if anybody wants to see what autumn is like in the mountain country of Central New Mexico, check out my flickr set here, of Fourth of July Canyon. it’s more exiting than you think. :) downright vivid, in fact.
autumn is fully underway in the mountains, and winter’s coming on strong in Colorado, but here on the farm, autumn is only just beginning. we’re blessed that although we do have to endure a real winter here, it’s a short one.
Fall down here in the Valley is mostly warm, and mostly yellow & green turning to brown, but there are some notable exceptions. this stunning virgina creeper on the back fence, for instance.
curlycup gumweed in the field:
at summer’s end, we get all these tiny yellow butterflies in all the alfalfa fields around here. this year, we started irrigating our own field, adn it came up all amaranth and bindweed of course — but the butterflies don’t seem to mind. nor the spiders. this Golden OrbWeaver is enjoying a butterfly for lunch.
the neighbor’s beautiful horses:
Thistle, also known as Miss Muddy Paws. she’s sad because irrigation season is over for the year and she can’t get muddy. that is, she was until yesterday’s 1″ rainstorm! she’s all set on mud for the week now.
autumn & harvest season incarnate: a bowl of fresh, crisp organic apples in the kitchen, from a friend’s trees.
fall crops! my two raised beds of fall crops represent our first successful fall food-growing venture. most of the lettuce, all the broccoli & cauliflower, spinach & beets got eaten immediately upon sprouting by ravenous hordes of insects, but the radishes, kale, and carrots are doing great. i will replant the others as soon as i get lids built to turn these raised beds into cold frames for the winter — in the next couple weeks, this will happen.
and the other two raised beds are full of strawberries, which are doing very well indeed!
isis candy cherry tomatoes in the garden. they really are candy.
Masala the wild Farm Cat, amid the corn.
i really love these Golden Orb Weavers; i think they are my favorite garden predator, huge and stunningly marked in vivid colours. I’m glad we have successfully re-created habitat for them — in our first year here, there were dozens of them amid the 8′ kochia plants, but the kochia had to go (smoetimes by way of a machete, it was so huge & tough), and then for a while it seemed the spiders vanished. they sure love an overgrown garden, though!
a Bumble Bee in the maximillian daisies out front:
twice.
we did it. we now have a house among the sunflowers. :-D
more images here:
if you’re on flickr, feel free to add us!