Some mornings of late have felt Fall-ish...there is a chill in the air, along with the scent of dead leaves. It always comes as a bit of a surprise when Fall arrives, especially this year. I still haven't had a summer vacation! I am not ready for Winter yet, but as is typical, I am ready for the garden to be finished.
Things grew like crazy this year (except for weeds - I had very few in my garden this year), although the blueberries were sparse. This week I processed 4 pounds of rhubarb, and I made 2 pounds of tomatoes into Gazpacho (which no one except myself cared for.) I still have a big bag of jalapenos and cucumbers to deal with.
I also pulled the carrots and beets.
So I have those to deal with as well.
The pumpkins are ripening up...and taking over the top of my garden!
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| As of 3 weeks ago, I had 3 of them weighing over 30# each! |
L and I have been doing battle with the invasive and very nasty lanternflies. We took an extension cord and the shop vac down to 2 trees at the edge of our woods that have been covered for two days in a row. We sucked up hundreds of the little buggers into the vac full of soapy water. As of yesterday, there are a few lanternflies remaining on the trees, but just a fraction of what there had been.
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| Carnage! 2 piles of lanternfly bodies. |
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| Extreme Close Up |
Speaking of insects, I noticed this lady on the back veranda. When I got down on my knees to photograph her, she slowly turned and looked at me. Isn't she amazing?
We have released the kittens from their cage, and they are now residing on the veranda, but wandering the grounds in between naps and eating. Poor Fitz injured his toe and/or pad on one back foot yesterday, so he is limping around with a swollen foot. He is getting plenty of healing rest as well.
L and I have been working in her room. She has collected many, many piles of books over the past 2 years, as gifts and discards from the library. They have been sitting all over the floor of her room for months and months because her bookshelves were full. J visited over Labor Day. JP and I helped move them and their roomie to a new apartment the end of August. They acquired a new bookshelf and wanted to take some of their books back up to the city with them. Fortunately, this freed up some room to move some children's books (that L doesn't want to be packed up and stored away) into J's old room, leaving more room for L to shelve her books!
J had organized both theirs and L's books into rainbow order, which is visually appealing, but difficult to find anything. After working at the library for 2 years, L wanted everything back in alphabetical order, so I spent a long time alphabetizing before we even began the process of shelving! Here is the end result:
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| J's bookshelf...you can see that the top 3 shelves are in rainbow order. |
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| L's shelves - alphabetized and categorized |
Last week we received a package from Costco with an ice pack included. Imagine my surprise to find that it was actually eco-friendly. Nice going, Costco!
Sadly, my parents had to euthanize their little dog yesterday. He was almost 15 years old, and had been in failing health for awhile. There is another small grave under the oak tree in the Pet Cemetery now for Throckmorten P. Gildersleeves, Morti for short.
