Seriously, Fall?

I don't know, I mean, it just started raining and then there were leaves and I looked out, and the trees were looking...sorta yellowish.
I'm freaking out. I love fall but we are not ready for it yet.
It's been bucketing rain on and off today, steamy and warm, and it's been gray and muggy.  Feels like a monsoon, but it definitely is beginning to look frowsy and blowsy; a summer past its prime.

Pumpkin Disposal Dec 4, 2010

I remember that the first snow was quite early last year, and continued through December -- unusual for this part of Ohio.

We never did end up carving those four pumpkins we bought, so the guys threw them outside, and to our surprise, the deer loved them, and ate them all up.

I guess we should not have been surprised: the deer eat everything up!

They are so cute, but seriously: GO AWAY! ;-)

New Stuff! And End-of-Season Stuff.

This is a gratuitous photo of stuff from the garden. The two potatoes are 2/3 of my entire potato harvest. I know some of you like looking at garden-y stuff, so there you go.

Daddy did get the Christmas house set up in the spring. Later on, we moved it to a closer, more convenient location; and the new spot seemed to be a good place, so out the kids went to play.


After the wasps and spiders were evacuated, the little kids set up shop.
(Oh, also, we bought a camper, and that's it in the background. More on that in another post.)


Grandma was the first special customer. She was there to buy a little weed.


Plenty of grass for everyone. It is a neighborhood specialty. :-P


Cute little shopkeeper.


Bert was serving up baby-bottled juice. Not sure who purchased that, but I am sure they found out, as I did when I was little, that no matter how good the juice looks inside the baby bottle, it isn't coming out.


The mailbox at the front door encouraged the little kids to "mail" each other things. Usually small dolls and leaves.


Little Wanny was just hangs around nearby in the sun/play/schoolroom.

End of Summer

Summer seemed short last year, looking back on it now. All too soon it was time to get back into schoolwork -- a change of pace and curriculum for Roks, and back into Sonlight, a literature-based course, for Miss Rose and Joman.

The deer are still hanging around, as plentiful as ever. These two cuties grew up more-or-less on our property over this past year.

Roks, our third poor, deprived homeschooler, got to start his weekly farm-school program. He had a rough start, being a teeny-bit perfectionistic and angsty about doing new things; and also very young for the program, but nevertheless, he had a great year overall.

Here Roks is, on his first day of "school".


And here are Joman and Gater to see him off.

Shut your Trap

I am not supposed to be blogging about why this car was here the other day.

Or why this (former) groundhog hole is booby-trapped and loaded with oatmeal cream pies.

We were expecting five black and white, furry, cute, extremely smelly and terrifying little invaders.

But all we got was one of these, so I guess it wasn't worth mentioning anyway.

All Sorts of Sports

The kids organized a sports day with their friends on Saturday.

A soccer field was built, teams were organized, and everyone showed up ready to play.

The kids designed their own team logos, and painted shirts and hats. I don't know all the games they played, but I do know that soccer and cornhole were part of the day's events, and more sports were played across the street.

Stats were kept carefully and filming was important.

Apart from the fact that they could have used a referee to defuse arguments on play calls and rules, they had a great time.

Even when they weren't playing sports.

Before N After

I am sorry this post is not too exciting or anything. I just thought you might like to see how things are changing in the garden over time, around here.


last year

this year

It is not that there isn't anything exciting going on around here, it's just that the exciting things aren't that picturesque.


last year


this year

this year

this year

this year

They also don't smell good.

spring

And we are terrified of them, frankly.

summer

And the exciting things are getting very expensive.
More later.
(It's not that serious, so don't worry. )

Flowers in the Garden, Children in the Home

Name this butterfly. We couldn't, for certain.

Rose shares memories that Gater doesn't own.

The castle with windows for the robots

Someone thought this was a delicate little flower

but that was poppycock -- I mean, hollyhock

The 18th of June was a good day.

Big Kids' Fish Pond

WIP Wednesday is brought to you by Miss Rose and Joman.
This is their Koi pond, which they designed, dug and built themselves. Their young friend (and helpful advisor/digger) across the street had built one at his house, with encouragement from another friend up the road who had built one and raises fish there.

That's peer pressure for ya. :-)

This picture was taken on the first day I ever saw the pond. I had no idea that when they said they were building a fish pond, that they meant a 7x4 foot, 36" deep, lined pond with all the trimmings, plus a planned (and now mostly dug) garden area surrounding it.

The pond is now home to three happy orange-and-white Koi, and the kids plan to purchase some butterfly Koi when the weather plans to stay warm.

Thanks kids, for sharing your WIP, and thanks, Deb, for the blog idea. :-)

Fall means Back To School

Roks started kindergarten this fall.

He especially likes the "garten" part. Most especially the "callerpilter" part of the "garten" part. This 3.5" caterpillar eating the Japanese maple was a Polyphemus moth-to-be. This was the first caterpiller we've ever seen that Roks wouldn't touch. Roks thought the caterpillar might take a pretty good bite out of him if it had a mind to.

Miss Rose saved up her allowance for a long time, and bought herself a brand new sewing machine.

Then she sat and taught Roks to use her little sewing machine.

School is fun. Actually, sewing is "CooL."

The Gater has learned how to grow teeth.

Mamma's making progress on the never-ending-afghan. But she's having to put it away for a while to make time for other projects.... It's holiday season right around the corner!