There is an upside to so much rain and moisture in the climate at the moment though – rainbows! When I walk the pups I see rainbows on an almost daily basis now – and double rainbows are not rare! The beauty of this is that it might be dry in my immediate area, with no rain hitting me, but in the distance it will be raining and I will see the rainbows light up the sky. It makes me very happy.
Such a little thing, huh. It’s the little things that often make me quite happy and satisfied internally.
What all this moisture, with sharp short sunny spells has also done is woken up the fungus on the moor. Of course I mean mushrooms. They’re everywhere! And, they look wonderful!
I wouldn’t suggest anyone pick these, they’re wild and should be left wild I think. Besides not loving mushrooms, I don’t fancy my odds not knowing exactly which ones are edible and which aren’t. Also, the fact that some of them are growing directly out of sheep poop doesn’t enamour me to the idea of trotting them back to the kitchen to make some sort of dish. But, I do find them pretty to look at and exciting to find when on first glance one may think the moor boring and devoid of anything interesting. It never is. It’s beauty is just in the low-lying, fine details that you need to keep your eyes peeled to observe.
Besides the ‘shrooms sprouting, my sedum Autumn Joy, is starting to pink up in earnest and my primroses have entered their second flowering season for the year. It’s lovely to have these two flowers in the garden because when mostly everything else is fading and starting to hibernate these two powerhouses of flower power bloom, and will continue to bloom into December!
Also blooming heartily at this time (Autumn) should be the chrysanthemums. Mine are just budding at the moment, so I can’t wait to see what happens in the course of the next few weeks. I know the chrysanthemums are flowering in the supermarkets and garden centres now, but if you’re growing your own from scratch as I do, you may find (especially if you’re very north) that they’ll bloom a little later as their growing temperatures have been somewhat cooler throughout the year than those which have spent some time in a greenhouse. So don’t worry, just keep feeding it some tomato food which will help with the flowering process.
Right after taking those pics of my chrysanthemum (above) guess what happened! Think of what typically happens up in this neck of the woods at absolutely the wrong time. Yep, you’ve got it – we had a gale. Let’s call it an autumn gale to differentiate it from the winter, spring and summer gales shall we? My poor little plant. It got knocked about in the gale, even though it was in a heavy ceramic pot. So the below is the result – a half flattened chrysanthemum. I salvaged the pieces damaged in that half though – they’re now gracing the dining room table with cheerful flowers!
I think my outdoor chrysanthemums are about a week behind the buds that are now flowering in a vase in the kitchen!
I decided to end this post with a simple shot of some of the moor near me. No matter how dim the day may be, I still think it’s a beautiful sight! Besides, I’ve got those very late autumn chrysanthemums to look forward to on these very dim days, don’t I?
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