The pond in November.

I can't believe November is half over already.  We've been having lots of wind and rain the last few days, so beside going out to take pictures there's not much I can get done in the garden.  It looks like it will cool down this weekend, but I'm not sure it'll be cold enough for a frost still and the chance of snow seems to be diminishing too.  Still, it definitely feels like winter is here.
The pond seems to be filling with leaves again, but I'll wait to scoop them out until the leaves are off all the trees.  The fish have been fairly active still.  I noticed recently there seem to be fish missing again.  I haven't seen signs of raccoons, so I'm wondering if the herons have been sneaking in.  The strangest thing I found while weeding a few weeks ago was a fish in the middle of the shed garden.  I have no idea how it got there, something must have dropped it.  Last winter the heron pretty much emptied our pond, I'm hoping that doesn't happen again this year.
Today while I was out I saw two hawks circling above the school behind us.  Normally we don't see a lot of hawks around here because the crows chase them away.  Maybe the hawks will scare the herons away.

 I love the fuchsia magellanica this time of year.  It is still covered in flowers and will be until after the first hard frost.

 This stake with the little pot on it is to mark where some of the bulbs I planted are.  This will hopefully prevent anyone from stepping on them as they emerge of me from digging into them again.  I got the idea to spray paint them from another blog this summer, I can't remember which one it was though.  Salvia 'Golden Delicious' is still blooming in the container.

 Here on the fence you can see the trellis I painted last week.  It really adds some nice bright color.

 I'm so excited that the Beautyberry 'Profusion' is doing so well.  It was planted last year after seeing it on many blogs.  I'm so happy to see how many berries it has in it's first year.

Speaking of spray painting things, this is another trellis I painted last week.  It could use another coat, but will have to wait until next spring.  My hope is that the Pieris will cover the light transformer boxes eventually.  I love these little purple Violas, they are one of my favorite flowers right now.

I wonder if the pond will have ice on it, or maybe even snow in December's picture.

The October pond.

Do you ever have one of those days where it feels as if a load has been lifted from you?  Today has been one of those days for me.  I'm not sure if it's that we got a big (and kinda boring) house project done (by someone else for once) or that the sun was out.  The Littlest Gardener and I were mostly stuck inside today while the workers were here but we decided to walk around the pond and see how it was looking.  The sun was shining and it even felt warm out, a perfect fall day.  I noticed more flowers reblooming that I hadn't seen the last time I was outside.  Maybe not getting everything cut back awhile ago paid off. 

 For late afternoon the lighting on the pond was so pretty.  The fish were very active today compared to the last few times I've been out.  I saw that both the Water Hawthorn and a Water Lily have buds.

 Geranium 'Rozanne' is still blooming.  It sure has lived up to it's reputation this year.  I added one more to the front yard I was so impressed.  More will definitely be planted next year.

 Japanese Anemones surprised me again this year, mostly because I keep yanking them all out.  A few sneak past me every year.  I do love these flowers, but boy do they take over an area - spreading through everything in it's path.  I don't know if I'd plant these again.

 American Beautyberry 'Profusion' has purple berries!  I planted this just about a year ago and hoped that where it was planted it would get enough sun to produce berries.  Looks like it does.

And one more shot from the other side of the pond.  I love how the Heuchera 'Marmalade' and the Japanese Blood Grass look by each other.

The forecast for the weekend looks pretty good and I'm so hoping I'll get to spend some quality time with my garden.