-We've been downsizing our critter population - when we can find a dry day, which is perhaps twice a week. I have never seen such a gloomy, cloudy, rainy, muddy, yucky October. The last half of September wasn't much better. But instead of taking this as a sign of a long cold winter ahead, I prefer to think that November and December are going to be nicer than average - to make up for all this rain. LOL. An optimist, or at least I try hard to be one... We culled our remaining eight Speckled Sussex hens and made soup. Brian finished building the "Chiclet Box" as I like to call our new little chicken house and the Chiclets (Dominiques, just short of six months old) are installed there. They are laying really well, but we've had some unscheduled downsizing by our mystery predator. I started with a dozen day olds, 10 pullets and 2 cockerels. We lost one of the cockerels at about three weeks. And now two of our pullets have disappeared. All our losses to predators this year - several old hens, two young geese and these two pullets - have been of the "without a trace" variety. There are fishers about, coyotes and big hawks... so I don't know which is to blame. Our geese are doing well, the youngsters as big as their mamas now. I have a trio of Pilgrims, a Buff and five mutts, offspring of our horried gander. I managed to find a buyer for the five and he will collect them in about a month. I got $60 for them, not as much as I'd hoped, but I really was not looking forward to culling them myself. So we will only have the four to take through the winter and I hope they will raise lots of little Pilgrims next year. (The Buff will be a foster mom; when she goes broody I'll give her Pilgrim eggs. The rabbits are doing great. We put seven in the freezer last week and today we processed three of the adults, just keeping the best three breeders through the winter. (And our two indoor Angoras that popped up unexpectedly in one of the summer litters.) We have another five youngsters to do and nine more month-old babies running around in a large pen in the rabbit house (former chicken house). Very cute right now and thank goodness by the time they are big enough to eat (just before Christmas) they lose a lot of their baby bunny appeal. We've been really cutting back our spending on just about everything non-essential, but whatever we go short on this winter, it won't likely be meat or eggs. Not much left in the garden now, just some leeks and the perennial Egyptian onions. We didn't get much planted this spring due to opening the antiques shop (which is limping along, but is fortunately supplemented by sales on Ebay.) Well, that about sums it up here. Hope everyone is having a good autumn and that winter stays away for awhile yet.

Hi Dennis! Finally the leaves are off the peach, but the white nectarine and apples still have leaves as does one plum. It is now December and we still have 50-60 degree days. It is dark here by 4:30pm. I miss the sunlight so much. My leaves have been raked under the trees, mulch as been back for quite a while. I cannot wait for February to try my new Felco loppers! I have many, many buds on the peach tree for next year. The peach and nectarine seem to grow the fastest. I will take pictures in the spring. I am starting to organize my spray schedule for spring, as it seems so complicated. My peach is now ready for winter, but I am not! Mrs. G

I just wrote a nice detailed and lenghty (of course!) post and it was lost. Trying again. YG is 100% correct. You have to have all shrubs on hands AND find out where the sprinkler line is before planting you anchor tree. I had so many disappointments when perfect thoroughly thought plan was ruined by some unexpected ledge or huge rock laying just under 2-3" of top soil. Yes, I was talking about this particular bed. As soon as you finish planting your deck's bed (next week, next month or next year) you'll realize that this(ES) bed look skimpy and need to be increased to watch the bed on another side of the stairs(deck's bed). That will involve major reshuffling and not necessary will be to the benefits of the plants' well being. The younger the shrubs the easier this job could be done. Again, as I said before, I'd rather see white blooming SM-tree surrounded/offsetted by the blue ESs than a white-white combo of Annabelle+SM. Matter of taste of course, since culturaly ES and Annabelle are fairly identical. Also, don't forget that by the time SM will be in full bloom your Annabelle will be or soon will be in a green stage and that may create somewhat clashing effect, I think. So, I'm suggesting to use 2-3 ES on a sides/around SM and to separate your pair of Annabelles and move the right one to the far right end of the railing where the entrance is. In this order: A-ES-SM-ES-A. There is a possibility that A will eventualy outgrow ES (or maybe not), but at least give a thought to this idea. Maybe just remove one of the A (or both) and plant it(them) in a bed currently occupied by ESs. Re: BBillow. '... isn't Blue Billow supposed to require much shade and not a drop of noon and afternoon sun at all? ' Absolutely unsubstantiated notion. If ES doing good there, BB will do good as well. One thing is for sure, I wouldn't be looking for place for BB in a deck's bed for one and simple reason, you don't want to waste 40-50 days in a height of the summer for its 'ugly duckling' period. Good luck, G

It look very good, indeed and could be left as is, but my 'always could be better' mind telling me that, -curve from the 'flowers portion' of the bed to peninsula should be softened and be similar to what you have in 'Annabele portion' to peninsula connection. It will still make your SM standing at the tip of the peninsula, but will make the whole bed more uniform and tied together, - the 'flower portion' shouldn't go at the angle straight from the steps, but rather should go out perpendicular to them and then make a soft 90 degree turn exactly as it is done on an opposite side. re: trunk is not idealy vertical. If all previous suggestions was only IMO and simply reflected my own taste and preferences, in this case I don't think you have another choice as to replant it correctly AND stake it for at least 1 full year (preferably for two winters). Your site is sloping down and some soil erosion will happen no matter what in a next one-two years. You don't want to deal with a leaning back [and much larger] tree in such conditions.