September: A Picnic in the Big Woods

The snapshots don't really need any explanation.  I'll probably give some, anyway.

First explanation:  This is a boatload of snapshots. Settle in for the long haul.

Explanation:  It's a praying mantis!

Little Fire didn't care about a big bug.

Millie and Zeke walk into the Golden Valley.

Explanation: Cattails!

Explanation: Carpet making!

Explanation: Crown-making!

Explanation: Bangs make people happy!

Explanation: So does having no hair!

p.s. We occasionally let the children drive, but usually my hand directs Zeke's when we're on the road. Here-- while the girls were running in the wide-open field-- I let him have full control of the steering wheel.

Guess toward what he immediately turned the van, with glee?













Yup.  Dad's haying equipment. 







 Then, home again, home again.

Stores Should Market Them Year-Round

Wading pools are useful not only in the summer but also in the fall.

Nearly the Last Harvest of 2014

The last of the beets, peppers, corn, and onions warranted a picture. As did the first of the squash and the burgeoning September BROCCOLI.  Rebecca, knowing this summer's history, you can appreciate that the second round of decimated plants came back to life and gave us some lovely heads in mid-November.


 


   


 


 I covered it with straw before winter, so here's hoping our new strawberry bed makes it!  (Thanks to Dude and Nick for plants and to my dad for driving the manure up the hill...)

Leftovers

This is the quilt my Mom made for Haven's tenth birthday. She bound it together in our library, and I thought it was too lovely to leave alone.


 




 I don't know who took this picture of Piper, but I like it.






 The next-to-last onion harvest waiting to be spread on the bench.  I love this picture because of all those rowdy children, including Zeke riding his truck in the corner.






I love this picture, too.  It's a great representation of some of mine and Mildred's interactions.  The backstory is that she decided to crochet her Alaskan boy cousins some mittens but began without checking the suggested yarn gauge.  The result was a frustrated girl, an unsympathetic mother, and the barest beginning of mittens large enough to fit Goliath inside.  (John told her that in the future, she shouldn't get her crochet patterns from gianthands.com.)  (And, yes, that's just the mitten's cuff, and, yes, I'm still laughing as I post this.)






Annika loves to run.  She can run 7 miles on hilly, country roads with John, no problem, and had a lot of fun this summer doing just that.  I didn't even think about proper footwear until she brought me her only pair of sneakers and asked if I could glue them for her.  The bottoms and toes were wearing through, too!  I found an upgrade in sneaker quality and size in our storage bins, and she thought I was the Best Mother Ever.  (She didn't even wonder why I hadn't noticed their sorry state to begin with...)