well praise the weather goddess!! Tennessee (at least Eastern Tennessee
is getting rain, and I mean it's nicely pouring, thank you very much.
the cold front will move in later tonight, there are chances of snow
flurries for the upper elevations, and lows tomorrow night will be cold
enough to make the bulbs think it's finally fall slipping into winter. I
will get out after the rains tomorrow and rake at the loose soils and
unearth bulbs that I want to keep. I may even dig up hellebore and pot
them up as well......a friend has decided not to charge me to water pots
that I might decide to store at her place when I am displaced. it smacks
of a double edge but I've let it go. I did get the reluctant hardy
cyclamen to come up, and it's blooming onwards. Good thing I read
somewhere's that it likes to be buried shallow. Another consideration
will be to dig up the Loripedilum against the west chain link and pot
her up with rich black soils. The yellow pom pom buddleia survived the
total whacking back from late August and has little leaves at the cut
stalks near the base.

I haven't checked the stubbs of the "Crispa" spirea, but if I see signs
of wick, I will dig the stubbs up and put the roots into a pot and whack
the other one back and dig it up as well. There is a Harry Lauder's
Walking stick (aka twisted Filbert tree) that I might dig up, and those
tree peonies need digging. I might wait until next week when the
temperatures go back up to the upper 50's or lower 60's though. My head
and heart are still aching with the up and coming loss of my beloved
Faerie Holler, but each day brings about more realizations that I have
to let things go.

I have several issues of Garden Gate as well as good issues of Organic
Gardening when Mike McGrath was the editor that I am considering not
keeping but donating to the local library instead of the space the boxes
would take up. The hardest part right now is when I excavate the bulbs
and see little roots on the butts and realize that there are hundreds of
spring surprises that I will miss next season. oh well......and the
crocus are already making leaves for next springtime.

My Aunt told me the story about my mama's solid cherry corner cupboard
that I have in my bedroom that I knew I might not be able to keep and
now it makes it even harder to let go. My daddy had a woodmaking friend
make it for my mom's dining room for her antique's and pots that she was
collecting in those days. It's six or seven foot tall, the shelves of
it are over an inch of solid cherry, and it has two sets of magnetic
doors....the craftsmanship on it is very apparent, with the deeply cut
doors showing the quality and solid wood that it is made of. It would
have been a family heirloom. I haven't yet decided to sell it, but it's
large and bulky.....sigh..........my dad made mom the solid maple sugar
chest for her quilts, so that's a given that I keep that. But the other
will be a hard decision. And I've still not packed the nook completely
yet. The little fairies that I have perched on shelves, the other little
treasures.....the rest of the gardening books. Then bundle and wrap the
2000 vinyl albums. I just want to go outside in the rain underneath the
large umbrella and listen to the little peepers that are singing softly
with joy instead of thinking of the losses.

The colors here on the hardwood trees are absolutely incredible despite
the harshness of the drought. The intensity and diversity was a feast
for my eyes today as the overcast day was perfectly lit. and then as a
bit of sunshine slipped in, an absolutely huge rainbow before the rest
of the clouds moved in for serious moisture. what is really wonderful is
the deepness of the oaks, the summac's, the dogwoods that aren't
scorched, the maples. And yes, that IS thunder!!! (in November??
yeppers)BOOMERS!!!!

I will see what bulbs I can reveal over the days ahead and then if I
find enough, will see about possibilities of sharing with a few friends
if I have time between looking for jobs and searching for a cheap place
to live. Another gardening project is to combine as many cacti into
large pots together to minimize the amount of pots. I grieve to think I
might lose "Brenda" the huge cerius cactus that I've had now for well
over 21 years and who bloomed her last second flush blossom inside the
den for the first time ever. Thanks for being there friends. I will
keep in touch.

madgardener, quietly still up on the ridge for now, back in Faerie
Holler, overlooking a foggy, hazy, misty English Mountain in Eastern
Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36