From our own beloved ace photographer Ozark Hillbilly:
Top photo: Looking up and seeing all the colors is one of the many memories I hope to take with me into whatever follows this life.
It’s not much, but it’s all ours and we love it here.
From My Front Porch: I will sit out here for hours at a time and watch the light change.
This season’s colors were spectacular.
I have a plethora of dogwoods on our property, and they please my eye in both spring and fall.
This sapling has grown alongside my drive, I should cut it down, somebody will, but I can’t. It has grown in an inhospitable location and I can’t help but admire its tenacity and let it live.
Sometimes, beauty lies at our feet.
If I could be so fortunate as to die with this last light fading before my eyes…
***********
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
MagdaInBlack
I think you live in my dream home, Ozark. ❤️
WereBear
Living in a beautiful spot is worth a lot of Putting-Up_With!
Consumer alert: Woke up this morning to find I have had my epaulets torn off like something from the old Branded TV show. The Established Titles thing is a scam, for some reason it was all over Youtube this morning.
Since I never got my stuff, and it was all a joke to help the trees anyway — which is what I thought the spirit was — I filed a dispute and we’ll see what happens next.
If they had just sent the certificate… but it’s been over a month. They may be ready to pack up their bags and leave town…
JPL
Beautiful. Every season you send in pictures of your abode that delight me, but the fall ones are a favorite of mine.
raven
Awesome Dawg! The Kudzu has died so our yard is very different since we can see through to the “creek”. On our beach trip I asked the garden girl about her plans for the upcoming year and she said she was going to cut back to a more manageable garden. We’re considering a mowing service because it’s increasingly difficult for me to to it what with the slope I have to navigate.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
Good morning! 🙏
Jeffg166
Like the wildness.
I am into letting the garden do pretty much what it will do. After years of trying to direct it reality set in. Now I try to edit it rather than direct it. Makes my life easier.
WereBear
@raven: What happened? Is this science fiction? KUDZU?
WereBear
@Jeffg166: While I still love gardening, living in the wilderness as I do lets me scratch that itch. I can hike through awesome stuff and get even more of what I used to garden FOR.
OzarkHillbilly
My daughter-in-law ran a race yesterday (she did the 5 mi run) and I went to see her do it, or at least the beginning and the end. I blew it, or at least the beginning. I badly miscalculated how long it would take me (a detour off hwy 94 didn’t help) and got there 45 mins after the 9 am start time. By the time I got to the finish line, there were a # of runners already crossing. That made me paranoid that somehow I might have missed her run entirely. A quick search turned up no E so I went back the finish line and just hoped I hadn’t blown it entirely.
20 mins or so later, here she comes. “Whew.”
Turned out she had “eaten it” at about the 3.5 m mark, and had had to walk for the next 1/4 m before she knew she was still able to run. Also, as she had said, “You needn’t have worried, I’m slow.”
All in all, it was a cold and breezy but beautiful day for a race, and the St Charles County park it was held in was a new find for me, one with lots of fishing opportunities. ;-)
As we waited for her running partner to come in (S was making the 10 mi run) E mentioned that she had told S how excited she was that somebody was coming to watch her run. She said, “Nobody* comes to watch my races. Neither of my parents have ever come to one.”
I had been wanting to watch her compete** for some time, I mean, she does triathlons. Who wouldn’t want to watch their daughter do that? My wife and I drove halfway across the continent to see my son climb Devil’s Tower. It’s not a hard climb, in fact it’s one of the easier ones in the US. I had always wanted to do it myself and just never made it happen. I wanted to see my son accomplish a thing I never had and I did.
The most important part of being a parent/grandparent is just showing up and I am befuddled by those who can’t be bothered. Maybe they just think it doesn’t matter once their children become adults. Anyway, hearing E say that made me a little bit sad.
* “Nobody” is my son and her daughters who have been to a # of them
** She competes with herself, just checking to see if she still has it in her.
Steeplejack
@WereBear:
“Kudzu barada nikto.”
Raven
@WereBear: Kudzu dies when there is a hard freeze. It’s crazy stuff, it completely covers anywhere we don’t mow with thick vines and leaves.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: We’ve got a patch of what I have come to accept is kudzu down by the Pea Ridge mine. It’s the only patch I ever come across in the Ozarks. I just hope it never makes the trip up to our property
Heh, I tell myself the same thing every year.
Same here. I like wildflowers, no muss no fuss.
LiminalOwl
@rikyrah: Good morning!
BretH
Reaching the point where there’s more behind me than ahead I found this post lovely and reassuring. I too hope to see beauty right up until my eyes close for the last time. My wife and I are planning as best we can of our next homestead, and aging-in-place is a big part of what we’re thinking about, so we can sit on the porch late in our lives and appreciate the beauty all around us.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: Because some people only see others as ornaments. People who belive they are the Christmas tree others get to hang themselves on.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Ozark, you live in a beautiful place.
Narya
@OzarkHillbilly: my parents spent a ton of time going to my nephews’ various sporting events, and I see how it deepens their relationship even years later.
ETA your place is beautiful!!
Narya
@WereBear: can you explain a little more, please? I didn’t know what that meant.
satby
Always beautiful pictures of your peaceful corner of the world OH!
@Jeffg166: @OzarkHillbilly: “edit rather than direct it” is where I am too after years of planting perennials and shrubs and a few trees here. I have most things placed where I hope they do well, so now I want to nurture and maintain what’s here. Besides, I’m running out of room on this city lot.
Changes coming. My sister’s memorial is next weekend and it’s a constant reminder that life is short, even without a ultimately fatal disease making it shorter.
My Etsy store is closing as of Jan 1, after nine years and lots of jackal support. Please, if you’re interested in anything email me at my store email skinluvvers (at) g mail dot com because I can charge a bit less directly. But I quit restocking because I intend to road trip most of January into February, so I’m running out fast. I’ve really appreciated everyone’s support so much and so has our little rescue group.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly: Awesome colors. Thanks for sharing. Hope your daughter-in-law just hit the wall during her race and not something more serious.
OzarkHillbilly
I got my Baker Creek catalogue yesterday. Put a great big smile on my face.
OzarkHillbilly
@mrmoshpotato: She took a tumble, banged up her knee some, wasn’t sure at first but eventually was able to continue running. I’m sure she will feel it this AM but icing it is probably all she’ll need.
WereBear
@Raven: It shows how rare a hard freeze is down there.
WereBear
@WereBear: I got a joke title for Mr WereBear from a place that promised tree conservation, and they apparently do the tree conservation. And my feed exploded with scammy allegations and since they never sent me the joke title, from Established Titles, but it’s kind a scam and since they are preparing to leave that might be why they didn’t even deliver product!
It was for the trees. It’s like those “name a star things.”
JPL
@raven: I hired someone in the spring, and I don’t regret it at all. Fall clean-up was a breeze.
satby
@JPL: Agree. Plus, the young guy I got this year can finish the entire yard in way less than half the time I can, because I keep getting distracted by “just doing this one thing while I’m out here”.
Lapassionara
Beautiful photos. Dogwoods are my favorite tree. It is difficult to get a native dogwood from a nursery. Mostly, they sell a hybrid dogwood that is not as lovely as the native ones. Thanks for posting.
WereBear
@Lapassionara: That’s what Mr WereBear really misses from Maryland, those native dogwoods. We do have the red twigged kind, which are lovely in the snow.
delphinium
What a lovely spot-the views are beautiful! And I like that you are letting that little sapling keep growing by your drive.
kalakal
What a lovely place to live. I can see why you like to sit on the porch. Thanks for the photos
cope
Sweet pictures, thanks, OH. I hope to have views from a peaceful, inspiring home in a few weeks as we are in the process of selling our Florida home and moving back to Colorado where, TA DA…xeriscape!
We have had to hire a weekly yard service, a nasty yard chemical company and a weekly pool service to keep this place in HOA compliance. The new place (we close 12/15): no lawn, no pool, no HOA but lots of rocks and gravel and views, views, views. Six months ago, the thought of making such a move didn’t even exist in my seventy-mumble year old brain and now, it’s going to happen. That we’ll be close to all my family is especially comforting.
Our daughter and her family have already made the move out of Florida but up to the North East. Their move helped crystallize our decision to leave this state after 33 years. The way I figure it, though, what we save with our new, lower cost lifestyle will easily pay to fly the grandkids and, heck, maybe even their parents out once or twice a year for long visits.
WereBear
@cope: That sounds wonderful. I’m so pleased Colorado is turning bluer all the time.
Kristine
What a beautiful place to call home. Thank you for the photos.
We’ve already had hard freezes here in NE Illinois. The leaves have been down for weeks, and I’ve set out Gaby’s heated water dish as well as a birdbath w/ added heater. Spiral lighted Christmas tree in the front yard planter, wreathes on the gates, and red and green bulbs in the garage lights. I’ve brought the mini roses and gerbera daisies indoors for the season. I’ll have to set up a lighted area for them in the basement because I’m having work done in the kitchen/dining area, which is the only spot in the house with southern exposure.
Albatrossity
You live in a lovely place. Thanks for sharing it with us!
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: You live in paradise, Ozark. You couldn’t ask for more beautiful surroundings. Thanks so much for sharing it with us.
WaterGirl
This year is the earliest we have ever gotten what feels like winter in November. The ground is frozen and trying to put mulch down is crazy; even the bags of mulch are frozen!
oldgold
My Mom, a/k/a The Mother Lode, was mowing the old claim at 90. And, pushing it with a reel mower with blades last sharpened during the Eisenhower administration.
Her concerned neighbors starting calling me. “OG, you have to put a stop to this!”
Given Mom’s nature, I knew my chances of getting the grass to stop growing were better than my chances of getting her to hire someone to mow it. Even though, financial resources were not her problem.
I tried. “NYET!” When Meredith Wilson wrote “Iowa Stubborn” for the musical “The Music Man” he had the Mother Lode in mind.
“We can stand touchin’ noses
For a week at a time
And never see eye-to-eye.”
The neighbors concerned calls kept coming and grew more urgent.
Finally, I drove across the state to see her and enter into negotiations that I knew would be more complex than the Israeli / Palestinian Peace talks and just as likely to succeed.
The negotiations ensued. I was routed. In the end, she reluctantly agreed to let me pay for her lawn service. Ha!
As I left, “OG, next you will want my driver’s license!” That battle looms over the horizon. I wonder what a chauffeur costs.
Leslie
What a lovely spot. Thanks for sharing it.
OzarkHillbilly
@cope: Congrats, too bad your daughter and grandkids will be so far away. I really miss my NOLA son and being a larger part of his daughter’s lives.
OzarkHillbilly
Heh. Thanx for the smile.
Jackie
@oldgold: Never got my Dad to stop mowing. He used an electric mower and it’d take him a week to get the entire yard done, then rest a day and start over lol. It was his exercise. He broke his 2nd hip at 95 and turned the mowing over to the grandson. That’s when he stopped driving – involuntarily, and insisted on keeping his car tags and insurance current. He tried renewing his driver’s license at 96. The DMV took one look at him with his walker and refused to renew until he passed a driving test. He was PISSED!
He passed at 99.5 yrs and I still miss his stubborn self.
munira
Lovely – reminds me of my cabin in the woods when I lived in Quebec. A beautiful life you have there.
Miss Bianca
@WereBear: yeah, even out on the western slope where cope is going to be!
Me, I’m happy more jackals seem to be picking up and moving here.
StringOnAStick
@cope: You are moving to where I was born and raised; it wasn’t until I moved to Fort Collins that I realised what a gorgeous setting G Jct is in, all the redrock desert, the Grand Mess and the Bookcliffs; all different and all beautiful.
StringOnAStick
Ozark, I love how you are letting nature be to provide the beauty; native landscaping is gorgeous if people are willing to see the world a bit differently! Dogwoods are pretty all year.
Aging in place is why we moved here to a one story house, and my big landscaping changes here were/are to (1) eliminate all lawn, (2) create raised beds with good drainage to support natives and xeriscape plants, and (3) give us something pretty to look at from the porch. That it takes at a maximum 1/10 the water that the lawn did is something I’m proud of; I hope that it will encourage others in this street of too much grass to do the same, just like it did when I transformed our yard at our prior home in CO.
pieceofpeace
I envy your living there amidst such nourishing beauty. I’ve turned my suburban front yard into a forest, which I’d rather view than the houses, plus little work and even less water to maintain.
And agree 100% how important it is to support family members physically when possible, even in small ways. Attending every event for my granddaughter, who gives a smiling wave with a small jump of happy, when she spots me. Being 8 yo recently with two months prior to my turning 80, she enriches my life as much, too, probably more.
cope
@StringOnAStick: And a little scenic driving can get you to the San Juans or the top of Grand Mesa or the Black Canyon of The Gunnison or Dinosaur National Monument or Unaweep Canyon or one can brave the crowds and go to Arches or Dead Horse Point or a thousand other treasures. Can’t wait.
cope
@StringOnAStick: My family moved there over fifty years ago. I was the only one stupid enough to leave.
sab
@Jackie: Sounds like my mom at 82. She hit a train at a crossing because her foot slipped off the brake. She only survived because some guys in the pickup behind her rushed to the rescue.
And then she was heartbroken that she couldn’t keep her driver’s license. It was her symbol of independence, but a suicidal and homicidal symbol.