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

Views of Spring

The twins have a week and a day until their school is out for summer!  The mornings have still been chilly and rainy, and with so few days left, I've tried to enjoy every single walk!

The new leaf pierced through the old leaf as it grew!

After reading the cookbook* that offered me new perspective, I look forward to this bush flowering each spring now!  And will probably forever associate it with the twins' fourth grade publishing party!

One of the trees at the twins' school looked so pretty, I had to try to get a picture!  It was so much better in person though.

When we got back from Emily and William's band concert, the tops of the trees looked like they were on fire!

And we spotted a rainbow!  If you look closely, you can see it in the other picture too!

The dew clinging to the grass seeds looked too cool.

Nicole gave me some sweet William last year, and it thrived!  It's so pretty, and green and healthy looking!  She said it might even flower this year! = )

New growth on this evergreen is a bright green color!

The moon was big and bright, long before the sunset.

I usually hear the woodpecker, but rarely see it.  These holes might be the work of a woodpecker?

I think all springs in Michigan are chilly, but knowing how short lived the morning walks will be this spring, has me thankful for each and every morning we do get to walk!

later days

 *The title is Big Heart, Little Stove by Erin French and while it seems strange that a cookbook could inspire me this much, it has been over a year, and I'm still benefiting from the read, so no regrets!

All the Fall colors!

Fall this year came on slowly and lovely.  Some of the early turning plants made the most amazing shades of red really early in the season!  The twins found these almost unnaturally pink/red plant castoffs on their way to school.

The river was so still it was like a mirror, and as I watched the crane take off, I was able to see two as the reflection also took to the downward sky.

Billy finished raised bed number two!  We already have so many saved seeds and new plans for the planters, it will never be enough!

I'm still collecting used/broken cell phone cases to pave the path between! If you have any let me know!

Alice's new birds looked particularly hidden in the new leaves.

Usually, we rake all of the leaves to the road for the vacuum, but this year I raked a pile back towards the garden beds to fill it up!

Emily decided that she wanted to carve a pumpkin for the downtown event, and Grace wanted to join too.  Aldi was sold out by the time Grace made that decision, so she grabbed one of the ones from our garden to carve.

This was the first year they'd held the competition, so we didn't know if Grace needed to be present to win, which meant that she had to decide between a birthday party and the competition.  She picked the party, but hindsight showed that she could have done both!

Emily didn't win* = (  and she had the most competition of any age group!  In fact, had grace joined, she would have been one of only three pumpkins!  Alice, had hers survived, would have been one of two!

Grace, Juliet, and I did go vote, and the pumpkins were really cool!

Next year, we'll know more!  And hopefully, it will be a little bit warmer.

later days

*Billy and Emily were a little late on returning, so they didn't find out who took the award!