, the trees are starting their grand show....See how some of the trees surrounding our house have started changing colors from freen to yellow to orange to red, and some to maroon...



The forest at the back of our house still provides a sharp contrast of green and yellow against our house's red roof. 'Tis the best season to walk the streets, enjoying the sight of lively colors of these trees...truly one of the best delights offered by nature!

Late bloomers

These are some of the late-bloomers as fall starts...Small white-petaled asters,

bigger pink-petaled asters (both are growing wild)...

and very pretty purple-petaled asters.

We saw a very big caterpillar (we suspect it is one of the kinds of the Luna moth.This one is as big as my middle finger and even longer.

These are foxgloves that I planted just this spring. I was not expecting them to bloom this year (my other cluster of foxgloves which bloomed earlier were from previous years.) 

These photos are long overdue...Can anyone provide me the name of this flower?

These pansies were those that I planted last spring and bloomed last July...

Small deep-red flowers that looked like tiny roses...

This plant is like hosta (or is it hosta?), the flowers of which grow in clusters

and this is a close up of those clusters of flowers on a tall stem (as tall as me)

The next photos are the different lilies I have near my vegetable garden.



 

One thing I love about my new surroundings is that it is full of life, albeit not of human, but of the other species that long have been missing in the cities of Metro Manila, coupled with the cool breeze of clean air, not to mention the different colors in my gardens...

I captured in my camera this butterfly as it sucked the nectar of the coneflower...

A bumblebee doing the same thing with this unknown-to-me flower...

A grass spider I found amongst the wild raspberries...

and I don't know what this caterpillar-like thing held in place by a single thread of silk(?) on an onion leaf. I have never seen these much in the Philippines during my adult life. 

Here's a zoomed-in photo of a squirrel in the public park near the ocean when we went to the Boothbay Harbor. He was getting ready to sneak in to the garbage and get some chips. 

I recently dug out potatoes and carrots (though they were not quite ready yet) for use in my seafood chowder (leftover lobsters and clams from our Lobster Dinner affair. 

Peaches from Mom and Dad. We ate them as is. Loved them! I reserved the small one plus one large to be used for muffins. It tasted good, too! 

On our way to the Boothbay Harbor for the traditional Lobster Dinner, we had to meet Stacey where this monument stood:

This were the signs below the old monument.

These were my most recent harvest from my vegetable garden. I am drying up all the onions. I have started harvesting tomatillos (the green ones) sitting beside the cucumbers here. I have probably harvested a total of 50 or so cucumbers up to the present time. I started picking jalapeño peppers as well. And the ripe tomatoes I am stocking on my countertop to further ripen. I use them for dips and sauteeing.

Posted by Hello

My corns started flowering...

And I have been enjoying cucumbers freshly picked from my garden. I eat them with vinegar diluted in water, plus onions, black and red pepper powder, and salt...

I also get onions, as needed for my cooking, from the garden. However, I am not yet harvesting them at this time...

I have also been getting not-so-red tomatoes. Combined with patis, they are the perfect appetizers for fried fish, nilagang baka, etc.