Cold weather the last week, frost almost every morning, including one with a dawn low of 19 F. I'm doing a little yard cleanup most days. The ash trees have dropped all their leaves, and the hackberries aren't far behind. Tomorrow is Halloween / Samhain / Calen Gaeaf - pumpkin carving day, which will make the squirrels happy.
The
garden is finished for the season - two hard frosts and one lighter one
in the last week. The ash trees are nearly naked now, but the elms are
still stubbornly green. I haven't done much yard cleanup yet, as it's
been cold and windy some days, and I've been busy on others. No hurry,
though - Samhain soon, and the beginning of Celtic winter.
Not much progress in the garden - there are lots of scarlet runner beans which aren't getting ripe because it's not warm enough. I was hoping for fresh seed for next year, but only have a little so far. At least I have a lot from past years which should still be viable. A lot of fallen and falling leaves, except for the stubborn elms and the oak tree in front which are still green. I need to bring the geraniums indoors tomorrow, since I'll be busy Saturday running some Zoom sessions and we may have a first frost that night. We're getting closer and closer to Winter.
In the outside world, autumn is progressing, with a lot of rain earlier in the week and a lot of falling leaves. No frost so far, although I had 36 F at dawn yesterday. I need to do some yard work later today and tomorrow. And it will be time to move the geraniums indoors for the winter before long...
My next book will be Mac Criomthann Tales III, which shouldn't take long - I'll be editing the new stories a bit to take out the narrator parts. I might have that one out by January 1st. Then I'll move on to Taliesin: King Arthur's Bard, which will cover Taliesin's early life before Gwernin meets him. Farther down the road after that is the last Gwernin trilogy, called "The Fall of the North". The individual book titles are The Last True King, Three Hundred Spears, and The Fall of the North. There will be some heavy going in all three of those books. And yes, I've had them planned for several years, even if not in detail. After that - well, that is a story for another day!
The leaves of the ash tree outside my window have turned gold and are falling. Still no frost, but it can't be long. I hope it holds off a couple more weeks so my scarlet runner beans can mature - there are a lot of them that set last month after the Japanese beetles were no longer eating the flowers! Four weeks now to Samhain, and winter.
