A warm fall day

It was absolutely lovely in the garden this morning; the fall color is still bright, as the leaves come down and sprinkle the landscape with color. But it's unusually warm, the kind of "Indian summer" day we used to have in September and October, not in mid-November. On the front steps, there was a sudden emergence of hundreds of winged insects -- they looked like ants and I'll have to figure out what they were. In any case, it's not the time of the year to be hatching!

I did my favorite program this morning for a garden club in a nearby city (this permutation was Gardening for Nature). Actually the location was in a semirural area west of town. In what used to be rolling farm fields, subdivisions and shopping areas have popped up and lakeside houses now dot the nearby shore of Lake Hartwell. They were a great group, amazingly energetic with their outreach and volunteer activities. It was not only gardening and planting activities that they were involved with, but also community action projects. They mentioned a local hospital that's created a garden area that patients receiving chemo could look at through the expansive windows. What a lovely thing -- when my mom was in extensive rehab, the ability to go outdoors, and visit in the courtyard garden at the hospital was so significant to both of us, but probably to me most.