I got dizzy reading about all your flowering plants! I have to go back and re-read. I've been focused on getting some goldenrod in here. There's plenty of it alongside our rural road; I maybe try to get some of that. Also have the seeds.

Thanks to Garry, I have a new place to sow wildflower seeds. Hadn't even occurred to me. That is directly behind the house, beyond the back yard, in the oak foresty area. BUT in the center of that area is a sizable sunny area. Perfect! And the real up-side is that we'd actually be seeing the wildflowers all the time. I swear, he's a keeper.

I have about 1/3-1/2 of the flowers you do, Dawn, mostly missing sun-loving ones. I did mention how I'm jealous of the garden in town, right? (I feel a little schizo about that since technically, it is also my garden. LOL). Is it so wrong to want half this property to be sunny and half the serene shady? Garry needs to cut down the app. 6 oak trees to the front and north of the shop. That'd make for plenty of nice sun.

One thing we agree on. I don't mess with taking plants down in the fall. Especially since I've become a passionate advocate for butterflies (and the ecosystem in general). Weeding is good, but the plants are staying til next spring. This is the first year I've had sulfurs, Dawn, and aren't they beauties! I didn't have a GREAT Monarch turnout--the most being the 17 cats I found at one time a couple weeks ago. And I frankly just don't have a huge stand of milkweed. I'll have a lot m ore next year. Dagnabbed aphids, milkweed bugs. GRRR. At least I did battle them ferociously and conscientiously this year, until I suspect Monarch eggs were there. I only used the smushing them off, clipping the tips off earlier on, spraying the alcohol solution. The bugs, I just took my pitcher of water and would lightly tap the ends to make them fall into the soapy water.

We don't have the many hummingbirds we did 3 weeks ago, but still 8-10 constantly. We must have the females and young presently, as they're nowhere near as aggressive as the ones a couple-3 weeks ago. The pollinators out there have dropped off dramatically--and no wonder, as there are acres and acres of rudbeckia and goldenrod just down the road a couple miles.

Speaking of tree frogs! Garry was laughing today as we came in after church. There on the door was a cute little tree frog. On the INSIDE of the door, not the outside! GDW took it out, carefully wrapped and carried in a paper towel, and put it on the railing. But it didn't move. I rolled my eyes and scolded it for being in mortal danger, so scooped it up and gently tossed it down below the railing.

AND. Last I checked the cukes was Thursday before the church ladies came. And Saturday, GDW came in with 10 cukes, 3 of them nearly too big. He is MUCH better at spotting them than I am. That was a shame, since had we checked Friday morning, we could have sent them home with the church friends. So. I took them in plastic bags to church this morning and said in announcements that they were in the foyer and wouldn't be coming home with us. There were 9 cukes, 6 largish green bells, and several chili peppers.

I've found I have a lot more takers on free seedlings than I do grown produce. Crazy.

What are you painting now, Dawn??? :)

Okay about done for now. Got a long day ahead of me tomorrow at the school. Friday was church friends, Saturday was 4 hours with one of our daughters. Today, into town for church. Tomorrow into town for school. Love them all but love the garden more.

Blessings to you all.

I yanked almost all the basil plants yesterday, and put 4 quart bags of pesto in the freezer. They were not happy about all the rain last week, and were starting to curl up and turn black. I should have done it a couple weeks ago, but of course didn’t expect all that rain.

I bring in a couple handfuls of blushing tomatoes every couple days. They seem to feel the end is in sight. But, still excellent tomatoes. Tonight I also brought in a full size cucumber that I swear wasn’t there when I harvested the basil Saturday morning.

I also pulled out the cosmos tree that never bloomed. This was not a good spring for getting flowers established. I lost so many to the excessive rain, then to the dry when my outdoor spigot broke and I couldn’t water. Hoping for better flowers next year. I need to get some fall flowers in too.

I need to divide my daffodils, but not sure how to find them under all the other stuff. Bought crocus bulbs too.

Well, I will never get caught up. It seems as though everything I own needs to be repaired.

There is also trees to trim and sweet potatoes to dig. I did however get some turnips, mustard, cabbage and radishes planted. also got the lawn mowed and a lot of limbs removed from 5 of the trees in the lawn, but still have a lot more to trim. The trimming is not going well, it really hurts my shoulders and back. Madge and I have talked about moving to where we don't have so much to take care of, I am liking the idea more each day. I am too tired to even talk about all that needs to be done. I think I will just go to bed.

Well, the snapdragons I started inside at the end of August, are now sizable enough to possibly brave the grasshoppers. It's been so hot, I've been afraid to move them out (heat and grasshoppers). But maybe this week, they're about four inches now on the windowsill, a bit lankier than I'd like but...

Yes, I await autumn, it's still feeling summer. But this past week was my week in the 80s. Apparently (if the forecast is correct), Thursday starts my three weeks in the 70s. Then three days of high 50s, then back to 60s. Over the last month and a half, it's been this sort of forecast constantly, and they keep moving it back...and it was staying in the 90s (we never really got any 100s, I don't think). We mostly had ample rain, maybe one three week dry spell.

If the forecast is accurate (now), I'll be moving most of my houseplants inside by end of month. I'd probably leave most of my cacti out till it gets in the 40s, though.

This year, I have a small to medium sized fig, eventually destined for outdoor planting, which I will baby through the winter (moving in to unheated porch when cooler than 20) and prepare to permanently plant in spring. I accquired a hybrid (high/low)bush blueberry this year that is in a pot permanently, due to lack of drainage in the outside soil, so I'll tuck it into an eastern shady corner for the winter, once winter comes....and try to not forget to water it if needed.

I still have a few things in the pot jungle that need planting..but was waiting on summer annuals to fade out before planting...soon now.

Nancy, We've always had goldenrod in a few scattered locations, none of them near the house, and only one of them visible from the house, but of course we were just happy to have some. The ones out in the pasture are a shorter variety that bloom when they get 2-3' tall. For the last couple of years, a different variety of goldenrod has popped up in a new area, right between the driveway and southern border of our property---an area about 8-10' wide. We stopped mowing most of that area along the fence a couple of years ago when yellow-fruited sand plums popped up there (ironically, in dense red clay soil but I'll never call them clay plums.....), only mowing the couple of feet closest to the driveway. I'm sure everything there alongside the fence is bird-planted. We've been rewarded with a decent expansion of the plum thicket and with the appearance of the goldenrod (tall ones about 6-7' tall) ever since we stopped mowing the whole area, but the downside is that little oak trees, sumac, greenbrier and poison ivy all have popped up there as well. So, we need to clear out the undesirables this autumn.

Our veggie garden currently is just such a delight---a huge jungle of mostly ornamental flowering plants overflowing from each raised bed....narrowing down the pathways quite a bit as they overflow the beds. The recent heavy rainfall gets a lot of the credit for the massive size of the plants, because they certainly do not get this big in a more typical, dry year. The very hard part of having filled this garden with flowers this year, and with planning to do the same thing next year, is that it is ruining me for growing veggies. I am finding such joy in having all these flowers that I don't know how I ever go back to filling the raised beds with mostly veggies. Hmmm. I feel a big gardening transition might be coming on.

Maybe next spring, when I already plan to grow all my tomatoes and peppers in containers, might be the start of transitioning to a permanent container vegetable garden that would be closer to the house, somewhat less vulnerable to herbicide drift, and easier to plant and maintain. I just have to figure out where I want to set it up because once the large containers are in place and filled with a soil-less mix, I don't want to have to move them again. As I work on the re-design of the landscape around our house, I'm keeping my mind open about which location would be the best place for a large container garden.

Of course, anything I do with the re-modeling of the landscape will involve cutting down some trees in order to have enough sunshine to grow what I want to grow. Strategic tree removal is an important part of the plan, and Tim's least favorite part of it, next to the need to erect fencing to keep out the deer.

I hope that Gary will cut down the trees you need removed so you'll have more sunshine for gardening.

I love the tree frogs. We've always found them on the windows, the walls, the doors, etc. but this one on the hummingbird feeder is the most persistent little thing. He sits there day in and day out and has for at least all of August and all of September, and he doesn't cause any trouble. The cats are used to the tree frog and don't bother it either, likely because they've been taught to stay away from the hummingbird feeders.

We're painting the exterior of the house white to contrast with the new, black-shingled roof. It previously was a medium green with a white shingled roof. When we chose the new shingle color this summer, we both agreed we wanted a lighter-colored exterior paint on the house so that's what we are working on now.

Rebecca, It is amazing how hard moisture can be on basil. Oddly, it didn't bother my basil too much, but the sage is pretty much dead and gone. First it got some sort of fungal disease on the foliage, and then it just died bit by bit. I have other culinary sage in other areas, but this big plant that died was several years old and was huge. Many of the herbs we grow don't like excess moisture, though, so it doesn't surprise me when periods of heavy rainfall destroy them.

I'm glad you're getting tomatoes.

It is too bad the rain interfered with all your flowers this year. We always hope for rain and need rain, but too much of it at once is just as hard on the plants, or maybe harder on them, as too little rain. Everything seems to come in extremes here, especially the rainfall---it is always too much or too little and never just right.

Larry, You know, there is nothing wrong with moving to a place that would be lower maintenance. There is wisdom in recognizing when that time comes, and if it is coming now for you and Madge, then I hope you'll do it. Think how much happier you both might be with a smaller piece of property that doesn't require such hard, physical labor to maintain it all. Once the work involved in maintaining a large property becomes all-consuming and so tiring, maybe it is time to move just for the sake of your health.

While I always refer to our place as our forever home, I know deep in my heart that the day probably will come when maintaining it all becomes too much for us and we might decide to sell this place and move to a smaller place without all the acreage to maintain. When and if that time comes, I'll be okay with it.

dbarron, Isn't it frustrating to keep waiting and waiting for the heat and the grasshoppers to go away? I bet your lanky plants will be fine once you can get them outdoors and planted in the place where you want them. Now, if only the weather would become a little more cooperative. Oh, and if only all the grasshoppers would just go ahead and die!!!

I'm green with envy over your coming cooler weather. Our cool-down still seems too far away. We're still in the 90s, albeit the lower 90s, with heat indices as recently as last week in the 100s. I'm over it. I want autumn! They keep changing our forecast multiple times daily, so it is hard to have faith we're really going to cool down. Hopefully, we'll have at least three days (Thursday-Saturday) with highs only in the low 80s. That would be so wonderful. They're saying we might warm up again after that, but I'd be happy if we didn't. When we stay this hot this late in the season, it often seems we go from too hot to too cold almost overnight, and I don't like that brief of an autumn transition.

As soon as the weather cools down, I have a few things to plant too. I feel like we've been waiting for months and months for our usual mild autumn weather, and it is taking its sweet time getting here this year.

In the garden this morning, there wasn't much new, except the first roselle flowers blossomed this morning. I love how pretty and delicate they are (they look very similar to okra blossoms). There's tons of buds, so there will be more and more blooms as the week goes on. I was expecting them to start blooming in October, and the first flowers blossomed on September 30th, so they are pretty much right on schedule. Before long, I'll be making red zinger tea and roselle jam.

The hummingbirds are all over the place here this morning, but if this day is typical of the last couple of weeks, the birds will feed for a couple of hours and then be gone. Then, this afternoon or evening, new migrants will show up and feed, spend the night and then feed heavily again before they depart tomorrow morning. That's the pattern we're in now, and it won't change until all the migrants have gone through. We're definitely seeing fewer hummingbirds over time, but I'm trying hard to not feel too sad about that---they have to migrate in order to survive the winter, so of course we have to accept that.

There must be a huge mast crop this year as lots of acorns are shedding from the trees now. Whenever the trees are heavily loaded with nuts, they drop a lot of them early. I suspect it is because they are carrying more nuts than they really can sustain.

Yesterday, while painting the north side of the house, I noticed that our four o'clock forest near the back corner of the dog yard (outside the dog yard fence's NW corner) has expanded in a huge way this year. I'm not complaining. When I planted two or three four o'clocks back there about a decade ago, I knew that over time the planting would grow larger and larger, and it finally has. That area never gets any irrigation, so the size of the planting grows in rainy years and contracts in extremely dry ones. The droughts cannot kill the four o'clocks though. They might go dormant and die back to the ground in drought, but they don't die, and they come right back when rainfall returns. These four o'clocks are colonizing a slope that previously had erosions issues, and they have, by their existence, stopped the erosion.

I also noticed that down the slope from our house (it is on the high point of our ground, and the land north of the house then slopes sharply downhill to the woodland), on the northern edge of the woods, a bird-planted plant has appeared and it is covering a shady, eroded area, creeping across the ground and also climbing the trunk of a young pecan tree. I'm so glad to see it. This bird-planted plant is a honeysuckle. There are no blooms, so I don't know for sure, but the foliage looks identical to my coral honeysuckle. If the birds are going to plant honeysuckles, I want for it to be coral honeysuckle and not Japanese honeysuckle. So, after at least 15 years of growing coral honeysuckle on the veggie garden's entry arbor, we might finally have our first 'escapee' plant, and I could not be more delighted.

I need to go get busy painting so I can feel like I accomplished something today.

Dawn

We lost one of the hori hori knives this year, I told Ron if I buy a new one, we'll find it. So I did. Amazon was broken. (Anyone else have that issue yesterday?) So I went to AM Leonard. The knife itself was cheaper than Amazon, but with shipping, it was more. Oh, well. The point is, they have the tabletop style planters, complete with winter greenhouses and summer shade covers. They are pricey, and probably could be found cheaper elsewhere, but if anyone wants to dream or maybe DIY inspiration. I guess they're called Vegepod.

I was hoping for just a little bit of rain this weekend, for the pots. Didn't happen. I will have to water later. It's hot out there now.

In 1982 I was hoping #2 son would wait till after the season premire of Hill Street Blues was over to be born. He did, my water broke at 10 pm! I can stream Hill Street Blues, I should go watch that episode tonight, LOL. Any way his birthday is tomorrow and our anniversary is Wed. It is our birthday season with #3 10/23, #1 11/4, is wife is mid Nov and there are some friends sprinkled in there, too.

Have a good week, y'all.

I was excited to find Hill Street Blues with our Roku channels. But Amy, I was so sad to find that Hill Street was one of those series that didn't age very well. :( So sad because at the time it was the BEST.

I was on the laptop and had a post going when the thing shut down without warning. Grumpy. Our week is going to be a mess. We spent five hours going to Muskogee and having eye appt for GDW. for cataract surgery on Thursday. Then follow up appt the next day. Tomorrow, we said we'd help prep rooms at the school for painting. That leaves, mostly, Wednesday for yard work here. What spoiled brats we've turned into with retirement. Whine whine whine.

We stopped at Lowe's and got raised bed soil and potting soil, which was good, since he'll have lifting and bending restrictions after the surgery for a week or so. I wasn't in the mood for any more mums after the mum disease knocked out two of our big clumps. So settled for some ornamental kale and more parsley.

No great gardening news. We'll pull out all but one cucumber and the Korean squash on Wed. Garry spotted five smallish Galia melons, so we'll keep our fingers crossed they have time to make it.

We have six-seven new raised beds to fill at the school. Groan. I'm thinking we really don't have to get them done til the end of October. Kind of want some extra time to gather fallen leaves, since they're on a strict budget for buying soil. One fun thing, however, is that there are 3-4 large empty fields/lots around them one huge one that they mow--and the others leave their grass clippings. So there is a monster pile of grass where the compost pile will be (IS, actually, at the moment.) So perhaps we won't even really need any leaves. Still-we'll have leaves, so may as well add them to the grass.

You'll have to let us know when the Hori hori knife shows up, Amy, as we all know it will! lol

Isn't it great to have the birds plant desirable great new plants, Dawn! That's how I feel about the passiflora. And though I see no Swallowtails or Monarchs presently, there were 9 Gulf Frits, by my informal count today, just in the center bed.

I love reading y'all's posts!

Dawn, I think it's great you're enjoying your flowers so much. With just the two of you, it's not a bad idea to only grow veggies that you enjoy eating...and just enough for the two of you. Maybe a few to put up for the winter. I'm already thinking about that. My garden will have veggies, but I'm learning what we like to eat, what grows well for us and how much we need to grow to eat fresh and put away for winter. Do I need to grow so many cucumbers? I do not. I am the only one who eats them. I do make a few jars of pickles, but not many. Anyway...I'm so glad you're enjoying all of those flowers.

Nancy, I wish I could transplant one of your oaks at our property!

Rebecca, I so need to make pesto this year. My basils are still looking happy and healthy. We haven't had the rain you have had.

I want a hori hori knife, Amy! Maybe I'll mention it to the many people who want to know what I want for Christmas.

I am awaiting autumn too, dbarron. For us, it looks like it will show up on Thursday. Tomorrow and Wednesday are showing highs near 90.

Larry, nothing wrong with downsizing. You could grow a small garden that isn't overwhelming.

We were mid 40ish when we moved out here, 5 years ago, so not young. 1.12 acres was/is perfect. At times I wish we had more, but I know as we age, we will be glad we didn't buy a huge place.

Y'all I feel like..."where is Jennifer?". Why am I not drying herbs and making kombucha? Where is she? I have to find that girl again. I've been busy doing so many other things that I've lost part of myself. I don't like that.

Jennifer now has many more animals to care for...and is driven by projects. I need to make some changes....but don't know how. And I'm tired.

Speaking of the animals, I am still waiting for a crow to come from the "baby" coop. They are 12 weeks now. I am seeing saddle feathers on the Dark Cornish, but no other chick. I still think there is at least one other male, though.

We are both taking off on Friday, Oct. 11. The plan is to scrub the coop and remake the roosts. They need to house 8 more chickens, plus I need an easier way to clean up under the roost bars.

That's all from me.

Edited to say. The theme song from Hill Street Blues reminds me of when I was a kid and in my bedroom. I could hear the theme song on the TV in the living room where my Dad was watching the show. :)

Were starting to talk about moving in the next year or so, so I've been skimming the real estate ads. Thanks to the puppy sitting, we should be able to get our property sooner than we thought. It means starting over again, but at least this time I'll be able to set up a real garden area where our 4 legged critters can't destroy things.

Verbena bonarenisis, cosmos, and sculpit are all going nuts with this latest rain. Lots of jalapenos and a new crop of cherry tomatoes popped up. And I saw Aldi had food dehydrators in stock this week, so I may need to pick one up. I've been wanting one but couldn't justify the cost. These are pretty cheap but had good ratings from what I found.

My husband gave me an Amazon gift card for my birthday with strict orders to apend it on myself ("nothing for the kids!" Lol he knows me). So I need to go shop. I've got lots on my wishlist to go through.

Amy, When I lose stuff in the summer garden jungle, I only find it either (a) after buying a replacement, or (b) after everything is dead and I'm cleaning up dead vegetation sometime between November and February....or later. It doesn't even matter if I paint the handles bright colors. Somehow lost tools manage to hide away under something.

I buy a lot of stuff from A. M. Leonard, including the U-shaped landscape fabric staples in bulk, tools, gardening aprons, trellis netting and some organic insect products like SlugGo Plus.

The Vegepod looks like a cool product. We built our own similar product from one of those black cattle feed troughs on legs, using PVC pipe to build the hoops to hold the cover. We have had it for about 10 or 12 years and need to replace the PVC pipes as some of them are broken. I was toying with the idea of planting salad greens in it for winter, but haven't done it yet. Too many ongoing projects right now and too little time....oh, and it still is crazy hot too. I hope that is about to change. Our heat index hit 98 yesterday and I was working outside and it was miserable. Even when the temperature drops a little, the dewpoint doesn't, so we still end up with muggy, sticky, uncomfortable weather. I'm about to head outside to work again and today is supposed to be even hotter than yesterday. The cool front, once it finally gets here, is not expected to bring us much heat relief down here---the local TV mets are leaving their forecast temperatures higher than the NWS's so far, so I guess they aren't trusting the models yet.

This certainly is your family's season for celebrations. Enjoy them all. I hadn't thought about Hill Street Blues in ages....we really did enjoy watching it.

Nancy, I have found some shows do not age well, which is sad, but then I prefer a lot of the old ones to most of the new ones despite that.

Even in retirement, it is irritating when "business" type things interfere in your ability to set your own schedule and follow your own routine. Our retired friends are busier than our friends who still have jobs. I hope that Garry's eye surgery goes well. My mom got cataract surgery when she was in her 70s and her vision improved so very much.

Yesterday in the garden we had a lot of Frits too, and a handful of Swallowtails---not a lot, but maybe 4-6, and tons of sulphurs because of all the candletree plants. I know there are sulphur cats on the plants because the candletree foliage is being devoured, but I didn't spot any yesterday. There's also still little blue butterflies and hackberry emperors around, and various others. We also still have fennel, dill and parsley for the Swallowtails, but I haven't seen any new cats on them lately so it probably is too late in the season for them to lay more egs. . There's still too many grasshoppers. Usually they are mostly gone by now, but they're really hanging on in the heat this year.

Jennifer, I have been flower-starved for too long since I cannot grow any in the yard since they'll just be Deer Chow. Well, the deer don't eat four o'clocks so I have those, and some escaped Verbena bonariensis, and three rose bushes that the deer only eat in times of drought. When we lived in the city in Fort Worth, I had flower beds everywhere and a gorgeous lawn surrounded by those beds, in the front yard, back yard, and both side yards. I miss those flowers so much here. That's why we are building a tall garden-style fence around the yard this winter, even though Tim is going to hate it. I don't care if it is an ugly fence as long as it means I can grow all the flowering plants I want around the house. For so long, I've had to plant whatever flowers I wanted, needed or could squeeze into random corners and edges only within the fenced mostly-veggie garden and I'm over it. I want flowers around the house. I want them everywhere. That's a large part of my goal with re-doing the landscaping next year---to plant all the flowers my heart desires....and my heart desires a lot of them. I have tolerated Tim's hatred of a fenced yard for two decades and now he gets to tolerate having a fenced yard for the next two decades, if we live that long.

I've always loving growing veggies, herbs and fruits as well, and I really canned, froze and dehydrated tons of them for all the time we've lived here, but....I'm getting tired of spending so much time in the kitchen in the summer and really have cut back on the food preservation a lot the last couple of years. I'm trying to cut back on how much I grow and how much I preserve, so that by the end of the winter, we've pretty much emptied out the jars and the deep freeze instead of always having a ton of preserved food put away. I haven't really succeeded at that part yet, but I do carry over less preserved food from one year to the next each year these last 2 or 3 years, so I'm getting better at it.

I agree that the size of your place sounds perfect. As you age, you'll be glad you aren't trying to maintain something larger. When we moved here, I was 40 and Tim was 41 and a half. That was in 1999. I remember how much energy we had and how, for years, I could work outside from sunrise to sunset year round and never get tired of doing it. By the time I was 50, I wasn't so excited about those long days, and now that I'm 60, I cannot work from sunrise to sunset outdoors every day. I can do it when the weather is mild, but not when it is hot, and I don't even want to do it every day. I want more balance in my life---spending all my time gardening and preserving food was great for a while, but it is even better at this age now that I've cut back so much. I still have trouble finding a happy medium with tomatoes, jalapenos and cucumbers---I still grow too many and have to can and freeze too many. I've started growing pickling cukes only every other year, and then I can two years worth of pickles at one time. I still grow and pickle too many, but planting fewer cucumbers is on my list of things to do in the future.

I understand about having too many projects and being too tired, not to mention the fact that you're gone to work a lot. It isn't like you are at home at day every day and can work on your projects. Go easy on yourself---all the To Do projects will be there in the future. Just do what you can, and don't lose yourself in the projects---that is similar to being a slave to the garden, which I was for so many years. Then I was a slave to the kitchen because there was so much produce to cook fresh daily and to preserve. I've tried to turn my attitude around---the garden serves me, I don't serve it, and I don't need to grow a lot more than the two of us can eat fresh any more. And, if y'all could see all the crabgrass and bindweed in the garden right now, you'd know I haven't been serving the garden enough lately. I'm still trying to get away from canning tons of Christmas gifts, but may not succeed at that until after Tim retires from his job because all his coworkers love canned goodies from the garden so much. Still, even with the canning of salsa, I just process everything as if I was going to make salsa in the dead of summer, and then I freeze the ingredients in the right amounts to make salsa and wait until October or November to can salsa for Christmas gifts. It is so much more pleasant canning in a cooler kitchen in the fall, and I don't have to store all those jars of finished products for months and months---just for a few weeks until Christmas rolls around. I think this year everyone is going to get salsa and roselle/hibiscus jam.

If you only get one male from that batch of chicks, then you have the luck of the Irish. When we let our broody hens hatch chicks, we usually get at least 50% males.

Chicken coops are a lot of work. I'm glad we have a much smaller flock now and I don't miss all the work involved in having a larger one. I keep telling Tim that once these last 5 chickens we have are gone, I don't want more, but he loves eggs so that I suspect he'll pop up one day next spring with a batch of chickens from the feed store. This is why I avoid going into the feed store as much as possible in spring time....because little chicks are so hard to resist. I still miss Augustus and would have another small flock of turkeys if I could, but is it impossible to keep the younger ones from wandering off with the wild turkeys and once they do that, we never see them alive again, so no more turkeys either. On the other hand, once Tim retires, who knows what he will do---both he and Chris have a thing for poultry.

Jen, I'm so excited for y'all that you're looking at moving next year. Once you have the space to set up a doggie space and a separate garden space, you'll be able to grow so much more and that will be so rewarding.

Enjoy spending your birthday gift card on yourself, and not on the furbabies!

When all the rest of you get cooler weather later this week, I want to hear all about it! I can enjoy the cooler temperatures vicariously through y'all, even if we don't cool off as much down here (and we will not). The rain is largely supposed to miss us until around Sunday-Monday, so at least we can spend some time outdoors with the girls this weekend, and maybe finish painting the house. Outdoor projects like painting get iffy in autumn---you need to get it done before the nighttime lows get too low for paint to dry well, and you need to get it done on a non-rainy day for the same reason. We waited almost too late to start this house-painting project because we were trying to at least wait until the heat indices were no longer exceeding 100 degrees.

As soon as we finish painting the house, I'm going to take a can of spray paint and show Tim where I want to put the new fence around the yard, new raised beds for next year, etc. by spray-painting outlines on the ground. If I do it before the house is finished, I'm worried he'll freak out and try to drag out the house-painting project until Spring so he won't have to spend the winter cutting down a few trees and putting up new fencing. He knows the yard remodeling/re-landscaping is coming, but he is in denial and just wants to ignore it until he has no choice. That works for me too. He really has no interest in planning what we are going to do---he just says "whatever you want"--but he may regret that when he sees all the changes I want to make. My long-term goal is to reduce the amount of area that has to be mowed, which I see as a huge plus as we age, but he may not feel the same way since he loves mowing. Thankfully we have acreage beyond the yard that he can mow to his heart's content.

Dawn

I forgot to say Happy October!

So, our local TV mets were signaling that they weren't feeling it, with regards to the rumored big cool-down, and now the NWS has fallen more into line with what they've been saying. It isn't that our weather won't cool off a little---it just won't cool off as much down here as it will further north. Our Thursday cool-down has been pushed out to Sunday night, so we might be nice and cool on Monday and Tuesday if the forecast doesn't change between now and then. We still should be slightly cooler at night, at least, so that offers some hope. The first cold front on Thursday won't do much for us as it passes over us but will drop our daytime highs 2 to 4 degrees, and it shortly thereafter will move back north over us, bringing hot and humid air back over us for Sat and Sun. The second cold front will arrive Sunday evening, and that one is supposed to really cool us down. I can't wait. I hope the cool weather lasts more than a couple of days.

Someday soon, perhaps within a month or two, I'm going to awaken to a cool morning, with a brisk wind and leaves falling from the trees. It will feel like fall. It finally will be football weather! I'll open the drapes and stare out the window at the trees and I'll see red leaves on the red oaks. Right? There will be leaves of other trees falling to the ground, along with acorns and pecans. I'll realize all the hummingbirds are gone at last, and most of the butterflies as well. The flowers in the garden largely will be done, and lazily dropping seeds to reseed themselves for next year. The veggies will be done. I'll leave the garden gate open for the chickens, and they'll sneak into the garden from which they are banned in summer, and they'll dig and scratch to their hearts' content, murmuring contentedly to one another as they dig up yummy pests and weed seeds.Most pests will be gone, although in recent years we have had mosquitoes all winter long. There will be a definite chill in the air. The air conditioner won't even be thinking about running. I'll put on jeans, a flannel shirt and boots, and go outside to sit on the porch, deck or patio with a cup of hot chocolate and an apple-cinnamon muffin and I'll luxuriate in the cool, crisp autumn weather. I'll be thinking about our plans for Thanksgiving or Christmas (depending on when it actually cools down). I might hear geese flying overhead. If I look high enough into the sky, I'll even see them. Maybe we'll have such a strong north wind that it will feel chilly, and I'll run back indoors to grab a jacket. Well, all of this is my dream....I'd love to see autumn roll in here at some point before winter arrives, and I am rather impatiently awaiting the big day whenever it occurs.

As long as I lived up north, I dread winter--even our OK winters! On the other hand I adore having 3 months of each season! Up north was 6 mos of winter, 1 1/2 of spring and fall, and 3 of summer. I love spring and fall here. My favorite times of the year. I like most of summer, except for the hot part we all dislike. I haven't lived here long enough to know that our September was warmer than normal, so I didn't expect better. Ha!

It was a great day for gardening here, though I did take a few breaks. And except for the fact that we accidentally pulled out the loofah plant that I'd forgotten I'd even planted. And come to find out, we pulled it out prematurely. The loofahs weren't ready to harvest yet! RATS. But it was fun clearing out one bed entirely and half of yet one more. We can begin getting more soil into them. Could not believe how big the Korean Meot Jaeng I Ae got, despite Amy's warning. And so tasty. I'll be anxious to taste the Seminole, too.

My bests this year were Valerian, Amy's walking onions, Angelonia, dwarf aster tataricus, the two squashes, garlic, butterflies. Next year must plant half as much garlic, twice as many onions, fewer peppers. We had much better luck with our onions this year than previously; I was pleased about that.

This is what's going to be planted this fall: TX-OK wildflower mix (funny story--Wildseed Farms was OUT, but SIL up in Wyoming had mentioned a native plant online nursery in CO that had regional wildflower mixes, so I googled and found them and got 1/4 lb from them!), Frostweed, Antelope Horns milkweed, Goldenrod, American Beautyberry, Rattlesnake Master, Bergamot, Prairie Verbena, Little Bluestem, more echinacea, Asclepias tuberosa, Echinacea Pallida, Echinacea Paradoxa, Dyer's Coreopsis Mix. Guess it's too late to plant bluestem. . . oops. I'll wintersow it. And cilantro and spinach.

I guess that's all from here.

Dawn, I like how you talk about future fall. You do it similarly to the way I do...maybe that's why I like it.

I barely got home from Pilates in time to walk the dogs and told Tom that in a couple of weeks, I won't be home in time. Things are changing even with the still warmish weather. In June, we don't come indoors until 9. Then, I notice it's around 8 in August. And now...7 is pushing it. If we walk the dogs at 7, there's no time to do anything outdoor afterwards. It is dark.

I am feeling this change more this year. Maybe because life feels different in general. I am thinking about how cooking will change. In the warm, light months, Tom grills often. As it gets darker and colder, I'll go back to oven cooking. The pork chops I bought at NG were grilled tonight. In a month, I will bake them instead. What did I do with my evenings in the dark months? I can't remember. Maybe...we were at meetings and concerts and I worked on Wednesday nights. All of that is different this year. Oh, maybe I'll start reading again. And restocking tinctures. Get a new SCOBY and begin the kombucha process again.

So weird. I don't just want to sit and watch TV. I know that. Anyway...

I didn't go to the garden today. I scrubbed the bathrooms and cleaned the bedrooms. Also, dealt with the colt next door. Somehow he got into our chicken yard and then jumped into the main part of our property. He couldn't figure out how to get back in his field. He tore up the chicken yard fence quite a bit. Had to call the neighbors home to get him. Long story.

He is a beauty though.

My seedlings are not doing well at all. I don't have this "fall" seed starting down yet. More than likely I'll end up buying some lettuce and kale plants. I'm going to fertilize tomorrow and see if I can get some growth on them before planting them.

I'm about to watch the weather. David Payne is showing lows in the 40's next week. My phone app is showing it a little warmer than that. We will see...

I'm talking about nothing. haha

I don't know any thing about flowers, but did buy 2 # to plant in my wildlife garden. The list calls for Texas Bluebonnet 15%, Baby's Breath 12 %, Cornflowers 10%, Blue Flax 8%, Evening Primrose 8%, Plains Coreopsis 7%, Sweet Alyssum 6%, Scarlet Flax 6 %, Indian Blanket 4%, Black-eyed Susan 3%, Cosmos Sensation Mix 3%, Sulpfur Cosmos 3%, African Daisy 2%, Baby Blue Eyes 2%, DWF Red Coreopsis 2%, Painted Daisy 2%, Poor Man's Weathergrass 2%, Rocket Larkspur 2%, Yarrow 1%, Drummond Phlox 1%, Purple Coneflower 1%,-----I have no idea if any of these will grow here. and they all may be just a fancy name for WEEDS, but I hope they help support the bees and butterflies.

My south garden is dry, but still looks ok, other than weedy.

I gave the man that rents 60 acres from me a bag of okra and a bag of peppers yesterday, and told him he could help himself to the garden any time he wanted anything there. Today as I was brush hogging he pulled up beside me in his Jeep and got out with a large bag of peppers and told me that he went to my house and picked everything that was ready in my north garden. I am fine with that, he will help me with anything I ask. I think that he has 10 kids, 4 of his own, the rest are adopted or foster. The man works night and day, I dont see how he can work so, and spend time with his kids, but he seems to, and his kids seem to really love him and look after him. His kids work just like he does. I love to see someone that is not afraid to work.

I hope to hook the disc to my small tractor tomorrow and start getting food plots ready.

Madge is still not doing as well as I would like for her to do. I have been trying to help her more, but there are a lot of things I cant do to her satisfaction. I am hoping that she will learn that things don't have to be perfect, and that I will never be as good as she is at some things. The Doctor changed her medication again today and will run more test later.

Here’s the little booger in my chicken yard.

Larry, I’m sorry that Madge isn’t doing well.

You are kind to share your peppers and harvest with that man and his family. You are kind in so many ways.

We saw a flock of geese flying south today. It was a small flock, flying fairly low, very early in the morning. They may have been preparing to come down on a large pond nearby. Seeing them gave me a whisper of hope that autumn is out there lurking somewhere.

Other than that, we went to Fort Worth to sign the papers finalizing the sale of mom's home. So many mixed emotions! I hope that the next family who lives in it will be as happy there as we were. This home has been in our family since my dad bought it in the late 1940s, before he and mom got married. It is odd to think that it now belongs to someone else.

Since we were in Fort Worth, we stopped by Central Market there and picked up some fresh produce and a couple of other items. Then I bought a couple of books at Barnes and Noble (while Tim, who is not much of a shopper, went next door to Sports Clips and got his hair cut, lol), and then we went to an old favorite fish place, Zeke's, and got our favorite meal from there and had a picnic in a nearby park. All the stores there have huge piles of pumpkins and winter squash in all sorts of colors, shapes and sizes. I resisted the urge to buy any---still waiting for cooler weather before I pile up a bunch of pumpkins by the back door. Being there for a few hours made me feel really nostalgic for the good old days, but then we got the heck out of there before rush hour traffic got started. All the plants down there look really hot and dry. They really haven't been getting as much rain as we have here in OK. In fact, Tarrant County (Fort Worth area) just passed a burn ban because they've been having so many grass fires and brush fires. We are so green up here, but the further south we drove, the more brown everything turned, and it happened in a hurry.

I think we have a new dog. She's been hanging around for 3 or 4 days, right by our gate, so I think somebody dumped her there. She has been very skittish, but her hunger finally made her trust us and she let us feed her and give her water...and she didn't try to bite us (yesterday she was a bit snappy, but I think she is confused about being dumped and likely was scared) either. Then I gave her some chicken jerkey treats, and suddenly I was her new best friend. Knowing you need to be careful with stray dogs, we put her food and water and a big blanket in our small chicken coop, which hasn't had chickens in it in years since they all moved to the big coop. We'll keep her there a few days so we can watch her, get to know her and let her get to know us. Then, we'll take her to the vet and have her checked for a microchip, and get her her shots. She seems healthy, but we want to be positive before we bring her into the house and introduce her to our dogs. She is a medium-sized dog, so larger than Princess and Ace, and smaller than Jersey.

Jennifer, I've noticed how much earlier it is getting dark in the evenings now, and how much later it stays dark in the mornings. I guess it is just that time of the year.

That colt is a beauty! I am sorry he did so much damage. While we were trying to corral the new dog, the big black lab from next door (Max) came here, pushed open the mudroom door (I know I left it slightly ajar when I walked out of there with a leash for the new dog so we could lead her to the chicken coop), came inside, and took himself upstairs to our master bedroom. I walked in through the front door, saw the open back door, yelled "Max!" and he came running down the stairs and went right out the back door. I was laughing so hard at him---he came in and made himself at home but he also knew it wasn't his house and he wasn't supposed to be inside. His owner came over to pick him up and drive him back home.

The 40s at night sound heavenly. We're supposed to drop into the 50s for three nights next week. I can't wait for it to happen.

Larry, I think pretty much everything you listed will grow there! Let's just hope it rains at the right time to germinate the seeds.

Your neighbor sounds like an awesome person. I cannot imagine having that many kids. He is incredibly lucky to have you sharing your produce with him and his family.

I'm sorry Madge still is feeling poorly. I hope along with you that she can rest and not expect things to be to her previous standard of perfection. We all have to cut ourselves some slack every now and then. And, of course, I hope the doctor can figure out what is wrong.

Today, y'all, I tried to explain to Tim my vision for the yard and the new landscaping. All I have to do is say the word 'fence' and he gets really quiet. It is going to be a long winter, but we're going to get the fencing done regardless. Ha, at the rate the heat is more or less sticking around, we might get the fencing done before real winter weather arrives. I don't know why he hates fencing so much. He knows we cannot grow anything here without protection from the deer.

Dawn

Which one of you is holding my cold front and cooler weather hostage and refusing to let it come cool us off? Please release it and let it come to us! I hope today was our very last day with highs and heat indices in the 90s because I am completely over that sort of weather, even though it is the weather we continue to have. Tomorrow should be better, but then today was supposed to be a little better too and it wasn't. The models are showing a really strong cold front late next week that could drop overnight lows, even this far south, into the 40s. I know we cannot trust models that much a week out, but I'll be watching the forecast to see if it stays this way, or if it changes.

I mostly spent together painting the house, but did a walk through of the garden this morning with the new puppy---who is the size of a small ox. He likes the garden and did a fairly good job of walking in the pathways and not in the raised beds. There are lots of roselle flowers open--if you've never seen them, they are typical flowers of malva or hibiscus---looking very much like smaller okra blooms. They form and bloom up and down each branch, similar to hardy hibiscus (but much smaller blossoms) or hollyhocks, although the branches are somewhat more horizontal---like those of a wide shrub. These flowers only last a day, and in fact, part of a day as they are morning bloomers that close up after a few hours. The blossoms are sort of irrelevant though, as the part that is harvested and used is just the calyx of each flower, and to harvest them, you wait for the blooms to dry and fall off. You can wait a long time---I don't usually harvest them until the first frost is bearing down on us and then I harvest all of them at once.

Everything else in the garden still looks pretty good. Some of the zinnias are developing powdery mildew, which is not unusual this late in the season. I pulled out a few that were flopping over into pathways, but left all I could as these flowers are true butterfly magnets.

The garden still is full of all kinds of butterflies. The hummingbirds have been eating voraciously this week as they stream southward. They are emptying out the feeders more quickly than they have all year, except possibly back during the first week of hummingbirds coming through on their journey north back in March or April. Today when I refilled the hummingbird feeders, irritated hummingbirds hung around and waited for the feeder to be refilled and hung up again, as if they couldn't survive without the feeders.

The real stars of the fall garden now are the candletrees (Senna alata, formerly Cassia alata). Their bright golden yellow flowers, held largely atop 5-7' tall plants, are visible from the road, and have attracted tons of sulphur butterflies. They are interplanted with some tall cosmos that look pretty good too. One of the most popular plants with the butterflies is the Texas hummingbird sage, which has reseeded itself and already has young baby plants a couple of inches tall. Everything has grown so well since we received about 10" of rain over the last couple of months that a lot of the plants are getting too tall and falling over. I have had to stake a large number of plants in order to keep upright.

That's about all I have to report from here.

Dawn

Oh, wow, Dawn...so your family home is sold to another family now? That must feel so odd. My Mom sold the house I grew up in about 15 years ago. It was a good thing. The neighborhood isn't wonderful now. Occasionally I'll drive by. I would like to look in the backyard, but...really, I can't just do that. Her backyard was a fairy garden wonderland. I wish I would have paid more attention to her interests back then. I was busy with little kids. I did enjoy her beautiful backyard, though.

Congrats on your new dog.

It was a lovely fall day here. It is chilly right now. I'm about to go out and do a final check of the chickens. They are starting to molt. I got only 3 eggs today. So it starts. At some point-usually somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I'll be forced to buy a couple of dozen of eggs...with all the baking that goes along with the holidays. I was hoping to drop another 5 lbs by then...but it's proving difficult to do that.

I would like to start pulling out plants...but will wait. Honestly, I'll just wait until the first freeze.

Tom is smoking meat for Westmoore band's dinner at their contest on Saturday. We will probably go to the competition on Saturday. It will be weird to just go as spectators. Ethan's GF is still in HS and in band.

Dawn, I'm glad you will get your fence. You will enjoy growing all the things you want to grow around your home.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Dawn and Hazel, thanks for the well wishes for Madge. She is feeling better today.

I worked on my junky equipment most of the day. I took it for a test run this afternoon in the wildlife garden. When I came back for a drink, Madge wanted to go to town and ask me if I wanted to go. I really didn't, but thought it would be better if I did go. We went by the farmer co-op and I got 2# of radish seeds and 5# of ladino clover seeds. The Daikon radish seeds did well in the wildlife garden the last couple of years, so I thought I would try them again. I have been having good luck with the forage turnips also. I think I like the forage turnips (Barkant turnips ) better than the Purple Top turnips. The deer don't seem to care much for the turnips, but they have too much food anyway. They seem to like the Austrian peas better than anything I have planted for them.

My house gardens are starting to show signs of age and dry weather. I really don't care because it is time to harvest and plant a cover crop anyway.

When I was at the co-op today they had a free sign on their garden plants, so picked up 4 six-packs, thinking that I should get a dozen good plants out of them. I may call then tomorrow and ask If I can have all of them. I don't want to be a pig, but I would hate for them to dump the plants. I would like to save as many plants as I could to put in my wildlife garden. Many of the cole crops will produce seed stalks with little bean like pods that the small birds just go crazy over. They also make a place for the vetch to climb which produces shelter for mice, ground nesting birds and rabbits.

Dawn, it is 59F right now (4:52 am) here in NW Arkansas. The outside air feels deliciously crisp. No trees are turning (or maybe splotches on some maples...you know, one branch set turning red) yet. In the forecast, there is only one more day in the 80s (Saturday). Then we might see some 60s and 70s as highs.

I hope you Oklahoma folks get some cool air today too.

dbarron, I think most of Oklahoma enjoyed the cool down yesterday, except poor Dawn and her "neighbors". I had to turn the heater on in my car this morning. I wore shoes that aren't warm at all and my feet were cold. Hopefully that cool down is coming for Dawn today.

Good morning, y'all. I think the beginning of the cool-down is here, although we will feel it more at night than during the day. I'm not complaining though, because it is progress towards cooler weather. We awakened to a crisp, cool 63 degrees this morning and that's nice. We are supposed to stay in the 80s today, and the dewpoints are much lower so I doubt the heat indices even will hit the 90s. I feel better because this is a sign that summer (I hope) weather finally is done with us. Y'all watch next Thursday's/Friday's forecast because the models are bringing us temperatures at night in the 40s down here, so some of y'all be get ever cooler than that.

The surest sign that the cold fronts are rolling through southern OK and finally mean business? Yesterday, the hummingbirds still were here, but were eating and leaving, and not even hanging around at all. I refilled the feeders in mid-afternoon, and they've barely been touched since then. I knew as I refilled them that it might be for the last time. I haven't seen a single hummingbird this morning either. Usually, I leave the feeders up for 7-10 days after seeing the last hummingbird, so I'm sure I would refill them with fresh nectar again sometime next week, but the hummingbirds may not be here to enjoy it. There's still tons of butterflies though.

Jennifer, It is the hardest thing to see your childhood home sold, especially if it was your childhood home for your entire life. I think it wouldn't be so hard if we'd moved around a few times, but we didn't. Until we grew up and left home, it was the only place we'd lived for our whole lives. We all tried to mentally and emotionally prepare for it, but signing the papers to close the deal still was pretty sad for us 4 kids. And, I use the term kids lightly as we're all grandparents, and one of us (my little sis) is a great-grandparent. Still, it also is a good feeling to know another family will live their lives there, make their memories and hopefully be as happy as we were. The house is on a corner lot, across from a nice little neighborhood park with 2 baseball fields and a playground, so it is a great place for kids to grow up. As the old folks of my parents' ages (my mom was the last one on our street and one of the last in the immediate neighborhood) have died or gone into nursing homes, all the 1940s era homes have sold to younger folks who've invested a lot of money in remodeling the houses and redoing the yards and the whole neighborhood has become revitalized and that's a great thing to see. I think I probably never will drive past that house again though even when we are down there visiting nearby family. I kinda want to remember it the way it was when we lived there. Once your parents and your home are gone, then that area doesn't feel like home any more, I guess.

I don't necessarily think we needed a 4th dog, but somebody had dumped this one and he was glued to the spot where they left him....for several days. We were afraid a car would hit him as he was right beside the road, so we enticed him up to the house with food and attention. Now, I guess he'll be ours unless the vet finds a microchip tomorrow and we learn he is lost, not dumped. He bears all the earmarks of a dumped dog though. We're going to name him Jesse, after our dear friend who passed away this summer. He's a young, big dog who likely will be a huge dog someday and our two younger dogs, Ace and Princess, are not happy about having a new brother. Jersey is okay with him as long as he doesn't jump on her---she is old and frail---and I am sure Ace and Princess will get used to Jesse. I reminded them that they, too, were stray puppies without a home when we took them in back in November 2014 and our dogs we had then, Jet, Jersey and Duke, accepted them and came to love them and that they should do the same for Jesse. I'm not sure Tim and I are ready to expend the endless energy needed to train a puppy, but we will find a way to do it. I only had to take him outside once during the night, and then Tim took him out early this morning when he got up to go to work, so at least the puppy seems capable of sleeping most of the night without having to go out...and he hasn't 'gone' on the floor once, so maybe at some point, someone had him indoors and he already has been trained in that regard. He's all clumsy puppy though....with big paws and a vigorously wagging tail, so I'm sure we're in for a lot of adventures.

Is it idiotic for a person who is attempting to redo the entire landscape to take in a puppy who probably will be a digger and will be somewhat of an impediment to doing new landscaping? Probably, but our yard and garden have survived digging, destructive dogs before and shall again.

Dropping the pounds is so hard, isn't it? I feel like all I've done is gain weight all spring and summer, perhaps stress eating from all the illnesses and death. I'm working to lose those pounds now, but they are a lot harder to lose than they were to gain, and I think the holiday baking will make it even harder. Being older makes it harder still, but I"m pretty determined to stick with it.

I'm glad Tom is smoking meat for the band. It makes life feel more normal doesn't it, even though Ethan no longer is in high school. And, since Ethan's GF still is in high school and in the band, why shouldn't y'all be there? I know it will feel different, but I bet it still will feel good to be there.

Larry, I'm so glad Madge is feeling better. Our deer are starting to disappear and be a lot less visible now. They must feel deer season approaching. When I have planted wildlife plot seed mixes for them, I did notice they didn't seem to like the brassicas as much as the legumes.

Our older flowers are looking worn out and tired, and probably showing the effects of shortening day length now. The ones that still look the best are the cosmos, roselle hibiscus and candletrees that I planted in June and July. All three tend to be late-bloomers here and love the autumn weather, so they should look pretty good for a while yet. Now, if we hit the 40s late next week like they say we will, probably on Friday night, then all 3 won't care for that cold night, but I'm just not going to worry about that now. It if happens, it happens.

I don't see any harm in asking if you can have all the leftover plants so they won't be wasted.

dbarron, Your 59 degrees has me green with envy, but we should be in the 50s on Monday morning and Tuesday morning with highs only in the 70s. I'm dreaming of making some kind of yummy muffins to have for breakfast with hot cocoa or hot tea (I'm not a coffee person) and maybe making chili or stew for dinner. Or tomato-basil soup from frozen tomatoes. Any more, it seems like summer lasts throughout all of September and it hasn't always been that way, so I guess I just need to adjust. I'm ready to wear autumn clothing too.

There's a part of me that hates to see summer weather end because the grandkids love to play in the pool. We are thinking that with a high temperature tomorrow around 87-88 degrees, we may have the last day in the pool with them. Of course, it depends on how much the water cools off tonight, and then it also depends on the rain in tomorrow's forecast and all that. For the sake of our two little mermaids who would stay in the pool 24/7 if allowed, I hope tomorrow is a pool day. If it is, it will be the last one. Last year, our last day in the pool was October 4th---they had a Friday off from school and were in the pool for as many hours that day as they could manage because we all knew it would be the last pool day of the season.

If tomorrow ends up being too cool to play in the pool, we might take them down to Dallas to the Dallas Arboretum for Autumn at the Arboretum, which features an incredible pumpkin festival, including a village of buildings made of pumpkins and gourds, and with around 90,000 pumpkins, winter squash and gourds on display and over 150,000 seasonal flowers on display. Now that I've mentioned it, I should link it, in case anybody here is going to be in the Dallas area during Autumn at the Arboretum. As a gardener, Autumn at the Arboretum is incredibly delightful and it runs through Halloween. Or, maybe I'm just a big kid at heart and would love it even if I wasn't a gardener.

Autumn at the Arboretum: It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Jennifer, The heater? The heater? Oooh, I am completely emerald green with envy. I am looking forward to our first day that we need heat in any shape, form or fashion----I don't care if it is the heater in the car, the heater in the house or just roasting marshmallows at night around the fire pit. I simply want for it to be cool enough to need heat!

Our TV met last night more or less said that the temperatures in the 90s should be over for all of us in southern OK now, and that the cold nights will come quickly over the next 7-10 days and will stay. I hope he's right. I've had all the heat I can take. After the hottest September ever recorded in the Texoma region, I'm ready for something that feels more like normal autumn weather. The air feels much drier today, and that's a wonderful thing.

The elms and persimmons still are the only trees showing autumn color. I'm not expecting autumn leaf color to be great down here this year. Probably most trees will hang on to their green leaves forever, and then they'll turn brown and fall off overnight. We have to have long, mild, cool autumn weather to get great leaf color and that sort of weather has eluded us this year.

I need to go clean house. I need to put one more coat of red paint on the doors, and guess I'll do that first. Then I need to get out the Halloween decorations and add them to the autumn decor that already is in place. I want the house to be decorated for Halloween before the girls arrive this evening.

I hope you all have a wonderful day and a terrific autumn weekend.

Dawn

I have another weather update (indignation). Ok, today was the first day to turn AC off and open windows. Tonight will be lovely with a temp around 61F. I will leave windows open all night.
Tomorrow it'll be warmer, but rain, so AC will be back on.

Then, there are no more nights in the 60s, it's 50s and 40s and too cold to leave windows open at night.

I guess I have to enjoy the one night and say well, it was wonderful. I can try to sleep with windows open again in the spring maybe. Would it be asking for too much to have at least 2 days or maybe a week of temperate climate?

Yes, it is too much to ask. (Sorry, I couldn't help myself.) I'd be indignant too.

Our weather is getting harder and harder to understand, is it not? Autumn just isn't autumn any more. It remains too hot and too summery until...BAM!....the cold arrives and the weather changes on a dime and suddenly instead of it being too warm it is too cool and there was little to no transition period in between. I've also noticed we often go without rain for most of July and August, and then get a big monsoon period in September. I remember for most of my life that Arizona, for example, has had those monsoonal rains, but I don't remember it being a thing here until the last several years.

There were no hummingbirds this evening either. I wonder if yesterday was our final day for them.

Today was pretty pleasant and mild, and it helped that relative humidity and dewpoints were low. Well, that cold front is moving back north only now as a warm front and it is bringing higher dewpoints with it. That means tomorrow probably won't be as pleasant as today was, for sure. I was looking at the roselles and candletrees this evening and thinking that it would be nice if we could have another frost-free month so they can keep on going for a while.

Dawn

Yep Dawn, though up here (since I moved from Oklahoma), it seems the past 4-5 years are mostly wet all summer/all year. It's much wetter than it was when I was a kid. Of course we don't know what snow is anymore (more or less), versus being out of school nearly a month at times for snow when I was a child. Now, I usually tell people that snow seldom lasts more than a day.

I have a hibiscus grandiflorus that was a seedling last year, which I'd love to see bloom (and yes it set a single bud about a week and a half ago)...it's questionable that enough heat and long enough before frost will let it develop this year though. But it should be of size to bloom earlier next year.

I did plant all my seedlings (except the snaps which I felt needed at least a few more days to harden outside) from this year's sowing, feeling that the 'baked to dried crisp' was finally over. Of course, now I realize I left two things that I will have to find a place to stick this morning before afternoon and night and tomorrows t-storms.

I do love having cooler temps though...nice to not sweat to death when mowing or simply outside.

I'm glad Madge was feeling a bit better, Larry, and hope she continues to. Meanwhile, you're getting so much farming done! I was reading your post and thinking that I'm DONE for the year, well, except for cilantro (seeds soaking), spinach (cannot FIND the spinach! Now what in tarnation did I DO with it!), wildflowers. Then we need to build up the soil in four raised beds and then I can sow native plants in the flower one. Well. I guess I'm NOT done. Rats.

And I have to get into town and help move all our plants out of the big center bed into raised beds as a temporary home so that John can get a French drain in and then make THAT entire app. 500 sq ft bed a raised bed, too. I suggested we wait until the leaves are down from the two large oaks and catalpa tree are down. It's going to cost a fortune, so every bit of free soil "stuffing" we can find will be good. Possible he won't have the money for it this fall, period. BUT with the tons of grass from the mowed lots around them, we might have some good compost by next spring. If it takes til then, no matter.

dbarron, I was up at 6 with the cats, and yep, nice and cool, at 64. So I picked up on your words and opened up the doors. It feels so good to air the house out! It is a beautiful 71 right now. Another nice thing about it being cooler is that transplanted plants will be so much happier than in 90-95 degrees. But I'm not anywhere near ready to begin watching for 32s!

Dawn, so all of a sudden you have a new dog and three (four counting Mom) cats? Wow. What does new pup look like?

Continuing our orange cat conversation, I was out for the walk-around this morning and had my gardening companion with me. We always take the same route; the veggie beds are in the middle of the walk, and so I have a bucket with me to pick stuff that's ready. Tiny likes the veggie beds part the best, as he can either walk around the top of the fence, or skip from one cinder block row to another. I had him jump up to a couple of his favorite places this a.m. so I could take pics. He happily accommodated me. GDW got a kick out of that. No WAY could I get Tom or Jerry to do it. Pat the top of the fence and invite them up? They'd look at me like I was stupid. Hahaha

If you think the hummingbirds are gone at your place, probably a sure bet they're gone from here. We were inside the past two days so didn't even notice. But see none this morning.

Have a great time with the girls.

GDW had first cataract removed Thurs, so inside relaxing for a couple days--week. I hope mine don't need to be dealt with yet; wouldn't want all this hurry-up-and-wait nonsense four months in a row. I feel for all of you who have to deal with it on a frequent basis. Lesson I just learned was to always have a good book ready to take with one. Also a good idea for when internets go out! lol

Oh the house sounds so pretty! White with black roof and red doors! Lovely!

I'm ridiculously excited about the big chili cook-off at the Marina next Saturday. So far, 21 entries! Yummy! One of the daughters suggested that Dad should enter his chili. ("His" chili is good--but exactly like mine. I think what they think is Dad's chili is more accurately the "Buffalo WY" chili!) I admit, however. that I like to shake things up and frequently change it around. So I told said daughter that for sure he'd do it for the cook-off in Dec. And then I'd do one of my new experiment ones for that one, too. I've used strong beers, strong coffees, cocoa, blah and so on before. Fun stuff.

I was stupid aggravated, as I was a good ways into a post earlier today, hit the wrong combo of keys and POOF--it was gone. I think now I'll quit while it's still here. HJ, I am so jealous you have a colt next door! I wish I did!

Nancy, GDW needs to enter his cinnamon rolls in the baking contest.

I went out (in the rain) and put spinach and lettuce seeds in the salad boxes. Ended up chasing a squirrel carrying a green Heidi around the yard. Including around and around a tree. I don’t know what I thought Id do if I caught him.

That is hilarious, Rebecca! He had forgotten he'd even made them--twice. LOL I think you should come down for the chili cook-off and bring some wonderful dessert and win first prize.

I'm sorry you didn't have a spray bottle of squirrel killer you could have sprayed on the dastardly villain.

I guess I'm going to have to order some spinach. Grrr. Hate it when that happens. Its with all the other greens seeds. Okay that does it. Back for one more look-around. Back five minutes later. YAY! All the rest of the seeds are in bottom drawer of fridge. THESE were in one of the obscure little drawers in my seed cabinet! Thank you, Rebecca. You provided the impetus!

dbarron, I miss the snow! Our last real snowfall that amounted to anything was in 2010, which seems like ages ago. Sometimes we get what is referred to as snow, but it usually is just a very light (like 1 or 3 or 5 one-hundredths of an inch) dusting of either freezing rain or sleet. It wreaks havoc on the roadways, particularly the overpasses, and does nothing to soothe the souls of those of us who were hoping for actual snow.

It has been slightly cooler here the last couple of days. You can tell it in the mornings and evenings, but the daytime highs still are pretty warm and the heat indices still hit the mid to upper 90s, but it is cooler each day than the day before, more or less, and there is a slight bit of autumn weather in the air. After the Sunday night cold front passes through here, we should cool down like everyone further north.

Then, on Thursday-Friday the next cold front comes and it is supposed to drop our lows into the 40s with wind chills in the 30s. Finally! It is going to be sweatshirt weather at last. I'll have the hot muffins, hot cocoa and hot spiced cider ready so we can enjoy our brief autumn weather anyway. Who knows if we'll get prolonged autumn weather or just go from too hot to too cold (for the plants, if not the people) too quickly like we have so often in recent years.

I hope your hibiscus gets a chance to bloom, but it does sound like it is running out of time for this year.

Nancy, I fear the new dog is a Heinz 57 breed but he does see to have a lot of German Shepherd in his body and face, but not his ears. Except....Tim said he looks a lot like some police dogs from Spain that are similar to German Shepherds but with floppy ears. I had no idea what kind of dog he was referring to, so he Googled to find the breed he was talking about and he found it---Basque Shepherds. These are a landrace Spanish dog breed primarily used to work cattle, but also sometimes trained as law enforcement canines. Our little dog does look very much like a Basque Shepherd but with more traditional German Shepherd coloring. He is as smart as a whip and is going to be easy to train, but he thinks cats are his mortal enemy so we have our work cut out for us.

The feral mama cat and kittens are a bit more approachable each day. I'd like to get the mama spayed before she has any more kittens---she is the youngest mother cat I've ever seen and her kittens already are almost her size and they aren't even all that old yet. I don't think I'll ever be able to tame them enough to be house cats, but they are making themselves into garage cats, having learned it is more fun to sleep safely in there at night than out in the open. We close the garage's walk-in door at sunset, and they are learning to put themselves indoors by that time. Tim and I have always felt like God works in mysterious ways and brings us animals that need us based on his timing, not ours. So, when homeless pets show up needing to be taken in, loved and made a part of the family, we just do it. (The scary thing is that often he'll bring us a new dog shortly before an old dog passes away, almost like he is sending us the new dog to fill the hole that will be left in our lives when the old dog crosses the rainbow bridge. I hope that's not what is happening with this new dog--Jersey is 12.5 years old, has turned from brown to white and I'm not ready to lose her yet.) There is no animal shelter in this county other than a temporary one the city of Marietta uses to hold animals picked up by their animal control officers within the city limits, and that one is just a place to hold them very short term until they are claimed by their owners. If you try to take a stray cat to a shelter in another county, either it often is full and not even accepting cats or you have to pay a pretty substantial fee to get them to take out-of-county cats. It is a wonder our entire county is not overrun by feral cats, but then, I suspect the coyotes have a lot to do with that.

I'm glad you found your spinach seeds---it is prime time for planting them with the cold weather bearing down on us now.

I feel like Tiny is at the teenage boy cat stage of his life now, so nothing he does surprises me. He's such an adventurer! Pumpkin is the same way. I cannot let Pumpkin be out while I'm painting the house, for example, or he'll either have his head in the paint, or he'll walk across the lid and leave a trail of cat paw prints. If there is anything that Pumpkin can get into and make a mess of, he'll find it.

The chili cook-off sounds like fun. Y'all should enter it!

Rebecca, You do know squirrels bite, don't you? I don't know what you would have done if you'd caught it either. So, the thieving tree rats are back? I haven't seen a squirrel in weeks now. Once the acorn and pecan crop reached a certain stage, they stopped visiting the yard. I guess gathering the early nuts that are falling in the woods is keeping them busy because they aren't even up here in the yard gathering the early nuts falling from the trees around the house.

One lone hummingbird showed up at the feeder around 5 pm yesterday, probably a late migrant who finally figured out everyone else had gone on south and left it behind. If it is like the other migrants, it would have stayed overnight and eaten this morning before continuing southward, but I haven't seen it yet this morning so it may have left to fly south the second there was daylight.

The monarchs are passing through central OK now. Damon Lane put up a radar image that captured them yesterday. We usually see them here between about October 7th and the 10th or 12th, if they pass through here at all. In some recent years, they have veered more southwestward while still north of us and we haven't seen as many of them as we used to. I'm hoping this year they come right through here. Time will tell. We have local ones and they are moving southwest when I see them, so the locals likely are starting to migrate already. The garden still has tons of butterfly traffic of all kinds, but sulphurs still dominate. I did see a red-spotted purple yesterday while walking the dog on a leash---a skill he is mastering quickly and at which he does quite well until he spots a cat and forgets his manners.

We had a glorious pool afternoon with the girls yesterday. They had so much fun, but even they realize this is probably the last good summery weekend here. We might get another pool afternoon today if the rain doesn't come in the afternoon as it is forecast to do. We are supposed to get some fairly strong winds as the cold front passes through, so I guess everything depends on its timing.

Dawn

It's flooded all day here (I mean seriously how many times does my phone have to tell me per day there is a flood warning), and rain since just before midnight last night. Dogs hate it, but I have managed to get them out in the yard a few times to do necessary business.

Yes, I had malt-o-meal while ago, it's one of those things that I don't eat in summer. It's nice to think about hot cups of tea (probably tomorrow), etc. It's still 64 here, so still above my tea threshold.