This and That Outdoors

With all of the beautiful weather we’ve had here lately, we’ve been spending alot of time outdoors. My camera accompanies me out when I think of it, and I’ve been compiling a bunch of random pictures that have been taken while enjoying the great outdoors. The picture above is a corner of my patio garden, which is usually taken over a bit by now with marigolds, which I don’t mind at all, as it makes for lovely Fall scenery.

The rest of the patio garden seems to think that it is Spring again the way it has started producing in recent weeks. You might be able to pick out several vegetables here (if you look real close – kind of like one of the kids’ seek and find books!) – the tomatoes are loaded down with new fruit, the okra plants decided to finally come up after being planted months ago and are producing abundantly (unfortunately I haven’t been picking them and they’ve gotten huge!), and there are bell and jalapeno peppers producing again (you can see these plants peeking their heads over the marigolds on the right side of the picture). Of course, there are also lots of dead weeds and a few dead sunflowers – just ignore those – I seem to have done so. Can you find all of the plants? -

Across the sidewalk is my herb garden, which is looking lovely and lush. My dill is all gone – ravaged in a couple of days by caterpillars awhile back, but the basil, rosemary and thyme are doing quite well. I need to start cutting and drying these . . . I think -

Enough of the gardens, here is my little pumpkin on the front porch on our first cool-enough-for-a-jacket day. He’s the one in blue, not the one in orange. -

Our scarecrow friends on the front porch – they have been brutally attacked a few times by Jack, but have come out alive and still smiling -

One day we saw this crawling around our scarecrow buddies. He was about 2-3 inches long! He looked like a giant wasp, but we never saw him fly -

Probably the most common places to find the children when playing outside are the trampoline or the swingset, but there have been other interesting activities going on, as well. Climbing trees is always fun – Tommy and Sarah rigged a basket system up to this tree to haul books, stuffed animals and toys into it -

One day they decided to dig a hole – “why?”, I asked. “”Just because”, was the answer. So we found an acceptable spot behind the barn and they started digging. They worked on it several days, and then decided they’d had enough fun with this project. -

One day the activity of choice was collecting horse apples all around the yard in the wagon. It was quite heavy when they finished -

Michael enjoying the nice cool weather -

Sweet Laura, whose outdoor time usually includes playing with Jack, taking him for walks, and keeping him out of mischief -

And speaking of Jack, he loves for us to come outside to play with him and sits on the porch with us (when he’s not attacking scarecrows) and enjoys the company. I’m afraid he has overstepped his bounds here, though – although Laura thinks it’s so adorable -

Sarah took this picture of a bird’s nest in one of our Rose of Sharons. Now that the leaves are falling off, we were able to discover it and marvel at it -

And one last picture – of some of the Fall Foliage on the trees that we are enjoying (sorry for the blur)-

Well, I didn’t mean for this to get so long, but wanted to share with you some of our outdoor moments. Hope you’re enjoying your Fall as much as we are!

Blessings,
Nancy