Happy Fall!

It's officially Fall and while many areas of the country might not feel it, we are feeling it here in Michigan. At least today we are. Last Thursday and Friday set records! It was close to 90 on the first day of Fall, but thanks to a friendly cold front it's feeling more like Fall. I captured this the other night, a real Harvest Moon.


Last week at work was another busy one. Just when I conquer one thing, another comes up. Last week we worked on scheduling. We scheduled 4 people to cover 7 buildings and more than 125 students. While we scheduled for 4 it will only be 3 working, at least for another month until one of our aides comes back from maternity leave. My schedule worked out where I am in two other buildings other than my home school. I will be out all day Monday at two schools and then another morning at one of those schools. The rest of the time I will be at my home school, both pulling groups and pushing in. I will be seeing all grades from kindergarten to 5th grade. One group I'm really looking forward to is at one of my non-home schools. It's seeing two kindergarten girls, both Chinese, and neither speaks any English. This will be quite a challenge but I'm really looking forward to it. They are both adorable. So once the challenge of scheduling was over, we began lesson planning. I worked with the teacher to make lesson plans to cover me on Monday when I'm out all day. Hopefully it will get easier as time goes along. Fingers crossed! I've been working lots of overtime trying to get up to speed but I'm hoping it will pay off this coming week.

I was able to take the pups to the park both days, though on Saturday I had to visit several until we found one that wasn't packed with people or other dogs. Seems Saturday is a popular day to take your dog to the park. Today the high school was deserted so that's where we ended up. They do so love running!

When Charlie finally lays down I figure it's time to go home. It usually takes a little longer to tire him out.


H has been outside today replacing the wood trim around the windows. The woodpeckers have decided to put holes in at least one or two boards around every window. Some are rotten so they need to be replaced anyway.


This weekend has been really chilly. Some of the trees are turning already and I actually broke out my sweatshirt today to wear to the park and out to the garden.


Speaking of the garden, I went out today specifically to harvest basil and potatoes.

Unfortunately the basil isn't looking too good. There were lots of blossoms and the basil has faded considerably. I trimmed up the two plants I have really well and will just have to hope for the best. The potatoes were another story! Just look at this harvest.



I also decided to pick my pumpkin since the other one, which was smaller, had been chewed on by some critter and proceeded to turn black. This one was unblemished so I wanted to keep it that way.


I have it on the front porch and just hope it lasts until Halloween! I also harvested some carrots but decided to leave the rest in the ground since carrots are a cool weather crop and should be ok for another couple weeks. I pulled out a couple tomato plants but left several in hopes that what's on there will turn if we have a warm spell. If not I'll pull them off next weekend. I also harvested a bit more broccoli. Those 5 broccoli plants have really produced. Once I cut the first heads off they proceeded to send off shoots all summer. Looks like I'll be making a chicken-broccoli-cheese ring this week for dinner.

This was my one and only sunflower. A seed from the garden next to mine apparently fell into my side in the spring and I got this huge sunflower. I've had the flower drying but it was ready to eat so we threw it out for the squirrels. They seem to be enjoying it!


Another sure sign of fall is when the beautiful Goldfinch start putting on their winter feathers. I miss their bright yellow!


That's about it for this week. I have another busy week ahead work-wise. I'll actually start teaching. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all goes well.

Have a good week!