Fall fireworks

The past two weeks we have had glorious weather. Usually in Montreal, by mid August we are already starting to wear sweaters and the warm, sunny days are becoming fewer and farther between. This year we had a warm August followed by some cold weather for a week or so in September, then a long, dry, sunny spell of days in the 20's which have stretched right into October.
We still have not put away the shorts and t-shirts, although evenings and nights the temperatures are dropping between 10 and even 20 degrees.

I have not been watering the garden much, it seems that the dew has been heavy maybe because of the large fluctuation of the temperature. The tomatoes have been loving this weather and continue to produce and ripen at a steady pace.





The peppers are slow to turn red, but as they are all in pots, I plan to move as many of them inside as will fit in my house. I harvested the rest of the potatoes, which were exquisite. I am gradually pulling out the carrots but many are still small, probably because I planted them much too close together.

I did some work on improving patches of the flower beds which had grown over with grass by digging them up, putting in new earth and manure, and covered them with hay to prevent late season weeds from infiltrating.
I planted all the bulbs which I ordered from Vesey's catalogue, a few varieties of tulips, hyacinths, allium and anemones. I also moved one clump of Siberian Irises which had been inundated by my daylilies in their quest to conquer the world.



The raspberries are in full production mode, and one of the mantises and a number of spiders have set up hunting grounds around the sweet ripe fruit, so that picking raspberries has become that much more interesting. I have yet to map out next year's vegetable garden landscape, but that will come this month too.






























I took a couple of days to go up north and borrow my parent's house in Morin Heights, in the Laurentians, as they were away on a cruise in Europe. The changing of the leaves takes place earlier there than in Montreal because of the higher altitude and latitude.


"Peak week" for leaves, as my mom calls it, is when the colours are at their height. I have not been up north in the fall for many years, because it is always a very busy time for kids, and with Jewish holidays usually falling right at that time, it is hard for me to get away from the city.







This year I found a way to take two days, and was thrilled to land in the height of the leaves. Every year the colours are a bit different, due to temperature and humidity variations I suppose, but every few years there is one where the most intense oranges, pinks and reds are in evidence, and this was the one. Also, the fact that it was both sunny and warm enabled me to get the maximum effect of the colour.







I took my parent's canoe out of winter storage (what were they thinking? the lake was not frozen yet!) and spent a few hours with the best view of the fall leaves, duplicated by the reflection on the water. I also went hiking. My photos are all from the shoreline or in the woods because I once ruined my favorite camera in an unexpected canoeing accident (that's a long story), and do not ever plan to take photos from a canoe again.


The lake was full of birds: two loons in winter plumage (I had never seen that before), eight common mergansers, two female mallard ducks right up close to the shore, and a great blue heron.