Hanging Out

A better place to do it than the mall ...

G and her friend Em with Starlight, Eadie, Crescent, Clover and Honeysuckle

Don't Let the Rain Come Down

Ah, the romance of living in a 100-plus-year-old farmhouse!

Point of egress, directly over our bed, for the rain water coming in through the leak in our roof. Forecast calls for rain on and off for the next few days. Let's hope Jesus the Roofer answers his voicemail.(OK, actually his name is Jim, but he looks like Jesus, if He had driven a pickup and traveled to job sites with His Boxer instead of His Disciples ...)

How You Fix a Broken Jack-o-Lantern

With a Pumpkin Patch, of course!

Long, busy day. Huge pumpkin day. Lots of big groups, people who've come here year after year. Thank goodness pumpkin season falls during autumn, when it is dark by 6:30!

Here's what it looks like if you take a hayride with Dan. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) you miss all the pumpkin humor when you're not right here ...

Farmers' Market

Dan & G spent another Saturday morning at a local farmers' market. Amazingly enough, they came home with an almost-empty flatbed. Or maybe not, since a friend told us that a stand in town is selling pumpkins for $20-$40! Since none of ours are more than $5, I guess that's why they could unload them so fast.

G with the flatbed of produce

Dan chatting up a family friend

Afternoon Stroll

By late afternoon, we needed a break. We decided to walk out to the hickory trees to see if there was a nut crop. We filled two buckets for the woman who grew up on the farm and her husband. There are more out there, so we'll probably go back next weekend.

We stopped at an apple tree that's been there as long as anyone can remember. The fruit is tangy and sweet ... G says it's the best apple ever

Foraging for hickory nuts

The cows waited expectantly for us, hoping that we were planning on moving them from one pasture to another. Wonder what bovine disappointment feels like

Getting Picky

We picked the last of the apples today: Fuji, Macoun and Braeburn. Uncle Jamer was here to help us sample the just-off-the-tree produce. Consensus was that fresh really is more flavorful!



Handfuls of Fujis

Iris enjoys the windfallen ones

Last Call

In years past we've kept the pool open well into October. But not this year. Dan closed up the pool today. Before he did, G and I got one last dip in. And now, summer is officially over.

G and Maike get one more water game in this season

Open For Business

This was the first weekend of pumpkin season. Dan & G did a farmers' market and Grandpa was at a fall festival yesterday. We had people show up in the yard even though the sign wasn't up. Once we got the sign up, it was a pretty steady stream of customers, except between 12 and 3, when the Packers were on. (Side note: They won! Bonus: They beat the Vikings! Trifecta: They are at the top of their division with 4-0! Cherry on top: Favre surpassed Marino's touchdown pass record!) It was a good start ... let's hope for three more like it.

Maike and our porch display

Victoire and Cocoa check things out

Pumpkin patch from the cow pasture

It's All About Timing

When the high school girls have a home swim meet, G has been going to be a timer. She's been having a good time. Tonight some of the older girls she swims with went up against some older girls who attended her school. We didn't get the final scores before we left. Just as well ... she just wanted everyone to do well.

On Lane 1 this week

Night Visitor

Between 1:20 and 3:00 a.m. there was quite a commotion outside our bedroom window. A Great Horned Owl was hoo-hoo-hooing up a storm. At first we thought it had a chicken, because there was screeching as well. But the noise continued along with the hooting, so something else was going on. In researching owl .wav files online this morning, it seems that we either had an adult and a juvenile talking to each other, or a young adult who couldn't make up its mind how to vocalize. Maike and I searched around the trees for pellets or carcasses, but didn't find anything. I'm hoping it's not back tonight.

Bit O'Honey

Dan and Jamie harvested the honey from their hives this weekend (with an assist from G and Becca). It was an interesting experience for all concerned. There must be some impressive mathematical formula to illustrate the amount of time, energy and money they put into this project versus the honey yielded, but I don't know it. But whatever ... it's Darn Good Honey!

The "Bee Team": G, Dan, Jamie & Becca

Anticipation over what they will find

Brushing off bees so they can see what's there

Jamie and G work the extractor to spin honey from the combs

Checking to see what's there

Pouring honey from the extractor into a container

T-Minus Two Weeks and Counting ...

Despite G's annual Nasty Back-to-School Cold, we went and scoped out the upper pumpkin field, where the specialty cucurbits are this year. While at first glance it looks like a weed field because of all the rain, we found Jack Be Littles, pie pumpkins, birdhouse gourds, swan-neck gourds, white pumpkins, butternut squash, turk's turbans and buttercup squash. We found zero Cinderella pumpkins and no Baby Boos that weren't mush. We'll open up the fields this week in preparation for High Pumpkin Season.

There are rewards hidden in the weeds. Fortunately they are mostly velvetleaf and foxtail (which are not skin irritants), not pigweed



G with some of this morning's haul

Comfort Me With Apples

Apple picking season is finally here! The Galas and the Cortlands are just right; the other varieties we've got (Fuji, Empire, Macoun, Granny Smith, Yellow Delicious, Red Delicious and Braeburn) need a little more time. We'll have more than enough for fresh eating this year, so G and I are already dreaming of crisps and cobblers!

Galas ... spotty but delicious

Lots of Fujis to come!

These Cortlands had extremely white flesh and packed some pucker!

Dad on a Hot Tin Roof

Dan's fixing up the chicken house from the top down. I didn't know whether to watch in case he fell, or not watch in case he fell.

But in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a Fiddler on the Roof ...

Target Marketing

They know I have an 11-year-old. That I have a common Jewish surname. And maybe that I'm a sucker for anything in a slick, glossy format. The "Bar/Bat Mitzvah Party Guide" that I got in the mail today had me dreaming of the party that we could throw. Too bad I am not actually Jewish ...

And too bad G doesn't have a Hispanic surname ... maybe we could get a quinceañera planner in a few years!

First Day of Sixth Grade

Unexpected Resident

The hummingbird garden is overrun with weeds from all the rain. I was removing big stalks of lamb's-quarters when I came across this spider. I only damaged the web a little, and I'm just going to let it and the weeds be for now.

Looked to be one of Aragog's spawn (click to enlarge)

Web/spider made obvious

Dinner & Dominoes

Dan's cousin Maureen was here staying with Uncle Fred and Aunt Joan for a few days. We spent a lot of time playing Aunt Joan's favorite, Mexican train dominoes, at which Maureen was a natural. Last night Maureen made a multi-course New Mexican dinner. Everything was amazing, but my favorites were calabacitas and bizcochitos, the official state cookie.

Maureen and G making tortillas

The gang playing Mexican train dominoes. (Vanity Fair says it has replaced poker as the "in" game in Hollywood. Aunt Joan is a trendsetter!)

Off to College

This was going to be an entry about four special people. (That would be “special” in a “Mr. Rogers-says-you-are-the-only-you” way, not in the “eats-paste-and-blurts-inappropriate-comments” sense … hmmm, maybe the latter does apply to one of them …) It was going to have pictures and sentimental observations about each of them. But then I realized that would be too cringe-inducing …

So I’ll just say that as they head off to their respective college campuses this year, I don’t have quite the same lump in my throat that I have in the past few years. It is so exciting to watch their “becoming.” They help make me view my own kid’s growing out of childhood with joyfulness, instead of sadness that my Poohtie Pie is disappearing. Here's hoping my four special people have a good year!

(Identities obscured to protect the innocent)

Yes, We've Had a Bit of Rain

Thanks to everyone who's checked in to make sure we're not building an ark! It's been raining here for about two weeks, and until the other day I wasn't too concerned, because we're up on a hill. But on Wednesday we had a storm, the likes of which we haven't had in a while. It had very strong winds, and we got about 2.5 inches of rain in a 30-minute period. It's still raining, but we're hoping it ends this weekend.

The ground was so saturated and the winds so forceful that this tree came up by the roots and toppled over, blocking the driveway (but -- whew! -- missing the satellite dish!)