What a difference a year makes

Last fall, once the lawn in the back had been cut one final time for 2007, my husband laid out a natural stone edging to delineate the area we planned on returning to garden beds of varying types.Now, as we watch and wait to see if we will be facing a strong storm bringing us not only heavy rain but potentially damaging winds, flooding, power outages, etc., I decided to document - pre-storm - how the area looks about a year later.It was a lot of work but well worth the effort I believe. Even though I recently cleared out and significantly trimmed back summer growth to make way for cooler weather plantings, the remaining diversity of plants and the ongoing increase in activity of squirrels, birds, insects and amphibians all speak to the wisdom of abandoning large swaths to any plant monoculture.

Will Ike bring us much needed rain or pound us with wind driven walls of water? Time will tell. Forecasts seem to show Ike may potentially move east of us, hopefully sparing us the worst. It is generally agreed the most severe conditions will impact areas just to the north of where the center of the storm makes landfall. Tomorrow by this time, we ought to know what we will be facing.In the meantime, I can't quit staring at how much change has occurred in our small bit of land.