To Everything There Is A Season. A time For Every Purpose Under Heaven Ecclesiastes 3:1

As With Age, There Is No Holding Back, 

Natures Swing Into The Next Season.

View of out back in the wild area.  Stormy skies vie for position with the Fall
Sun showing less and less.  Typical weather for Wisconsin Fall, gloomy, rainy days
with Sun peeking out on days in between.  Melancholy moments, remembering the
hot, sunny days of summer with bursts of new flowers every day also peek in
to my mind but I gently brush them away with busyness, consisting of a new
colorful quilt, reading a novel that makes me waist a whole day needing to
reach the end.  Writing and researching my novel I am trying to write.
Trips to the library to stock up on another week of reading material.
Stops at the florist shop to see what their genius minds have thought up,
 their displays, luring us in to spend money on their delightful ways of
making me smile.  

        

      The gardens are bare of buds and bloom.  Picture is an open view of what was hidden throughout the summer.  The chicken coop lies open and ready to give chickens shelter from the cold, the many days of rain and perhaps the above flying hawk looking for a meal.
Two white outer shelters in the pen  give a quick refuge for the chickens from danger along with a large weeping pine that hugs the earth with its confining branches.

   

 Each morning the chickens are fed, given fresh water and the door of the large 10ft x 15ft. coop is opened, giving them freedom for the day. ......... But much to their dismay, the outside pen's door is firmly closed and will be all of winter.  No more free range eggs, but sunflower seeds are thrown in the pen, the chickens eating them, passing omega 3 into their eggs and we happily consume these luscious eggs every morning before we start our winter's day.
      Leaves are brought into their outside pen 8 inches deep and spread on their ground for scratching. A fresh green hay bale  placed in the coop is giving the hens something to peck at.  Scurrying around the bale also gets them away from a hen pecking sister. Their white shelters outside, get a loose layer of hay  for protection of the Sharp Northern winds and rains if they choose to stay out in the fresh cold air.

Chickens are in their prime colors after molting their summer feathers, growing again
a warmer layer of feathers for the frigged cold winter ahead.

The group of hens now confined to the large outside pen, instead of free ranging
the 27 acres we own, they are gather under the weeping pine.  A safe haven from the large
hawk that swoops in capturing anything that is silly enough to be out in the open.
With the leaves now all down from the surrounding trees there is little shelter from the hawks
 sharp prongs.Tthe leaves provide insects, and worms a place to hide with the chickens as the predator.

Luke is confined in the house often himself along with me, gazing out at the rain
coming down in its drizzle many more days than not.

Leaves of all sorts and color cover most surfaces even with Dick using his leaf blower and Big lawn tractor  to rid them on the few sunny and warm days.  Brisk winds blow them from one way and the next, again to cover the cleaned areas.  Most will be collected and put in the gardens or the chicken coop.

Leaves from the Purple Plum Ash tree covering our whole deck.

     We also get 7 truck loads from the city's collection centers brought out here, to be piled up and left for the following season of spring to use mulching the gardens and shrubs in the more formal areas.  Most areas are either natural landscaping, a somewhat planted area using shrubs, trees and bushes made to look natural.  Wild flowers are in abundance, with graces of weeds, small and tall trees sprinkle the area.  We mow lawn only on paths or areas we need to work on.  Very small stretches of grass hold any width in the upper gardens between the three perennial gardens, enough for small gatherings of company.  

Purple Plum Ash tree the day after the Fierce North winds stripped it naked of leaves.

Purple Plum Ash tree colors with the lovely russet-reds and underneath
a lovely yellow underskirt of leaves before the storm.

The tiny bouquet is the last of the flowers in the gardens.  I had to look
long and hard to find even them.  They survived two hard frost that knocked
nature to her knees, releasing the leaves and drooping anything strong enough
to have survived the frosts before that.  It is time and we did have a beautiful
warm fall.  November 1st is only three days away.  The quilted table covering
Is one I made a couple years ago.
I have a Poppy wall hanging I want to do this winter.  It is quite large so will
probably take longer to get done.  It will fill those below zero days ahead and make
the winter go as fast as the past summer flue by.  Mom always said, " A busy mind
is a happy mind."

Many of my pictures will be take from the window.  My walk abouts will be more quick to beat the chill.  Once it gets to 32 degrees I have to wear a special cold weather mask which is an irritation to my being, but it keeps me alive, seeing I have Asthma  allowing me to enjoy winter weather outside instead of looking out from the window.  Most all trees and bushes have shed their leaves.  The burning bush which is usually a bright red is a blushing pink because of the shade.  It carries lovely red dainty berries and holds on to them most the winter.  The seedlings from the year before get ate by the hungry deer, so I do not have to worry about it spreading all over the acrage. 

Up close this picture shows the lovely berries.  They are hard as a button, and not
interesting to the birds.  I am able to enjoy their cheery color throughout the winter.

This lonely petunia had braved a harsh living .  The seed from a year ago's flower pot sitting in this space, produced this little plant.  It struggled all summer, just missed being swept off the tiny edge between the foundation and the stepping stones in front of it. Knowing it was a seedling from a petunia I decided to let it grow. Curious to see what color it would be.  Just the other day, it finely popped open the lovely deep purplish-blue colored bloom.  I am going to enlarge this picture to remind me how easy a life I have and what struggles that might come my way are livable, through the Grace of my loving God.

Under the picture will be the saying,

                                                        

                                                      "The color, the texture, which You have brought into my being,                                                               have become a Song and I want to sing it forever! 

                                  Praise You My Jesus.  

May love and blessings come your way each day in surprises you never thought could happen.

Kate