Early Winter- Changing Seasons, Changing Looks

Weeping Redbud 11/11/19

Seems like we have entered an early winter at this point, last night we got 2.50" of snow and today it has not gotten much over 20.F, which is more of what I would expect in January instead of early November. Recently and still continuing the leaves are falling off reveling a new side of the garden that hasn't been seen since last winter. I am really learning to appreciate the unique look that some plants have when their leaves fall off. The example is this Weeping Redbud, when its holding its leaves it looks very big, bulky and bold. then the leaves fell off all at once last week and this plant changed drastically and now looks fine, slim and delicate. Structure like this becomes very important in winter when green and flowers disappear. Some example of structure is anything you can see in winter such as evergreens, art, fences, trees and shrubs. Take away the grasses and trees in the above image and this little corner of the garden would look disappointing, instead its beautiful in its own way.

Rusty T Rex 11/11/19

Here is a good example of how things can change drastically. Rusty the T-Rex had some eye-work done this summer past summer with some inspiration from another blog I found called Pauls Prehistoric Pals and the amazing painting work he does with his dinos. I decided I wanted to try what I found there on my own collection. Rusty was my first attempt. The original manufacture that made him had the eyes light blue with no pupils, which provided a rather very dull- lifeless look. I went ahead changed them to fiery orange with a nice black line-shaped pupil. The fierceness and character it added is remarkable, take a look at the transformation below. Since I had success here, I painted/changes two other Dinosaurs I have.

Before

After

 

New Dino Addtion & Early Snowfalls

Rhett the Raptor 11/4/19

My gardens got a new dino addition this week. This came out of an long anticipated order I put in back in July. Getting it home proved to be a rather interesting experience for me in my car as it is 5' tall and far bigger then I thought it was going to be. I hand painted the red part as well as the eyes, the factory color choice for the eyes was too dull for me and I wanted them to be brighter and have a center. I added the red part because I actually have this same sculpture but smaller in another part of my yard and I wanted to differentiate a bit. I like to provide names I'm settling on a name of Rhett the Raptor. Rhett is now the second largest sculpture I have just below Little Lucky.

Snowfall 10/29/19

Seems like we've been getting quite a few snowfalls lately, tonight ( Nov 6th ) we are getting our 3rd one in a row after two snowfalls including this one pictured before Halloween. The biggest snowfall was an inch but because snowfalls this early are rather rare it smashed a Des Moines record for that day in October. It's also been far colder then it should causing the tree leaves turn sort of brownish but still clinging to the trees so I have not been able to do fall mulching of the leaves just yet. Next week is supposed to be even colder some 30 degrees from where it should. Hopefully this isn't a sign of the winter-to-come.