I gathered the last of the old hay yesterday and started removing the bermuda grass that was coming from the lawn into the garden. I have 3 more trellises to remove, then I think I will mulch the garden rather than planting a cover crop. Where I harvested the sweet potatoes needs a lot of work. You just cant use a tractor and do a neat job, but I an not man enough to do the digging by hand anymore.

The lawn needs to be mowed, and maybe over seeded with rye grass. We have too many burrs and I hope to shade them out before spring. I have spray that should do the job, but I hate to use if.

My wildlife garden is poor, I lost a lot of the seed due to so much rain. The turnips have come up well, and the clover from last year is good, so there is food for most wild life to eat. There is a limited amount of wheat, grain rye, peas and hairy vetch. I may put up some bird feeder to help the feathered friends.

I have worked on erosion control along the creek and part of it looks good. I have at least 2 large trees that have been undercut by swift water and have fallen across the creek. I am not sure how I can repair the downed trees. I have harvested some gravel from the creek to use on the drive way, but the water is too high to get some of the gravel bars.

The fire ants are about to carry me off, I think I am fighting a loosing battle.

I have planted some sweet potatoes in pots and have them in the house. They are Covington sweet potatoes and the slips are hard to come by around here. I have to get back to harvesting my sweet potatoes earlier so I can have some curing time. I have to cure my sweet potatoes outside and I need warm weather to do that.

I hope the rest of Y'all are not as far behind as I am.

I'm sure I am as far behind as you are because our place still is an infernal pit of mud. I was hoping for a lot of drying out of the mud on Sat-Sun-Mon while we had sunshine, but after two days of sunshine, the mud doesn't seem much drier at all.

I agree about the fire ants. Our 4 year old granddaughter was outside with Tim yesterday and came inside, came to me and solemnly announced she and Tim had "discovered" fire ants in the yard. I kept a straight face and thanked her for telling me she had discovered them. I didn't tell her that they find me and bite me every time I am out in the yard.

Tim mowed today even though he often had to drive through mud (lots of new ruts in the ground from that) and standing water to do it. He was happy. It looks less than perfect, but at least the grass is shorter so maybe we can see the snakes before they find us. The sunshine was so nice.

I wish that rain was going to return here around Tues-Wed., and I won't be offended if the rain misses us and goes someplace else---preferably someplace that isn't getting enough rain and needs more.

I can't do anything in the garden unless I am willing to stand ankle deep in mud and muddy mulch to do it, and I'm not really willing to do that.

I did notice today that the elm foliage is turning a darker gold, but the persimmon foliage is stuck on mostly green with a little yellowish-orange and isn't progressing at all. I can see one tree off in my neighbor's woodland that now has red foliage....I cannot get close enough to it doueto dense undergrowth to see what sort of tree it is, but it is the first tree near us to turn red every year. Our Shumard red oaks are getting the faintest tinge of a reddish tint on their leaves. I feel like I am obsessed with autumn leaf colors, probably because many of the leaves here just hang on to the trees forever, then we get a freeze and the leaves immediately turn a yucky brown and fall. Down in the DFW metro today, I saw Chinese pistache trees turning red. I was green with envy!

Lots of the plants in my garden now have bacterial speck or bacterial spot and various fungal diseases after two excessively rainy months. Oh well, I don't care. The cold will get them soon enough as it is.

I have been so lazy this morning. Had to drive Ethan to school (because his car is waiting on a part for Tom to put on) and he needed to be there at 7. Came back, put the dogs out, let the chickens out and went back to bed. Forced myself to get up and start laundry and did the few dishes in the sink. I really have no time to be lazy. Fixed a big breakfast, hoping that would motivate me to kick it into gear. It's not really working.

Dawn, we quickly ran into TS yesterday to pick up chicken feed...and there were several things that I would have wanted from Santa when I was child. (maybe I still do). There were doll sets. A doll with a chicken coop, supplies and chickens. Also a doll with a rabbit hutch and accessories. There's horse statues too! I collected Breyer horses when I was a kid. I still have them. Anyway...I'm rambling but Santa can't go wrong shopping at TS.

I wish I had the time and funds to plant fruit trees right now.

Slowpoke, I am further behind than you are.

Most of the plants in my garden have died this week...or mostly died. We didn't freeze, but I wonder if the colder temps did them damage last week. The basil is spotty and losing leaves. The watermelons vines are dying. The Armenian cucumbers are dying. The southern peas are dying or dead. Those are all warm weather plants...so maybe they just couldn't take those almost freezing mornings and all the rain. For some reason the peppers are still healthy mostly. My pretty cardinal vine is half dead too.

Other than basil, most of the herbs look happy. Dill, cilantro, parsley are all coming up everywhere. The rosemary, lavender, and oregano still look good, as well as a few other herbs that I can't think of their names right now. Part of the sage is making a comeback. I keep meaning to bring the dead one in and make smudge sticks or at least put it in a jar. Although dead, it still smells so good. The rhubarb! It's back. Those caterpillars ate it down, but it's back. So happy about that.

I would really like to work outdoors this afternoon, but need to pick up Ethan at 3 and then have a meeting at 4. Seriously. This is my day off...why are we having a meeting today?! The dogs are barking their heads off. I should check on them. I can't see anything from the window. Rosslyn Kaye keeps escaping the chicken yard--maybe they are barking at her, although they usually do not do that. That's another chore--repairing the fencing around the chicken yard. I don't have the stuff to do it, though. Maybe the dogs are just cold and want to come in. I'm going to make them stay out. It's supposed to warm up.

How's that for a lame post?

Slowpoke I’m sure you fall into same category most of us do - too much to do and not enough time. We had a light frost and I took all the outside plants to the greenhouse but I still have green beans and cherry tomatoes, many peppers I am hoping will turn red or yellow and a fabulous new bed of mixed greens. My begonias and Mexican petunias and several geraniums are beautiful.

Dawn I appreciate the update on foliage. My husband wants to drive down to Lawton or Durant to look at a brushhog and I’m hoping he will wait till foliage is pretty. We rarely get away from home for more than a quick trip to Stillwater for feed so want to take advantage of the drive. I’m originally from SE Oklahoma when I was a child so I know just how beautiful it can be.

I am truly thankful for the rains but like most of us I wish it would slow for a few days so we can get some cleanup completed and sow a little more winter rye for pasture.

Jennifer, I do intend to do some serious Christmas shopping at TSC. I thought they had a lot of cute things, and the older granddaughter has her eye on one of the pink camo jackets. I did see toys in there I would have loved when I was a kid.

It does not sound to me like you had a lazy day. It sounds like your body needed some extra rest and there's nothing wrong with that.

The dead and dying plants are just doing what plants do in autumn....responding to many different inputs that have changed from summer---less intense sunlight is one, shorter daylength is another, and then there's the effect of cooling temperatures. This is normal---you know, there's a time and a season for everything. If you're having a lot of moisture, whether in the form of dew, fog or rain, then that ups the ante a bit too as the higher moisture encourages all sorts of diseases. In autumn, as various plants start looking sad, I just try to look past them and enjoy whatever still looks good, but then as time goes on, there's less and less that is looking good anyway. I just try to go with the flow.

I wish I could be out in the garden cleaning out the plants that look bad, but I have to work around snake season and then, of course, there's also plenty of little creatures in the garden who use the plants for shelter and food, so I try to leave anything with seeds still standing---partly for the little critters, and partly so the seeds can drop and give us volunteers next Spring. It is sad, though, to look at the garden in decline.

Autumn really is developing color here now, so I'm delighted to see more yellows and reds in the tree foliage each day. Don't get me wrong---most trees still are pretty much fully green, albeit a dull, fading green and not the vibrant green of spring and summer, but there's splotches of yellow, gold and red appearing scattered around now.

Peppers usually are the last warm-season plant (other than herbs) in my garden to give in to fall weather, and they usually keep producing right up until the first hard freeze. Some herbs have some tolerance for cooler and wetter weather and stay green a lot longer than most other garden plants, but basil isn't one of them. Mine has all gone to seed now, but the sage, for example, still is lovely and green. Rosemary stays green here all winter and so does parsley.

Our dogs bark at things they see, like squirrels and armadillos, and things that they do not see---I never know what causes some of their rounds of barking.

Your post is not lame---it is just talking about life as it is occurring in October. There's nothing wrong with that.

If you think we're running out of things to talk about now, wait another month and we'll see what we can find to discuss after frost and freezes kill our gardens. (grin)

I'm starting to find an occasional lady bug in the house here and there, but in small numbers---one here or one there. I simply return them to the Great Outdoors. Sunday night a tiny honey bee flew in the back door when the dogs came in and went into the kitchen and settled down on the white sink. If it thought it was camouflaged there, it was wrong. I left it there for a little while in case it was looking for a droplet of water to drink (I know that seems ridiculous since there's water everywhere outdoors). Finally, we trapped it in a small plastic tumbler and carried it outside, where Tim gently deposited the little bee on a holly leaf. We still have tons of bees visiting both flowers and the doves' cracked corn, where they feed on corn dust. The number of butterflies is dropping, but I am still seeing sulphur butterflies (mostly cloudless sulphurs) and monarchs. All the monarchs are new, not old and faded, and many look freshly hatched. I keep telling them they'd better hurry up and head south if they're going to make it to Mexico before winter. Their slowness to migrate from here this year has puzzled me, but then, who know what they know? With Hurricane Willa about to make landfall on the Mexican coast and then with its remnants expected to sweep across south Texas as clouds and rain that meet up with another front and travel onward (not at tropical storm strength or anything), maybe the butterflies are holding back on purpose to stay north of that wind and rain. I still think they need to be making their way south though because our first freeze, statistically speaking, is less than a month away and they are running out of time.

Amy, I am glad to hear your mom suddenly is herself again. I find it strange how quickly elderly people can fall ill so suddenly and then also sometimes can quickly recover.

When my dad was in his late 60s, his appendix ruptured. Even after surgery was performed, he was very sick and at one point the doctor told us he might not survive as he just seemed to be getting worse and worse---was out of his mind, ranting and raving and carrying on in a way we'd never ever seen this quiet, gentle, reserved man behave. My sister was there at that moment and freaking out, thinking she was witnessing his final moments. Anyhow, he fell asleep and rested a while, and woke up feeling perfectly normal, acting like himself, etc., and came home a day later. Talk about a quick turnaround! He lived another 18 or so years after that, so reports of his impending demise were inaccurate.

I'm glad you all were able to have lunch together and enjoy one another's company.

I'd love to have a big fall garden too, but summer/autumn drought and heat prevented it, and then the rains came. Rain, of course, is good, but the 17-18" of rain that has fallen here since September 1st is a bit too much of a good thing, and I suspect that if I'd planted a big fall garden, a lot of it would have drowned as the plants would have been too young and too small to endure all that rainfall. A fall garden has become increasingly elusive for me, partly because of the droughts and partly because of the snakes. My last huge, full fall garden probably was 2012 or maybe 2013, though I have had smaller plantings some years that aren't a full fall garden...just a scattering of cool season plants.

Jet, who departed this earth last week, was such a trial in his early years---very much like your Sasquatch. He dug up everything, laid on top of plants, shredded bags of mulch, potting soil, manure, etc. and caught/killed chickens if he got a chance to. I didn't think he'd ever settle down and become a 'good dog', but as he matured, he did just that. It did take a few years. Then we had a nice long period of many years of his relatively stress-free companionship. Now, the house seems so quiet and empty without him, even though we still have three other dogs (and don't need another dog to replace him either). Jersey is about 11 and a half, but never has been loud or destructive, though she'll dig holes endlessly in the fenced dog yard. Ace and Princess? They are almost 5, I think, and still fairly destructive, though not as much as when they were pups. I never would trust them near the garden.....well, maybe in winter, but I think that if I took them in there and closed the gate, they'd just promptly dig under the fence and escape, so they aren't garden dogs either. Or they'd find and dig up garlic and perennial flowers, so it is likely they'll never step foot in the garden again. I tried to teach them to be good garden dogs in their youth and it was a disaster.

Farmgardener, Oh I hope you husband does wait to make that drive so you can go with him and enjoy the foliage. It seems like our autumns here are so brief, in terms of actually having fall foliage to enjoy. We always say we're going to drive somewhere in eastern OK and do some leaf-peeping, but inevitably we're always too busy when the time is right to do so.

I don't think anyone here (certainly not anyone in the wetter western half of our county) has been able to plant fall cover crops---not winter wheat for a crop, nor rye or anything else either. The fields are too wet. On the rare occasions that something catches fire (it still does happen, despite all the rain), the fire brush trucks cannot even go into the muddy fields or they'll quickly bog down and get stuck. We need for the mud to dry up before all the pastures freeze or fighting grass fires/pasture fires will be impossible---the firefighters will have to park on the nearest road or gravel drive and just wait for the fires to come to them, and that's never a good thing.

I agree with you about the rain. Our rain for today got pushed out to tomorrow, I think, but Hurricane Willa sent high clouds over us yesterday and will do the same today, so our sunshine probably is gone for the next few days. With less rain, we stay cooler. I was loving it over the weekend when we finally had a little sunshine and a little warmth. At least the rainfall amounts are expected to be small here, so that will help, but then any amount of rainfall at this point just makes more mud, and the last thing we need is more mud.

Back in the El Nino year of 2015-16, when we had such tremendous rainfall here (about 200% of average rainfall for 2015), I broke two Swiffers just by using them so much to mop up muddy dog paw prints and people's footprints off the floor. Well, two months into this big rainy spell, I have a Swiffer that's on the verge of breaking (the handles just snap in half if used hard enough often enough), but I'm okay---I have a second Swiffer purchased, assembled, hanging on a hook in the closet and ready to go when this one snaps....and it isn't even winter yet. If this rainy weather persists all winter, we might set a record by having a three-Swiffer winter.

I am bored with all this rain and mud. There's only so much house-cleaning you can do before you get all caught up, and I'm running out of closets, drawers and cabinets to clean out and reorganize.

Tim and I already have our costumes ready for Halloween (he's going to be a vampire and I'm going to be a black cat) so I don't have any Halloween-type projects to do. It is too early to take down Halloween decorations and replace them with Thanksgiving stuff. It seems far too early to be working on Christmas crafts. I need to find something to do because once I reach a certain level of boredom, I go online and start ordering more garden seeds than I need.

Dawn

Oh Dawn, I wish I was bored around my house. I really don't. I understand restlessness especially when you could be working outside if it weren't for the snakes and mud. And I'm sure after a year of being home, I might get bored, but it would take me at least that long, I'm sure. Every single closet and drawer at my house needs to be cleaned and/or reorganized. As Ethan and I were driving to my Mom's this afternoon, we saw 3 retired women outside enjoying the weather. They were trimming a shrub or tree at one of the women's homes. They were just laughing and enjoying their time. I told Ethan, "I wonder what it would be like to have nothing to do all day other than upkeep of your home and playing cards with friends." He said, "that's the last generation that will know that." I laughed. So true for the most part.

I'm amazed that people around my age are still paying off student debt and trying to help their children pay for college at the same time. I'm glad we're not personally in that boat. Anyway...

That just popped into my head.

Speaking of my Mom, she got a cotton harvest. Mine isn't going to make it, I'm afraid. They didn't like last week's cold weather and sorta died in part. They are making new blooms this week, but it's doubtful I'll get any cotton. I'll come back with a pic of my Mom's small harvest. So fun.

I was SO happy to get to work outdoors for about an hour today. My foot injury during the summer halted my pathway plans. It's mostly done, but there's a few spots. I was able to clear out a 4'x4' spot (approx.) cover with cardboard and put down wood chips (that's becoming compost!)

A couple of strawberry "babies" made their way outside the strawberry bed, so I scooped them up and replanted them.

Juno and Finbar went to the chicken coop today to "scare off" the mice. I think they were the scared ones, especially Juno. She ran right back into the house. I'm afraid they might not be good mousers. When I get back from Nebraska, I'll need to update their shots and try them outdoors. I'm not looking forward to the process. I miss Charlotte. She was so easy and...I just miss her. I love these too. I especially like having one (usually just one is best) lying next to me while sleeping. It's so relaxing and comforting. I've had some personal issues and just general sadness... and it's like they sense it and are such a comfort to me.

Garden Monday didn't happen this week. It's been over a year since I've missed a Garden Monday. I didn't have it in me this week. Thought about talking about herbs, but decided that could wait until next week. I'll just be getting back from Nebraska.

In good news, Ethan's extra early mornings have ended, so we'll be getting an extra hour of sleep in the mornings. I should try to do some mediation or something similar first thing in the mornings. If I could ever get to cleaning up the third bedroom, that would be a perfect place for meditation and/or yoga. And looking over my journal. Something to get my head on straight first thing in the morning and some focus.

i think the cotton pick posted st the beginning of this post.

The cotton pic looks good.

For the last two years, whenever I have had time indoors, I have worked on and off cleaning out, straightening up and organizing every single closet, cabinet, dresser drawer, etc., so now, after two years of that, our house is purged, reorganized, etc. and I've pretty much run out of tasks like that to fill my time. Even the junk drawer is nicely organized. lol. So is my seed box. The end result is nice---I got rid of lots of useless clutter and junk we were hanging on to, everything has a place and everything is in its place. I've repainted most of the interior of the house over the last two years. We have new window treatments, some new home decor, etc. There's more home decor stuff I want to work on over the next few years, but wanted the whole house organized and all the clutter under control before I ventured into doing more redecorating.

Having been used to doing projects like that, now that they all are done, I'm asking myself "what next?" The obvious answer is Tim's workshop/garage, but I cannot tackle cleaning up, purging and organizing that without him and his cooperation, so I'm not going to start on that now as the holiday season approaches---it will be my ongoing 2019 project.

October is the hardest month because it is warm enough that snakes still are out, and they are fairly active as they prepare to hibernate for the winter. There's also lots of baby snakes born in the last couple of months, so snake danger increases as they often are harder to spot, plus they are lurking around homes and outbuildings looking for a place to den up for the winter. Once we have a couple of freezes I can work outdoors more, and will stay busy collecting leaves to chop/shred for mulch, cleaning up the garden, and all that sort of thing, but our first freeze usually isn't until sometime between November 10th and Thanksgiving, so we have a few more weeks where outdoor activity is limited for safety reasons. Normally, as everything dries out in late summer and autumn, we get really busy with fires, but the 17+" of rain that has fallen in recent weeks has kept the fires to a minimum (I'm not complaining---eventually we'll dry out and get busy with them again).

The people I know who are retired are loving their retirement and stay busy all the time, but I know that they have earned their retirement yaers---they worked for decades and saved hard for retirement and most of them had a long list of things they wanted to do post-retirement. It is good to see them doing those things, and it isn't just about buying an RV and traveling or whatever. They do lots with their family's younger generations, they volunteer in the community, and they have ever-increasing numbers of 'farm animals' and gardens and orchards and such. Some of them found not working to be too boring, and have gone back to work at some sort of full-time post-retirement job. (I suspect this is what Tim will do after he retires.) The ones that stay the busiest also seem to stay the healthiest---sort of like they don't have the time to be sick. They're a great example to us all.

Between all the rain, the mud and the snakes, I have been trapped indoors for much of the autumn. When I've been outdoors, invariably I am wearing big mud boots to do chores. Yesterday, I bravely and boldly ventured outdoors in the afternoon wearing regular shoes. I still had to weave my way around puddles and mud everywhere, but it felt freeing to only have to wear shoes instead of chore boots. So, of course, today the rain returns. It is expected to reach us around noon. I'm looking at the radar and thinking it might get here earlier than that.

I am seeing more and more foliage showing autumn color each day now, and that is delightful. Our sumacs are starting to show red foliage at the top of each plant. A lot of our red oak trees in the front and side yards are showing color, but it isn't red. I'm seeing tons of yellow leaves on the interior of the oaks. I'm not sure why---perhaps the persistent rain is causing it, or the perpetual lack of sunshine for the last couple of months. I did see one leaf on one red oak yesterday that actually was starting to turn red, so there's hope.

I carried the tray of four amaryllis plants outdoors to sit in the sun yesterday after I revived them from dormancy by watering them. Two of them were showing tiny bits of new green growth by the time I brought them indoors for the night. The other two are going to be slower to wake up, I guess.

Yesterday I gathered all my Christmas craft stuff together as some of it was with normal crafting material and some of it was packed away with Christmas decorations and Christmas wrapping and such. Now I'll be able to work on some Christmas crafts.

Because I was bored, I took a huge jar of change Tim had sitting in his closet, and I poured it out on the coffee table, and sorted each type of coin into its own jar. So, one big jar of change then gave way to separate jars of quarters, dimes, nickles and pennies. lol lol lol. At least I only organized them like that and didn't stack them up in order by date or something. I think Tim was laughingly speechless when I told him I had reorganized his one jar of loose change into four jars of sorted change. He seemed happy about it though. He likes being organized as long as he doesn't actually have to organize himself.

Today I'll mostly do regular household chores. Maybe I'll seed shop. I'm really putting off doing that because I know that once I start shopping for seeds, it is hard to stop.

Oh, I agree about retired people who stay busy seem to be the happiest and healthiest. For the most part. My Mom is retired, but she works 1 and half days a week. She has many friend groups: "our old neighborhood (where I grew up)" friends, new neighborhood friends, church friends, old work friends. They all get together often and have the best of times. They worked hard and totally deserve it. I'm just sad that not every generation will get that same type of golden years. There's many reasons for it, of course. We save and have retirement funds, but it's not quite the same as it was years ago. Companies aren't the same, even government jobs don't have quite the same perks. I also understand that younger generations spend money on cell phones and technology, etc. BUT, it's something you almost have to have to be able to function in the world today. It's certainly not a necessity...even electricity isn't an necessity.

When I put the chickens to bed last night, I didn't see any mice. When I opened their coop door this morning, I didn't see any mice. Maybe the cats scared them off. They were getting so brave, they would just look at me--waiting for some feed to fall out of the scoop. Didn't even run away.

Amy, I'm doing fewer peppers and tomatoes next year too! Maybe 8 tomato plants and 10 pepper plants. I think I've said this before, but my new favorite is pimento. I LOVE this pepper. Nancy brought a plant to me at the SF. It is such a nice tasting, sweet pepper. I like it more than bells. They are yummy sauteed or cut up on my salads.

Ooo...this talk makes me want to start planning for spring! I must not think about it though. I have so much to do first...like Trunk or Treat is next week! I think I'm going to get some criticism over it. It's been neglected this year and we've made a few changes. It's been ignored too, because of other situations and projects. (I just want to think about my spring garden!)

What Christmas crafts are you working on, Dawn?

I left the dogs out this morning. The rain isn't supposed to hit us until late afternoon and they each have a dog house, so hopefully will be okay until Tom gets home from work.

I have garlic coming up. Why didn't it come up earlier this year? It was planted last fall. So weird. I guess I didn't need to buy garlic bulbs after all.

Er, they have machines that sort coins and in fact don't accept coins in non commercial rolls any more at the bank. If you're that desperate Dawn, come do my house.

Here's a project for you. I bought a scanner designed to quickly digitize photos. I have boxes and boxes and now have ended up with all my mom's photos, too. That is MY winter project. I want to winter sow all the perennial seeds I bought this last year and didn't get done.

H/J, I'm sorry you're feeling sad. Hugs. I love pimentos, too. They have been consistent, too. I grew Aji Dulce Spice this year, it is huge and productive, but thin walled and still too much heat for me. I liked the elephant ear pepper I grew, like a flattened out bell. That is my weakness, unusual varieties.

Bartlesville is taking up all my time. Ron's other sister passed Monday. She did not want a funeral. I'm glad they all got to see each other. We are in kind of emotional upheaval here.

I have to go. XOXO

My dad gave me all of the family photos (new wife didn't want the reminders) so I need to sort through them for all us kids. That should be my christmas craft gift to them, but I'm just not in the mood to stare at photos. Then I have the genealogy to digitize, qhich again I'm not in the mood. So those tasks will continue to wait on me to get in a mood.

Our church halloween fest is this Friday. Another thing I should be working on but honestly it's pretty much planned. I've got all my workers lined up, everything's bought, set up, etc. Now we wait for the little goblins.

So I guess that just leaves seed sorting and garden prep.

I’m catching up!! I’m trying...

We had our first frost on Wednesday of last week. It was a pretty hard widespread frost most places, but we had only a light, light frost on our hill. We also had frost Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and one weather station in a valley next to us recorded 29 F on Sunday morning. So far my top garden (very high up) has avoided all frost, but the raised bed area wasn’t so fortunate. It’s funny that our hill can have no frost and be just above freezing while the valley just below us will be in the 20’s with widespread frost. A field just on up the road also had a few pretty heavy frosts. Very pretty in the morning. Highs are mostly in the 50’s. I guess living on the hill, though a pain at times, has its perks.

All summer crops are gone. My mom and I planted 120 softneck garlic cloves (Inchelium Red from the harvest last June and some random softneck I got at the Farmers’ Market last July) and about a dozen elephant garlic cloves, filling up two 30” x 10’ beds. I tried to space them at 5” apart with 8” between rows, about double that space for the elephant garlic. I also did a ph test and found my soil was acidic as expected, so I worked in some wood ash and ground limestone, and I also worked in about 1” of my homemade compost (primarily chicken manure, garden waste, yard waste, food scraps, etc.) and another few inches of fully rotted wood chip compost.

I really don’t think I’ll need to buy any compost next year, which is GREAT. I have a very large volume of compost I made over the year. Between that and the loads of wood chip compost my neighbor gives me, I’m thinking I’ll be set. Seeming that I usually spend $120 a year on compost between all my garden space....BIG savings.

We had a chicken massacre on Sunday. All of the chickens were out free ranging while I was out working. After a while, I noticed there was a chicken that came out front with me, and that’s NOT normal. They stick to the backyard and woods usually. Then I walked around the house and found a dead chicken, cleanly bitten on the neck. This was weird! After searching, I couldn’t find any chickens. So I got my dad and brothers and we all went out to the forest looking for them. Between about 2 acres of our neighbor’s woods we found 4 dead chickens, including our rooster...my prized rooster. 3 other chickens were unaccounted for. We only had 11 chickens survive out of our 18 previously owned. All chickens were bit in the neck, and our rooster looked like he struggled quite a lot. He was bit all over rather than just the neck, and his neck was very mangled and ripped up. His feathers are also everywhere where he was lying....I figure he put up a good fight, but in the end he stands no chance against some of our predators. Really, I’m so disappointed about the rooster. He was an amazing rooster, and I was hoping to breed him before long with some others of his breed (he was a Rhode Island Red). We called him LeRoy. I’m kicking myself for no getting some eggs fertilized by him hatched earlier. He was one of a kind.

I wanted more chickens, and my parents wanted more eggs, so my dad and I both paid 50/50 for a new batch of 20 Plymouth Rock hens and 2 Plymouth Rock roosters, which are scheduled to hatch on Oct. 29, so they’ll be coming soon. We want fresh eggs next spring....Even 18 chickens does not cut it when a family eats a dozen, sometimes more, of eggs a day, as we do. I’m excited to try this breed, and it’ll be more significant being that I paid a good portion of money for them as well. I’m planning to build a much bigger run for them over the winter here.

Jacob, I am sorry about your chickens. I have not been around chicken for 60+ years, but I do remember the trouble we had with all kinds of critters killing them.

I can really relate to the frost hitting the low areas first. My neighbor lives a little less than one mile east of me and up on a mountain. I live down in the floor of the valley, plus the mountain to my west shades me from the late evening sun. With my neighbor getting more sun, more air movement, and the cold air settling to the floor the valley, he most often will have a month longer growing season than I will.

Larry, I get a lot of shade from a southern tree line in the fall, so I can also relate to the shade. Fall crops are very tough. I find the microclimates fascinating.

Hazel, I love your Mom‘s cotton harvest. My daughter and I used cotton hull trash for mulch this year and had several volunteer cotton plants. She is a teacher and took hers to show her students. I love the plants - so pretty!

I too am fighting mice in the chicken house - or in my case it’s guineas. I put sticky rat traps and peanut butter crackers in a squirrel size live trap so that the guineas couldn’t reach it.

Jennifer, I haven't started a specific Christmas craft yet. I have a pile of stuff bought in previous years and now I'm looking at the various things gathered together in one storage bin and am wondering what my intention was when I bought those things. Was I going to make....this? or that? or something else? I tear pages out of home decor, gardening and craft magazines before I throw them away, so I probably can go back through my folder of saved pages and find whatever it was I saw that I wanted to make. I hope so, anyhow.

One bonus of cleaning out each and every closet, cabinet, drawer, etc. is that I have found all the glue guns lost/misplaced/forgotten over the years. So, now in my craft supply storage bin I have 5 glue guns--different brands, but all about the same size. I don't think I'll ever have to buy a glue gun or glue sticks again.

We've been saving for retirement forever---since we first got married. I probably didn't appreciate the money that was going into our 401k accounts back then in our early years---I would rather have had it to spend then, but I also knew that if we were going to be able to survive in our retirement years, we needed to save as much as possible. So, as we near those retirement years now, I am relieved that we have been saving for these years for so long. Every generation faces their own challenges, and I think for the younger generations than ours, saving for retirement seems impossibly hard---but it wasn't easy for us either. I think Tim's post-retirement plan is that I'll grow produce and he'll sell it at the Farmer's Market. That is NOT my plan, by the way. I want to raise food for us, not for the world at large.

Amy, Of course, CoinStar was my first thought, but I am married to a pack rat who saves everything forever--so getting him to go cash in his loose change would require an act of Congress or something. I'm laughing as I type this, but it is kinda true. Maybe his jars of loose change are part of his (grin) retirement plan.

I am so sorry to hear about Ron losing another sister so close to losing the first one. What stunning news for y'all to receive--even though you knew it was coming. Tim and I send you, Ron and your families our love, hugs and most sincere condolences. Y'all have such a lot of grief to bear and it is happening all at once. I can understand that the things you need to do in Bartlesville are taking up all your time---here you are, Amy, a prime example of the sandwich generation---helping to care for your grandchildren while also dealing with elderly parents. It is a wonder you have any time for yourself at all. Take care of yourself and of Ron---you surely are burning the candle at both ends right now. I hope that life calms down, and slows down a bit or you're going to just be completely exhausted. It is a good thing that we are in the slow part of the gardening season right now.

Jen, Your life sounds so orderly and under control right now. I hope your church's Halloween event goes well. At least it seems like the weather will be good.

Jacob, Oh man, I was hoping that frost wouldn't come to you so early---though it is on time, right? In my garden which slopes strongly downhill, frost and freezes can affect each bed differently---one year the whole garden froze in a very late freeze (tomato plants were knee-high to thigh-high and had fruit about half of full-size on them) except for the very top raised bed right beside the driveway. The 8 or so tomato plants there survived. This was long before I had frost blankets and, actually, I guess that very late freeze was the reason I started investing in frost blankets. My friend, Fred, gardens on significantly higher ground less than a mile from us--he is on a hill and we are in a valley, and his hill can have up to a month longer growing season than our valley has. I have to ignore his exhortations to 'plant now' because he can plant earlier than I can, and I know better than to try to plant at the same time that he does.

I'm sorry about your chickens. It is so very frustrating when this sort of thing happens. We lose more to coyotes than to bobcats, but I think that coons are the worst of all. Oh, and weasels. If a weasel ever gets into your chicken coop or chicken pen, the carnage is simply unbelievable.

Larry, Oh, so you have a lucky neighbor too--how funny that you and I both have that in common. Sometimes I'm jealous when my neighbor is planting earlier than I can or harvesting later, but it is what it is, and I cannot change it.

Farmgardener, We have been fighting rodents too, but more in the garage than in the chicken coop. (I think maybe snakes go in and out of the coop at this time of the year and help with rodent control,though I haven't encountered a snake inside the chicken coop in many weeks now.) It seems like we most often have a rodent population explosion in rainy years, so based on all the recent rainfall, I think we all are in for a battle. Before we ever had guineas, I always heard they'd take care of rodents and keep snakes away---well, ours did not. They were great at exterminating large numbers of grasshoppers though. Something has dug a pretty good-sized hole underneath the edge of the chicken coop and appears to be living there. I haven't figured out what it is....hopefully it is only a possum or an armadillo, and not a skunk. I haven't wanted to get down in the mud on my hands and knees in order to shine a flashlight in there and see what it is. I'm waiting for drier weather.

The incessant foggy, drizzly skies are driving me crazy. Our NWS forecast said we'd have one day of rain and it would be over and we'd be back to our sunshine. Our local TV met on our favorite channel said we'd have only one day of rain and clous and then back to the sunshine. Well, they were wrong, wrong, wrong, and starting to sing a different tune by last evening. It rained all day yesterday, although the rain ended earlier than they said, and I was glad because I thought that would mean less rain. It really didn't---we got more rain than they said to expect--it just fell earlier in the day instead of later. Then, this morning we awoke to fog, mist, almost drizzle---clouds, etc. Where is the sunshine? This most certainly was not a quick one-day rain event. We are in day two already and no sign of the sun today, or the moon the last two nights. What we're getting here isn't exactly rain, but then we aren't dry either. I feel like we have stolen the perpetually gray, misty skies from the coastal areas of the PNW and plopped them down right over us. So, we're back to big puddles and goopy, gloppy mud everywhere. I'm completely over it all. We've set a record for rainfall for the last two months, and every bit that falls just adds to it. The D-FW has set a much higher record and I'm sure they're even more sick of the constant rain than we are here in southern OK.

More trees are turning colors though, so I can sit indoors and gaze out at the forested land around us and at least appreciate that. Now, if only those leaves will fall and stay in place in the yard until the weather is cold enough that I can rake them up and chop them and shred them for the garden. Some years the leaves all blow into our overgrown woodland before I can get my hands on them.

Dawn

Dawn, the frost is about on time this year. We, too, are sick of the dreary days. It’s been a dreary month, and the trees aren’t changing as fast because of it. Your husband also reminds me of my dad. He is a pack rat too....He allows me to keep anything I use daily in our shed just so that I can get to it. If something is laid down in the garage...you won’t get it back. LOL. Of course, it also doesn’t help when a particular toddler is stealing tools out of his toolbox and throwing them in the woods. We lost a very expensive hammer recently, and I’m pretty sure I know what happened to it!!

Speaking of the trees, they started changing overnight. They’re already nearing their peak in places....holy cow!! We’re saying “screw you” to the rain and going hiking today anyways. Should be a wet day. We’re a glutton for punishment...

It was 46 F in the mountains for a high. Chilly! 50’s at home- most leaves were real pretty over there. Was a good hike, though wet.

Jacob, I'm so sorry about your chickens and favorite rooster. I wonder what kills a chicken and just bites it's neck, but doesn't eat it....

Our neighbor's dog killed one of my hens in February. Picked her up by her neck, but didn't maul her or do any other damage. Broke her neck. Could a dog have killed your chickens?

I have a Plymouth rock hen. Her name is Rosa. She was one of the broody hens over the summer. Her baby was Jules (who has been renamed Jean Luc Picard) and she was a fierce mother. Dolly (the other broody) was a protective mother, but Rosa was fiercely protective. I got a few fertilized eggs from neighbors, however now I will not have to do that if I want baby chicks and have broody hens. Jean Luc Picard is a rooster--my first rooster. I love to hear his crows.

farmgardener, I need to get these cats outdoors, patrolling the property. Since Charlotte died, the mice have shown up, both in Tom's shop and my coop.

Some of the trees are turning around here and are so beautiful.

I am tired of mud and muck.

I've been absent. I've thought about you all so much, with love, but have been dealing with that love thing in a different venue. Been in an intensive God channel. Just gonna post this and will get back to you all, with love, about my walking and about my gardening. Love and blessings to you all.

Wow. I just read the entire week's postings! Fun stuff. Well, not the chicken massacre, Jacob, not the frost, and certainly not the trials Ron and Amy are going through. I can't imagine what it's like for them going through all this stuff. What Dawn said, Amy. . . .

It sure was good seeing both of them last week, though--AND Larry and Eileen. We had so much fun, and good food, too.

And was so sad to hear about the chickens, Jacob. I am so glad we decided not to have chickens! I know they would not have been safe here. But darn, sure need to find someone nearby who has fresh eggs to sell. Our grandkids in Bixby were bringing us eggs a couple years ago, but now they're both working full-time since their kids are in school, so their chicken flock is very small and they don't have extra eggs.

I made notes from all your posts. By far the biggest laugh was the sorting-coins story, Dawn. And yet, really a good idea, collecting them all in their own jars. I have fond memories of large collections of change. At one time I had loose change saved in a large 5-gallon glass water jug. I was getting ready to move and it was really heavy, so finally emptied it out and counted it up. Came to a surprisingly large amount. Another time I had nothing but pennies saved in it and was having a yard sale; I sold the jug and the pennies. Hadn't even counted them previously. I don't remember what it sold for but I know I was pleased, at the time.

Paying off student debt is something that is so so so so wrong in society. There is no way there should be student debt. I'm sure many of you remember when WE were young. College at that time was less than $1000 a year at decent colleges. Books were cheap, too. Even ivy leagues were totally manageable and most offered great scholarships.

And I'm laughing about elderly people--and retired people, too. Many of us are in that age group, you know. . . :) just sayin'. LOL It's too funny, really. . . the older one gets, the older "old" gets. When I was 10, 50 seemed old. When I was 40, 75 seemed old. Now 98 seems old. And retired. I remember thinking I wanted to work until I was 70, just five years ago. Liked my job, certainly liked socking extra into my 401(k). How quickly that changed, running into GDW. Now I cannot believe how much I love my "retired" life. And I can be either VERY busy, or very busy doing nothing but, say, reading all day if I choose. I do love my life so very much!

Your mention of rhubarb, HJ. I just ran out to see if mine came back (after the bugs ate it to smithereens); and the four o'clocks have totally taken over that whole area. Maybe if it warms up a bit I'll go tear a bunch of them out of there and see if I can see any signs of the rhubarb.

I'm tickled I got more cilantro and dill in a while back; I'll be able to harvest a lot of both. And might as well go gather a bunch of other stuff, too. Well, okay I do believe you all now. You were right and I was WRONG. The lemon balm that I thought behaved rather well because it's in shade? Well, no. Not true. Did NOT behave well this year--it is EVERYWHERE. I need to go beat a bunch of IT back, too, while I'm tearing out 4 o'clocks.

The fall colors of trees this year are prettier than the past couple years. Our oaks are just now beginning to turn a bit.

HJ. . . collecting horses. I had several as a child, too. Not Breyers, but porcelain/ceramic ones. Beautiful ones. I really am not sure what happened to them. But always regretted not saving them into adulthood. So, about 10 years ago, I told my kids (son and wife and grandkids) that they could start buying me horses for gifts. Then I proceeded to go on a horse collectibles buying binge online that lasted 3 months. At the end of the 3 months, I invited the kids down to see my collection. They thought that was hysterical. Instant collection, and bang--I'm done. And was. And love my "collection"!!! LOVE it. Especially my white stallion. . . .

And, HJ and Amy, Amen to the Ashe County pimentos! LOVE them!

We also have tons of compost stuff this year. I feel positively pampered and spoiled with all the wood chips, all the leaves we'll have, all the plants that will be chopped and dropped. BUT, I think I'm going to go buy a truckload of raised garden soil from Lowe's next month, too. The raised beds need MORE DIRT! Funny how that happens, you know? I tell you, though, where we heavily lasagna built beds in the yard, that soil is SO beautifully rich. I'm so close to being done getting the Bermuda totally out of the huge back bed. I can finish it in an afternoon--it chased me out a couple days ago with drizzly rain all day. I'm excited about it, though, can get a lot of stuff moved back there. The dirt, in it--what a DREAM. SO nice and crumbly! I'm going to do a lasagna number on it again if I have time this next month.

Well, have work to do. . . . nice reading what's going on with you all.

Those photos were just amazing, Jacob. What a beautiful area you live in!

I went out to continue in the Bermuda bed, but it's just too wet, still. I'm super excited to get it done, as it's a pretty big bed--about 8-9 x 25. at least. It's quite a ways in back of the house, so I'll plant to put taller stuff back the re--I'll continue with bee balm, which was what most of it was, and I'm going to let one of those Miss Huff lantanas go nuts there, too. I had no idea those get as big as they do!

I am also super excited because I can now sit in the living room to read instead of out here at the computer. Let's see, I've been here 3 years and 9 months. Yesterday I finally figured out the solution. We have a very very dark living and the two heavy end table lamps didn't have enough wattage capability to have bright enough bulbs. And limited range, anyway. I was grumpy yesterday because I was sleepy, but couldn't nod off in this little swivel office chair. And then it hit me. I have a torchiere floor lamp with a smaller task light arm below. It was sitting in a corner of the living room and never even on! I quick went in and moved one of the heavy end table lamps off and put the torchiere floor lamp behind the end table. YAY!!! I can SEE. GDW said, "Well, Maybe I want a floor lamp like THAT. I can't see that well, either." Hahaha, so we jumped in the truck and went to Lowe's and got one for him too. I thought they might look kind of goofy but didn't care. Now I think they look kinda cool. But it doesn't matter whether they do or don't. Main thing is we can both SEE! Love it!

So here's the big Bermuda bed, the floor lamps and part of the instant horse collection. :)

Hmm. I need to tidy that little hutch up. Maybe I'll do that next. And then sit for the rest of the day in a comfy chair or the couch and read!

Not a lot of color here yet, we do have two maples that are colored nice, most everything else is green.

I Won't go into quick collecting, because a few years ago I bought more drill bits in six months time than I had bought in the 70 years before.

I camped out on ebay and bought enough quality drill bits to last me the rest of my life, even if I live to be 100 years old. About 6 months after

I bought all my bits , I read that a Chinese corp. bought the whole Greenfield corp., which included nearly all the cutting tools made in the U. S. A.. But they did not get mine.

Wow what a tree! I sure wish I had one of those in MY yard, Larry! Good-looking yard, too!

Hahahaha. . . . nice that you got all those good-quality drill bits! I'm glad my binge only lasted 2-3 months. That white stallion porcelain statue cost me $350.00---I cannot believe I did that but am not one little bit sorry. The rest were nowhere near that. Well now my frivolities are few and far between, since I am on a limited budget. LOL As a matter of fact, I have far far far too much STUFF. I need to get rid of it. Do any of you need a fabulous sewing machine? I have 3 of them--one never used. Brand new. Any of you need some guns? I'd be happy to sell GDW's. HAHAHA!!!

Amy, remember I compared Tiny to Sasquatch. But I really wasn't kidding. He is going to land in real trouble one of these days. He is a spoiled brat. Second, he is far too reckless and not near cautious enough. And he thinks he's just a little bit smarter than any of the rest of us. I frankly hope he is, because if he is not, things are not going to go well for him. I went out to weed in the back bed today--just for an hour, since I finally decided it was too damp. Weeding is his very favorite thing and GDW was up on the deck laughing so hard when I went trotting down to that bed, and 30 seconds later, Tiny came racing after me. He was enchanted and happy for about 30 minutes, leaping on the pile of discarded grass, wrestling with the roots as I pulled them out, digging deeper into a hole I'd made, tackling my hand. . . But 30 minutes is about as much as he can muster. THEN he has to practice tree-climbing; he is way more advanced than either of his 10-month older brothers--they're not into tree-climbing seriously. It's obviously one of his passions. He can no zip down as easily as he zips up. That's a hard thing for some cats to learn. TOM, on the other hand, learned from Titan how to know on the back door to get in. Jerry and Tiny haven't learned that yet, so Tom has to knock for the other two! LOL Jerry? What does Jerry know? Pretty much everything the other two don't. He's probably the most balanced of the 3. And THE boss. They are enchanting creatures.

And even though Titan is a different species, they and we are one family and seems all of us know it and honor it. Titan actually goes out and gathers the cats if it's getting late and I've been calling them to come in. I don't know how he does it. . . but he'll knock on the door, and whoever else is out will come in then.

AGGHH. I HATE technology! I hate it SO much. I intended to spend my day, after my first 2 hours visiting with GDW, having a quick breakfast, beginning to do our sudokus. . . . trying to check into OKGW with intent to actually post, feeding the critters. But I didn't get up until almost almost 8 and today's sudoku is a HARD one, and I was NOT going to spend 2 hours on a sudoku when I had to study the Bible and read some of my new Christian books and work outdoors and so on and on. And then, remembering I'd be on yet another road trip by Nov 8, decided that maybe I oughtta resurrect my Ipad, that I haven't used in 2-3 years. Bought in 2010. So drug it out. And spent the next 8 hours trying to get it going again. Two hours in, thought, can't do this, don't wanna try, will just buy a new one. Dang. They're not that cheap. So. Back to getting the 8-yr old one up to speed and fixed.

It took me 8 hours but I DID it! Running smooth as can be. It'll be preferable to the inferior laptop I could take up to Buffalo.

I will be going to Wyoming on the weekend of Nov 10 for my mother's memorial services. GDW and I have not discussed whether he's going or not.

He has a sister up there, who has dementia. She's 84, and knows who everyone is, but is losing her ability to track almost everything else.

Like I said, GDW and I haven't talked about it. MY thinking is that both of us know he'd rather not go, and both of us worry about me making the trip alone. We will have to have this discussion very soon. I know we're going to agree on every aspect of it. The other thing about it is these CRITTERS. IF both of us go to Buffalo, Titan has to go with us, which means a hotel stay. Furthermore, we'll be worrying about the cats. Scotty will have to come see them every day but they don't REALLY know him. Truth be known, I'd rather go alone, and I think GDW, though worrying about me, would agree. We'll have this conversation soon.

I expect I will be going alone. And that's okay with me. I know GDW will worry about it, as I would if he were going alone. And I'm not all that happy about driving the roads along any more. But I can, still.

At 80, take my license away.

Jacob, Every year I always hope that the first frost of autumn will be later than average. It rarely is. There was one glorious year in the early to mid-2000s when the first frost/freeze (and it was both at once) didn't arrive until around December 17th or 18th. We had the best fall garden production that year anyway, and then it got to go on and on and on forever. We went from not having had a single frost or freeze to dropping down into the mid-teens. It was a very dramatic ending to the growing season.

Filling the garage/shop (1200 square feet of space) with 'stuff' wasn't as big of an issue 10-15 years ago as it is now because Tim always knew exactly where everything was. It might have looked like a mess to other people, but he could walk in there and instantly find what he needed/wanted (though no one else could) no matter how small or obscure it was. The problem is that as you get older, your memory gets worse and now that he is in his 60s, he has a harder time finding stuff. When you cannot find what you need after much searching, you go buy a replacement. I think when we do clean up and reorganize the garage, we'll find duplicates of a lot of tools and things. To me, that's a sign we need to clean it up and organize it. And, so we shall, hopefully on a few winter weekends.

Our trees have done about the same as yours. One day last week I saw a few glimmers of red and yellow foliage in our woodland areas but everything mostly was green still, and this week the there has been an explosion of color. I am so excited. We often go from green foliage to falling brown foliage literally overnight, so to have a year where we are having glorious reds, yellows and golds is awesome. I want to enjoy every minute of it because it likely will be several years before we have such good autumn color again down here.

Nancy, It is SO true that the older one gets, the older that 'old' gets pushed out there into a higher age range. When we moved here, we were barely 40 and had moved into an old farm and ranch neighborhood where everyone here had lived here pretty much their whole lives. Most of them were in their 60s, 70s, or 80s and seemed impossibly old to us, although our next-door neighbors were about our age. Some of our new neighbors had kids our age or older, all of them were grandparents or great grandparents. Not some of them are great-, great-grandparents. Of the original neighbors still alive, most are in their 80s or 90s, and to us, 60 no longer seems old at all. (grin) Even the 80 year olds don't seem as old to us now as they once did because we're getting closer in age to them. When a younger family moves into our neighborhood now, I am all too aware that they undoubtedly see us as the old folks.....

The bad thing about moving into a neighborhood where almost everyone is so much older than you is that you find yourself going to tons of funerals over the years. But, then, on the other hand it is an awesome blessing to have neighbors you love and adore so much that you truly grieve for them after they pass away.

I'm glad you can see in the formerly dark room. I have been amazed to discover how much good lighting can improve any space.

Larry, That tree is gorgeous!

Nancy, I totally understand about wanting someone to be at home taking care of the animals. That is what we usually do, and it usually is Tim who travels to PA for family stuff, and I stay here and mind the zoo. It isn't that I don't want to go to PA with him, but rather that it just would be so hard to find someone to take care of all our dogs, cats and chickens.

When you go, I wish you safe travels.

Cats are such a hoot! They are incredibly entertaining and, yet, they steal inside your soul and capture your heart as well.

When going through a box of stuff in the closet the other day, I came across a calendar I had saved from 2014 because the cat poems in it are too precious and at the same time hysterically funny. The cat calendar is entitled "I Could Pee On This" and it has a cat poem (theoretically written by the cat in that month's photo) and I believe it is the January cat who wrote "I Could Pee On This". That poem completely cracks me up because it is so true---if you seriously upset some cats, they will retaliate by peeing on something precious to you.

Earlier this week, two of our cats were playing with each other---but one (Lucky) was inside sitting on the desk in the girls' room and the other one (Pumpkin) was outside. They were play fighting with one another, separated by the window. I had a hard time focusing on the cleaning task at hand because I was watching them and laughing at them.

We finally had sunshine on Friday. It was pretty chilly for much of the day, but got a little warm in the afternoon. The important thing was that we had the sunshine!

The foliage here still is largely green, but there's big bursts of reds, golds and yellows now scattered around all over---still mostly elms, persimmon groves and, for the red foliage, a handful of red oaks (most red oaks are just beginning to change color), sumac, ornamental pears, Chinese pistache, and poison ivy. For anyone who doesn't think they have poison ivy running wild in their native woodland areas here, all you have to do is stand and look into the woods and you'll see the poison ivy now a scarlet red wherever it has climbed upward through the trees. Later on the Virginia creeper vines will change color as well.

There's still a lot of red in the garden, mostly in the form of the flowers of zinnias, pineapple sage and Texas hummingbird sage. Oh, and autumn sage of course. I'm going to miss all these colors when frost and freezing temperatures arrive and take them away from us.

We're supposed to hit the lower 80s today and tomorrow, so I hope everyone will remember to watch for increased snake activity. Why are we hitting the 80s? Well, I'm not complaining, but it is making me rethink my costume for tonight's Halloween party. I based the costume (I'm going to be a black cat) on wearing a black sweatsuit. Hmmm. That might be too warm, so I guess I'll switch to lighterweight black clothing and attach my cat tail and cat accessories to those clothing items. Here in OK, you never know if Halloween will be hot/warm or freezing cold. I think the actual Halloween will have cold, rainy weather, but most of the community Halloween stuff here is happening this weekend during the heat wave. Of course it is. At least the kids who go to the Trunk or Treat event in town tonight won't have to wear coats over their costumes.

I saw some persimmons on one of our trees yesterday and am going to try to get them today (they're too high to reach but maybe I can knock them down with a pruning pole). I want to cut them open and see if the southern OK persimmons also are showing spoons like those in other parts of the state and the country.

Dawn

We got into the garden yesterday. Planted garlic and multiplier onions. Set out collards and lettuce I got from lowes. Did a little weeding and Ron has cleared most of the beds. He can't handle standing dead stuff. Sigh. I think I've convinced him to lop the plants off instead of pulling up the roots. It was, as my daughter said, cathartic. Today I plant pansies and mums. But I have a sleeping toddler on my lap right now.

We've had much less rain than the rest of you.

I had plastic horses as a kid and I played with them with the girl down the street.

Everyone have a nice weekend.

Amy, I think Ron (and you) probably really needed that garden therapy after the recent loss of his two sisters. There's nothing wrong with that---we all need just such a cathartic experience in the garden every now and then. Nothing perks me up like a little garden time and I hope it worked the same for you two. The year that my dad died, I think the garden was all that kept me sane.

I still haven't bought any pansies to plant. I might do it tomorrow. We'll see. It is a grandchild-free weekend, and (lol) we hardly know what to do with ourselves. I might not plant them until it cools off a bit more because our temps are in the low 80s (83 for a high today) for the weekend and maybe Monday, so the dreaded venomous snakes might be out. I didn't see any today though, but I was only in the yard and the driveway, not in the garden.

We got up early and had all our real chores on our To Do list accomplished by 9:30 a.m., so we went to Hobby Lobby so I could pick up a few Thanksgiving decorations. While I'm enjoying the Halloween tree in the mudroom, I don't want to enjoy it after Halloween is over, and November 1st really is too early to decorate it for Christmas. I mean, I could do it, but then I'm afraid I might get tired of looking at it before December even arrived, so I'll just replace the spiders, skulls, ghosts, etc. on the tree with autumn items like acorns, autumn leaves, pumpkins that are not jack-o-lanterns, bundles of wheat, etc. We do have Christmas ball shaped ornaments in shades of orange, gold and brown, so I can use those too. Maybe I cannot do much outdoors right now, but I can get things done indoors.

After we got home and the dew on the grass had dried, Tim mowed and mowed and mowed today. So, as y'all can imagine, he is a really happy camper because the grass in the yard, front pasture and bar ditch is under control again.

We cut open six persimmon seeds from the tree beside the house. We have five spoons and one knife, so I guess we are expecting a lot of snow....if you believe in this sort of forecasting. (It is fun even if it isn't accurate.)

The red and golden/yellow foliage on the trees looks better literally every hour. I think the yellows and olds will peak this week. We've seen a little orange on a couple of trees, but not much. Except for the brief period when the persimmon leaves deepen to a gorgeous golden-orange, we don't see much orange here.

I did notice today that the crape myrtles planted in the I-35 median in our county have all sorts of gorgeous foliage right now. Some of it is sort of a pinkish-greenish shade, but some of it really is red. I'm loving the fact we finally have autumn foliage to go with our autumn weather. I'd better enjoy it while it lasts (which won't be very long) because we probably only get a really pretty autumn foliage season here maybe one out of every four years.

I need to go start next week's thread while I am thinking of it. I always am running behind and starting it later than I intend to.

Dawn

I am so so so not wanting to drive to Wyoming for Mom's memorial service. So wanting to BE there, but so not wanting to drive there. 17 hour trip. . . 18 hours? Definitely gonna do a 2-day deal. GDW and I hadn't discussed this until this evening but I knew how it was gonna play out. He didn't, poor fella. I knew he didn't wanna go. He hates funerals. Besides, Mom wasn't HIS mom. And besides that, he knew it'd be a problem finding someone to take care of our critters.

What he DIDN'T know was that I didn't want him to go! I knew the only reasons for him to go were first, to see his sister Bessie. But Bessie has Alzheimers or dementia and wouldn't remember he'd been there. And second, that he'd worry about me being able to drive safely. And he at this point probably thinks I can drive at least as safely as he can. (And that's true.)

So. One more trip by myself. . . up to Wyoming in 2 weeks. Bless my dear hubby's heart. . . he was so nervous that he'd have to go with me--and he would have. He was SO relieved this evening when I told him we needed to have this talk. He was positively thrilled. Love the guy!

Hey folks, Sorry to "bomb" the discussion, without really contributing. I just tried to post a new thread: spent like 35 minutes with photos, etc., and lost it all. I'm out of practice with starting threads on Houz. When I tried using the box at the top of the page it looked like it wasn't going to post on the Oklahoma forum, so I backed out and... lost my post.

I'm out of time for today, but I'd love to know how to post a new thread. I'll drop back tomorrow.

George

George, you have to click next and scroll through all the topics to find Oklahoma Gardening and tick the box. I DID learn something new. under the first post there are several icons and one says "comments". Click on the number and you are at the bottom of the page. Of course it opens a comment window, but I've been tying to get to the last post easily for months.

Nancy, I know you and Garry both are relieved you had 'the talk' and that he is off the hook with regards to making that trip with you.

George and Amy, I had trouble posting when they first "upgraded" Houzz a few weeks or months back, but I guess I've gotten used to it now. They've added that second screen so that after you type your original post you can add other forums to it to cross-post if you want. I just page through that every time and go on to submit what I've written.

I do have the OK Gardening page bookmarked on my computer, so all I have to do is click on that and it brings me straight here without having to go through the rest of Houzz.

I do occasionally lose posts still, or I click submit and they never show up even though they look like they posted correctly. I've learned that if I wait 12-24 hours they eventually show up, but I have no idea where they are hiding when they are "lost". I've been trying harder to start the new weekly threads on Saturday evening so that if it takes 24 hours to pop up, maybe it at least becomes viewable sometime Sunday.

Dawn