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….or working in the last bits of light. Either one. That’s what happened this evening as dusk settled in and despite the grey throughout the entire day the sun decided to peek through and throw some red, orange and yellow into the evening sky. Only for a bit. Then it faded off into other countries for the night.

I’m thankful that I am able to come home for lunch if I choose to. This is a complete difference from my job in Florida where my commute was anywhere from 30 minutes when I lived in western Miami-Dade county or an hour to an hour and ten minutes when I lived in west-central Broward country. On the good, nice days when I come home for lunch I’m always wishing I could play hooky for the rest of the day to work in the yard. Sometimes I’ll eat my lunch and surf Facebook or read a blog or two and then head off to the side yard and check on the vegetable garden (when is the garlic going to sprout already?!!). It is then that I think of all the things I could weed, plant, or toss into the burn pile.

Alas, I return to work. Now that the sun is setting somewhere around 7pm I have to get all of my outdoor activities crunched into two hours, really an hour and a half, before the light is gone. Soon the time will change and I will only get an hour to do it all.

Tonight I planted eight azaleas, four each around two different trees. I still have another four to plant another night, but I don’t think we have even chosen where we want those. I picked up some onion sets and red cabbage seedlings yesterday when I went to trade out an azalea; we had bought the wrong variety. Those need to go in the ground too but the light escaped me too soon tonight.

Overhead lately we’ve been getting ducks and the ever magnificent pileated woodpeckers. They are generally a constant around here, but the ducks are a new addition. I’ve also been noticing the raptors are migrating in; lots of hawks on fence posts along the highway. I had a good look at what I think was a red-shouldered hawk the other day on my way home at lunch. The swallowtail kites we saw shortly after we moved in have migrated out of the country already, but I will look for them in the spring.

Along the roadways, in the wet ditches, wetland sunflowers are blazing and the goldenrod is getting ready to peak in the next week or so. I hadn’t paid much attention until a few days ago but the sunflowers are blooming along our pond too. I’ll have to get a photo soon or they will be gone before I know it!

As for fall colors, the trees showing the most foliage changes are the sycamores, though the oaks and a few others are working their way into their fall outfits. I am always drooling at every fall photo I see from people north of the deep south, particularly those in New England—Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire—I want to crawl into those photos. A year ago I was in those photos; I spent two weeks working in Pennsylvania.

I’ll leave you with a photo from then…