Garden and Nature

Each time I sub in a class on the Northwest side of the school, I try to take a picture of this tree that lives outside of the forest.  As fast as the leaves are falling, it might be bare by the time school starts back up, but in the meantime, it was still mostly green!

My poor neglected garden has continued to pump out a tasty supply of tomatoes that we've used for tacos and sandwiches and snacking for the past couple of months!

Now that Alice is officially a licensed driver, I can take pictures of sunsets, while she monitors for traffic!

The tarp/insulation bald spot in the back yard is slowly covering back up.  It took me 17 weeks to feed all the insulation from the shed into our can, but it feels good to be done, and not have spent the $600 on a dumpster!

A beautiful Grand River sunrise.  This was just a week or so before they pulled the flowers out for the fall.

A close up of a flowering weed, that must be awfully hearty, because it is cold at night now!

Billy and I had a picnic lunch in the park one day, then went to walk along part of the Lansing trail.  It was a little rainy, but not terribly cold, so we had a good walk.

According to reports it's been an "unseasonably warm" October, I've found it to be perfect. ; )  Hopefully, we can have the warmth stick around until Halloween at least!

later days

Nature and Garden

Despite spending quite a bit of time outside (at parks, on walks, and now football games!) I don't have many freestanding photos, because they all went in with the events!

First up were these adorable mushrooms at the jr. high.  I was glad I took the picture before entering, because someone had kicked/stomped them by the time we left. = (

My biggest heartvest this summer!  Considering how neglected my garden is, this was a nice surprise!

One more summer river picture.  Crossing the bridge in our little village never fails to make me happy!

Billy and I saw this giant grasshopper sunning on a sunflower, and it stayed still for so long that I was able to snap more than one photo!

We are still having warm, fair weather, but tomorrow is a ber month, which is the beginning of the end for nice weather. = (  I'm doing my best to soak up the sun in anticipation of a long cold winter.

later days

Autumn, Nature, and Garden

 When I was collecting a bountiful heartvest, I also pulled some of the overwhelming weeds.

They fought back by scratching up my arms and making me itchy!

But poor Grace got it even worse.  She had a run in with what I think was a nettle plant, and had some pretty impressive swelling!  Poor girl.  Avia took us to the ice cream shop not long after, and between the cool treat and substantial layer of hydrocortisone, she was feeling better on our walk back.

I had an exciting morning when I saw what I thought was a common yellow throat out my kitchen window, but when I went outside with my bird book, I found that there were two of them, improving an existing nest!  Or possibly just using it as a launching point for their southward journey, because they were not here long.

I was able to get a poor picture of one of the couple, and based on the tail shape and coloring, I now think I actually think I saw a pair of Great Crested Flycatchers.  I'm by no means an ornithologist, but I am enjoying seeing an assortment of birds these days!

This leaf reminded me of the show The Mentalist. Poor tree.

We had a particularly windy and wet storm blow through last week, which knocked out power for all four girls (at two separate campuses!)  Here, the storm passed through in under ten minutes, but must have picked up some speed as it moved toward their schools.

The leaves on a welcome mat looked disappointed to be there.

The leaf colors this time of year are so vibrant, the colors really look "unnatural!"

The toad managed to blend into the wet fallen leaves seamlessly.  Billy only spotted it because it hopped away!

A pair of ducks braving the rain and cold out on the river.

Maybe because it was dark, wet, and grey when Billy and I went out for a walk, but the colors were striking!

I spotted a wooly bear on our driveway, and loved how the rain drops stayed droplets at the end of its spines.  I did use a leaf to relocate it into the grass, so that it wouldn't be run over by our vehicles.

Back when the morning were warm enough to walk the kids down to the bus stop, the skies were clear and the stars bright.  I was able to pick out Orion's Belt!  This was really exciting for me, because I feel like my previous star gazing success has always been the Big Dipper & North Star!

One more tomato heartvest, from my lovely, neglected garden.

It's been a fairly warm autumn up to this point, though temperatures are trending down, and we are looking at a cold and possibly rainy Halloween, according to the extended forecast.  I guess we'll find out Friday!

later days

Garden and Nature

I have not been feeling my garden this year.  I planted, and pulled a few weeds, but it wasn't bringing me nearly the joy it did last year, so my plants are being choked out by weeds.  I even paid Emily and Grace to weed the garden that you can see from the road while we were gone, because it just looked so awful, and Grace and I had already cleared it once this summer!  We do have a pumpkin vine, but no pumpkins, or even female flowers, so probably no pumpkins this year. = (

That said, the girls did go out and collect tomatoes from one of the struggling plants, and they were so tasty! Our first heartvest of tomatoes this year.

A beautiful 'grocery store parking lot sunset' picture.

Our dead apple trees finally fell down, so we hired our lawn guy to take them out as well as the storm damaged tree. It was still alive, but he said it was going to damage the fence further if it fell any more.  So, it's gone now too, and our backyard looks so empty!  I think we might need to buy some baby trees and see if we can get some new ones growing!

The carrot plants went to seed last year, and seem to be growing really well!  I didn't cull them at all though, so they are small little things.

One of our landscaped plants, that we inherited with the house, makes these beautiful blooms every year, and every year I forget and find them beautiful!

I didn't include all of my nature pictures here this time, so there are still some mixed into our travel posts.

It's been a warm summer, which has been lovely for me, but I don't think that all of our plants have enjoyed it quite as much as I have!  Heading into a new season soon, which is sad, but I am looking forward to all the new colors!

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Garden Tomatoes

At this point my heartvests are mostly tomatoes, but I'm not complaining.  Each time I go out I love having more tomatoes than I can comfortably carry in my hands!  = )

 It's been a lovely tomato season, and our pumpkin is turning orange!

later days

Garden Heartvests

The tomato plant that Nicole gave me has been giving me tomatoes en masse!!!

We also got cucumbers and squash!

Do you see that bent cucumber in the middle?  It was sooooooo good. It tasted buttery!  I guess I saved some sort of seeds from ones that I bought, maybe an English cucumber? Sadly, we only got 2 of those, but they were the best!

Some of my larger tomatoes made for great caprese salads!

We have gotten so much basil from our indoor plants! I keep drying it, using the microwave, and adding it to jars, but thought I'd try a round the old-fashioned way!

I think maybe we ate the missing part of the heart before I could snap a photo, which is why this heartvest has a large gap?

I trades some of our tomato and squash bounty with Kristy for some zucchini and eggs!  Talk about living the dream!

This deer here likes to snack on my garden!

Lots and lots of tomatoes.  And the end of the peas.

New this year: corn!  Only two of my stalks actually produced, but we got three ears that I hand fertilized (in case the wind and rain didn't quite make it.) 

Alice and Grace enjoyed the first two, and Billy had laid claim to the third, but when we went out to check on it, some creature (see above) had pulled it off the stalk and it was on the ground. = (  

I tried to collect all the tomatoes at the bottom of this heart, but Grace thought they looked better spread out haphazardly, and who am I to argue?

I thought my pumpkin plant was going to skip out on the pumpkins this year (despite taking over the ground bed) but last week I spied a large green pumpkin!!!

Getting really close to the end of the season, but really enjoying all of these tasty tomatoes!

One more big haul today! There were many unripened ones still, and the tomato plants still have flowers!!!!

It's been a lovely season, though I didn't spend as much time in my garden this summer as I had hoped, but the plants grew and produced none-the-less!

later days