Starting September in a Random Sort of Way

September is here ... summer is waning, and fall is on the horizon. 

A beautiful sunset, photographed one evening last week.

The past few mornings have been cool and crisp, perfect for a quick walk-around and great for working outside, and daytime temperatures have been in the low-to-mid 80s.  There is a lot of work to do, and The Husband and I are taking it one day at a time.  When the ground conditions are favorable, we pull weeds ... and this job is coming along quite nicely.  About 2/3 of the rose field is passable.

My figs have been ripening for a couple of weeks now.  There are eight varieties of figs planted beside the barn, as I experiment with which variety I like the most.  Wouldn't you know that the one that's growing and producing the best has lost its label, so I have no idea what it is.  Figs are easy to propagate, however, and I will just make some more of them from this bush.  The new babies should be ready to plant in the spring.

Shoo, fly!

As I mentioned yesterday, I went to the nursery to pick up our boxwood bushes for the front of the house.  As they were being dug and lifted by the nursery workers, I had a brief moment of panic ... these bushes are BIG and HEAVY.  Planting all eight of them in one day didn't seem to be possible, and the ones we didn't get planted could dry out and get stressed.  So, I picked up four of the bushes, leaving the other four in the care of the nursery for a few more days.  It turned out to be a great decision.

There is no way we could have handled these bushes without the tractor.

The Husband was finishing up the final hole, while I took a much-needed water break.

This photo was taken this morning.  As large as these bushes are (3 full feet tall), they still have a bit of growing to do before they're in proportion to the house.

Our friends Jim and Dan came to visit a couple of weeks ago.  We had lunch in the pavilion on a beautiful afternoon, and we sat and visited the rest of the day away.  While we were chatting, Dan snapped this photo of me.  He sent it to me yesterday.

The subject of Dan's email with the photo attached was "A Beautiful Woman".  The photo surprised me a bit, but I'm liking it more and more.  This is not the face that I see in the mirror ... it is a face that has character.  I guess I didn't realize that there was THAT much character.  It sorta crept up on me.  I see both of my grandmothers in this face.

Sunday evening, after Hurricane Irene had moved from Virginia to do her damage in New England, we had the most beautiful sunset.

I darkened this photo in Photoshop so the colors would pop.

The whole time we were planting the boxwoods yesterday, The Husband and I were firing quotes from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" at each other.

Bring me a shrubbery!

(Like I said in the title of this post ... it's pretty random around here.)