August - A month that ends in Destruction

 I've had fun growing these Balsam flowers this season, also called "touch me not" because the mature seed pods pop when touched. Saving seeds from the pods is interesting. The flowers can range from white to red to purple and every shade in between. Only one color per plant.

 I've decided that container gardening is the new way for me to garden. The traditional method of rotor tilling, then everything goes to weeds by mid August is not working. I've made up my mind to build raised beds in 2012 as well as doing large containers such as baskets for tomatoes.

Flowers dazzle in August! These Black-eyed Susans are so bright yellow, you almost need sunglasses!

 A new apple off an old tree. I can only guess if this is a Macintosh because these old trees were planted long before I bought this place. I've added 4 new fruit trees so within a few years, I should be selling apples.

 The few sun flowers that made it seemed stunted this year at only 3 feet tall, but the brilliant red/orange colors make up for it.

So that's the nice part about August. Nice flowers, nice apples, nice weather... Then "Irene" came through on August 28th, dumping 6 inches of rain on already water-saturated soil. Flooding was immanent.

My gardens were untouched but I lost part of my yard due to flood erosion and I will be losing more because the stream has moved about 15 feet from where it once flowed. The result is dangerous undermining of my yard.

 The stream claimed this 100 year old Black Willow tree but it could not have fallen more perfectly! It just missed the garage and slammed onto a corner of the wood pile. It also smashed an old cast iron stove to pieces that was moved outside because it was cracked and too dangerous to use any more. I'm happy because now I can easily move the broken pieces and someday bring it to a scrap metal buyer.

This is a view from the road. You can see how the stream ate away at the soil and roots of the huge willow tree. Many other small trees were lost also. One thing's for sure, tropical storm Irene left a permanent mark on this area. It was an event that I would gladly like to forget but never will.

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