What do October showers bring?

October showers apparently bring hail. This:

Turned into this:

Yes, it's sunny and hailing and raining.

After being pummeled for several minutes, my plants were left with their first white dusting of the season.

October Floral

It's been a while since I posted any photos of flowers so I thought I would share my new favorite, Ornamental Oregano. We've had an unseasonably warm October so far (it was 75 degrees yesterday), so some of the flowers on my deck are still going strong.

Ornamental Oregano, Origanum rotundifolium, also known as Kent Beauty, has no taste and is not grown for culinary use. Kent Beauty is native to Turkey, Armenia and Republic of Georgia and is a hydrid ornamental oregano of Origanum rotundifolium x Origanum scabrum.

Kent Beauty does best in full sun and it prefers to be in dry soil between thorough waterings. It has bushy, pale green and mauve bracts that are long-lasting in the garden and as a cut flower. Kent Beauty needs to be pruned closely back after its summer bloom, and it is best to protect it from excessive winter moisture.

Food for Thought

My manager read this poem in our company meeting the other day which made me like her even more as a boss 'cause who reads poems out loud at work? - She does. I find that super awesome and ballsy. I'm part of a new division at our company which she heads and this was her way of introducing her philosophy to the team.

The Calf-Path
by Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911)

One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bellwethers always do.

And from that day, o’er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made,
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed — do not laugh —
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again.
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.




The years passed on in swiftness fleet.
The road became a village street,
And this, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare,
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed that zigzag calf about,
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They follow still his crooked way,
And lose one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.