Garden update!

Summer is winding down and I am ready to see it go.  While I hate cold weather (winter's snow and ice are not my thing!), I lovelovelove fall!!  I love everything about fall.  The cooler air after a long hot summer, the lower humidity (yes, thank you, Jesus!!!), pumpkins, the fair, seeing the leaves change colors, putting on a warm pair of yoga pants and a long-sleeved tee shirt, turning back the clocks and getting a little more sleep, yep, pretty much everything.  It's my favorite season.  I do love a lot about summer, too.  The beach is obviously number one in my heart and I've enjoyed my little garden, too, going out every day to see if there was a tomato or a cucumber ready and picking pepper after pepper after pepper but to me, fall just feels like the prize at the finish line.  I'll continue to use my clothesline as long as I can (I remember my mama telling me she used to hang our diapers out in the winter and they'd freeze stiff with ice as they dried.  I ain't going that far with it.  Ha!) and I'll continue to do some kind of gardening as long as I can. 

Here's where we are with our wild onions, spinach and lettuce on the porch.  I love that Tabbie Hoffman was right there.  :)

 

 Our Spanish yellow onions are just so cute to me!

The pumpkin patch is coming along nicely, too!  They got sprinkled with a little diatomaceous earth early, you know, just in case some pumpkin bug wanna start something.

  

The mammoth sunflowers are coming up, too!  I can't wait to see how big and tall they get!!  (We had a bad thunderstorm with heavy, heavy rain yesterday.  That's why they're kinda just laying there.  They are just beat down.  Ha!)

The flowers and herbs are just thriving on the front porch!  There's sweet mint, parsley and chives, a climbing jenny, a foxtail fern, a dwarf morning glory, a heather and my Christmas cactus that I'm going to bring in next month and stick in a closet to hang out during the fall months to encourage it to bloom.  Cross your fingers!!  It's nevah bloomed at Christmas.  Valentine's Day is when it usually gets around to it. 

But summer's not going away completely, at least not here at the Schneider Homestead.  I hung a few more things on the fence yesterday while Larry worked on his patches wall.  We picked all of these up at the beach.  I just love how they look together.

Lazy Saturday

The first little scattering of leaves on the deck.

Only a bazillion more to come.

I just love all those cozy shadows!

 

I took advantage of some almost-fall sunshine this morning to dry a few things on the clothesline while Tabbie Hoffman tormented a squirrel.  

Or maybe it was the other way around.  

And my little mushroom girl, Willow, posed for this picture for me!  

I printed it right away and put it on my fridge.  

She had a busy day yesterday of cleaning, rearranging and eating apple pie!

I still haven't gotten my fall decorations down from the attic yet.  

I'm waiting for that first soup day.

Or maybe I'm just productively challenged.  :)

What I'm loving Wednesday!

 I'm loving the cool weather we've had the past two days!

Such a welcome break from the heat.

 It's got me thinking about this...

 Oh, and this...

I'm loving Pier 1's new fall line of woodland critters, too!

I got my new catalog today and 

I just fell in love with this baby porcupine.

You know I'm gon' have to go get him.

Hey, September, How's Your Mama And Them?

When the wooden leaf artsy thing goes on the front door, I have officially welcomed fall.  It's a little early but I am so over summer. I'm ready for some cool, crisp mornings, pots of homemade vegetable soup and good hair days!  Summer wore me slap out.  I won't even miss the fresh veggies I snagged at farmer's markets here and there because my freezer is full of them.  "So long, Summer" and "Howdy, Fall, come on in, kick your shoes off and sit a spell."

It was actually cooler here today.  The bank clock said 78 degrees at noon so I got all excited thinking about getting my pumpkin stuff down from the attic.  

(That big silver thing in the middle of my door is a panoramic peephole that Larry got years ago. He's always buying things to keep me safe. Awwww.  You can see clean out to the street through that peephole and it's clear as a bell.)

Dog Days Of Summer

I have heard this phrase ALL of my life.  Down here in Georgia, it is used to describe the hot, sultry days of late summer, those wonderful, glorious days when even the cool, light cotton pants you're wearing tend to get a li'l too friendly.

I heard it again today so I thought I'd find out a little history about it.  I never knew it had nothing to do with dogs. I always thought this time of year was so hot that dogs lost their minds or something.  Actually, it's about a star.  Seriously.  Sirius.  These days occur when Sirius rises and sets with the sun.  Pretty cool.  Look it up. 

This has been one long, crazy week and I'll be glad when it's over!!  My insomnia has returned and I'm having trouble sleeping again, I had a really bad episode with reflux Tuesday night, I had to tell my 18-year-old niece, who I wouldn't love more if I'd grown her myself, that she couldn't move in with me and that was hard, then a huge tree fell (and thankfully broke into pieces that I could handle) in my backyard yesterday during that thunderstorm and then this afternoon while I was hanging my laundry on the clothesline, a TICK got on me.  I flicked him off before he had a chance to dig in but now I swear there's one on my head somewhere.

But tomorrow's Friday and I have high hopes for an easy weekend.  I'm planning to see Brad Pitt's new movie tomorrow after work and then I'll be baking a cake for a little birthday get-together we're having here Saturday evening for my folks and of course, I'll get to be with Larry, who is now only 18 miles away from me!!  

Things are looking up!