It finally switched froom warm to pretty cold in October, no great surprise there I suppose! But it was quite sudden. I was away in Belgrade and Amsterdam quite a bit and so didn’t get around to doing nearly as much gardening or house repairs as I intended. And to make matters worse the Lidl lawnmower ceased to work. It’s gone to Zagreb for repair or replacement, let’s see what happens! But tragically it means my grass is growing long again!
Oh well here we go with the photos, apologies for the lack of catpix!
Aren’t those autumn colours magnificent?The Smoke Tree aka Cotinus Coggygria!!! is smoking! A deep dark purple during the summer it’s developed an autumnal reddish tinge, beetrootifull!The Indian Banana plant is finally looking a bit like it has bananas!This young tree seemd to be on its last legs last year, all the original growth died off but I could see some new shoots coming! And well look at them go! It’s an Japanese Acer of some type, I believe, better get my Plant App on to it before these bits die off!This year our hornets were resident in the holes in the big apple tree situated between the two houses , almost! They have all gone now, it being way too cold for them. But what I’m wondering is what or who went into the tree holes, dug out the remains of their nest and then unceremoniously dumped it on the floor at the base of the tree! Suggestions please.Karlovac old town centre has been undergoing some majour rebuilding, refurbishment and the like for a couple of years now, thanx to the EU. This building which looks like it is literally cracking apart has an impressive steel structure holding it together, I wonder what they’ll do with it?Ths bug’s cacoon might be nature’s way of telling me I’m not using my outdoor brush often enough!It’s almost a picture of purfect harmony. Funny thing is that its normal for Sid to suddenly decide that such intimate proxiity is not to his liking and he’ll lash out at his little brother for no reason. Terrible behaviour I could never imagine ever having done!I grabbed the chance to get out in the October sun and try some wasp (and other bugs) deterrence. There are plenty of gaps in the wooden house oak walls that wasps fly in through. This mixture of PVA (wood glue), water and sawdust once hardened and painted makes an effective filler for such gaps hopefully resulting in the wasps going elsewhere next year!Above is a section of wooden house gaps that I filled with the glue and sawdust combination and then painted over a few years ago, worked a treat.Sid n Nancy both immediately took to sleeping in the old clothes lined plastic food crates I left outside my door for them. Now with the onset of wet and cold weather I upgraded one with a roof. I guess I better do one for Nnancy too!I finally gave in and went to the doctors to see if something could be done about my sniffing and cough. They are separate issues , the sniffing being due to my dust mite allergy, I believe! The cough, I’m not so sure about but its been lingering for far too long now! I came home with a bunch of pills and a nose spray that has proved very effective. However before I could take any medication my dearest insisted on reading the entire leaflets that came with each drug. After much tutting, sucking of teeth and shaking of her head I was given the short (?) version of all the possible sideffects I might look forward to and then told to set my alarm and take them at pecisely the same time each day. Yes Ma’am.Pesky Nancy kept jumping up on me whilst I was cutting up sticks for future fire kindling. This was the rather disconcerting result of my trying to capture the scene on film (?).
