Autumn garden -

Life drawing started up again today. So typically Fridays will be Life Drawing posts. Except that I didn't go today (luckily I have a fabulous assistant who ran things in my absence) since I had been up all night keeping my husband company in the ER with his latest kidney-stone attack. It's all over - everything's good, we're just both just suffering the after-effects of multiple hours spent at the hospital (in my case, in a hard folding chair in a chilly room). So, no life drawing. No art of any kind really today since I don't seem to be able to really focus my eyes... :-)

So instead, here's a report of impending ripeness in the yard:

One of my newer bushes, an aronia, or flaming chokeberry (as the autumn foliage gets gorgeously red-magenta), is covered with clusters of near-black, ripe berries. They are fairly bland to eat right off the bush but are supposed to be uber-high in antioxidants. So now to find other ways to use (I hear juice/jellies/breads are good?)

I also have a pretty good crop of Sea Buckthorn berries this year. *Very* tart eaten raw (almost impossible to eat actually), but also supposedly super high in Vitamin C and other nutrients. And sweetened, it tastes somewhat like passion-fruit, which I love. It's just a little precarious to pick because of the woody, thorny branches... Extreme-sport fruit harvesting!

This will also be my first year that my Hardy Kiwi vine will produce. These are 'baby' kiwis, about the size of grapes, thin skinned and sweeter than their larger, more common counterparts.

It is also the first productive year for my tiny dwarf Italian (prune) plums, my favorite plums to eat, dry, roast and turn into tarts. Tasty purple goodness!

And another first with this year's small, but yet substantial columnar apple crop. I'm all about the space efficient trees! I have 5 of these (three different varieties) growing along my deck. They only need to be planted about a foot apart from each other.

And even though I don't eat (or drink) them, the hops are blooming. Beyond their commonly known beer brewing usage, the flowers are also used in a number of herbal applications - the most common ones being related to sleep and their sedative qualities (a fabulous inclusion in a sleep pillow).

Sleep... sleep sounds good. Here's hoping for more luck with getting some tonight...