Killing Frost and Keeping Mum.

We had our first frost of the season on Monday nite. John's 4 tomato plants to a direct hit!

There were still tomatoes ripening on the vine, even at this late day (John has a superior green thumb!) and he decided that we could harvest the green tomatoes and place them in brown paper bags in a dark closet and they would ripen. So we got all the ripe tomatoes off the vines (about 10 pounds of them) and then got all the green ones (about 25 pounds of them) and put them in brown paper bags in the closet. Check back later to see if this worked! I'm not holding out much hope...but I'm not the farmer in this couple - John is...

On the other hand, the employee entrance of the library has a small strip of garden right next to the door. This is what greets us as we come to work each day:

Is this not the prettiest sight ever? Well, maybe not ever...but right now, with all the beautiful colors fading fast into winter drearies, this is a wonderfully uplifting sight when walking toward my daily workplace.

Check back soon...hope to have some quilt pictures up in the next week.

Silver Dollar City and Honu

John and I took my mom and his sister to Silver Dollar City for the Harvest Festival on Friday. That festival is our very favorite one at the City. It used to be called the Festival of Music and Craftsmen but they changed it this year. They opened up a new Culinary and Craft School, too. So I registered Kay, and Mom and Me for the Great American Cookie class....Soft Chewy Ginger cookies...YUM! Here we are waiting for the class to start. Actually, it was more a lecture with the recipe given out for us to make at home. They've done a wonderful job of designing the classroom...the kitchen setup is astounding -would that I had the money to get that setup! Copper backsplash, high-tech appliances, a cooling drawer in a cabinet AND a warming drawer in the oven. A hand-carved wooden mantle over the fireplace and a hand-blown chandelier over the table.
We came home Friday night totally exhausted. Then Saturday I had to work at the library. On Sunday, Mom and I began making curtains for the great room. I've only had the fabric since 2004 - before we moved into the house. There is only one large window in the great room and one would think I'd get the curtains done quickly - NOT! That window looks out over the back deck and then into our woods to there's no immediate impetus to cover it up. Anyway, the curtain is almost done...now I need to pick out the rod and then have John install it...pictures to follow but, please don't hold your breath! It could take another 4 years to get the last part done!

Mom is a city girl (like me) and is fascinated with country things. Every time she comes to visit we tell her about the deer that live in our woods and come out at twilight to eat and drink and she has NEVER seen them. 4 years now and not a single deer has she spotted. She kept telling us we were fibbin' about the deer. On Saturday nite she finally saw them...4 of them were grazing in the meadow just before the woods begin in the back. And one was in the front yard. And then on Sunday, John calls her out to the front porch to see a turtle he almost ran over with his Grasshopper. Mom gingerly agreed to hold it. Our son's family always calls turtles Honu cause that's the name they are known by in Hawaii and they picked it up when they went on a visit last year.

Mom is due to fly home on Saturday...I can't believe she's been here for almost 3 weeks. The time has flown. Maybe we can get her to come back sooner than next October????

More next time. Thanks for stopping by.

Knittin' Tits and the Yarn Harlot

More than thirty people took the time out of their busy holiday weekend to knit tits for breast cancer survivors. We converged on One City Market, our local yarn shop in Rogersville, Missouri (you can see the store behind us..too cute) and spent the day knitting boobs. My mom admitted she wasn't all that keen on spending the day with a bunch of folks she really didn't know but the idea of spending the day with me overrode that and she came along. She is the lady in the back row, 6th person from the left. I'm 5th from the left.

There were even men who came...two of them, in fact. They were in charge of making sure the size of each boob was correct on the tag (they told us they were experts on boob size) and then stuffing them.

A couple of the girls decided that boobs for cancer survivors should be pretty so they made some with beads (note the dark blue one in the bucket!) and some girls decided to paint "tattoos" on some of the boobs, and some girls decided to put nipple rings on some of theirs. All-in-all we ended up with more than 100 knitted tits to give to the Hulston Cancer Center in Springfield, Missouri.

I must give credit where credit is due! One of the ladies who came brought her husband, a professional photographer, to take pictures of our event. The above shots are being used with permission from Mr. William Russell of Marshfield, Missouri. Thanks so much, Bill!

On Monday, Columbus Day, Mom and I and 4 other friends traveled to Kansas City to hear the Yarn Harlot give a talk about her latest book, Free Range Knitter. What a fun day! Started with dinner at PF Changs....yum!!!!! Then on to the lecture held at Unity Church on the Plaza in Kansas City. We laughed so hard! The 3 1/2 hour drive home took hardly any time at all cause we spent the time laughing. It's really hard to get a good picture when the lighting isn't set up for photography AND you are laughing...but this is the best I could get!

And, finally, I promised a shot of Autumn from my own house....most of the colors here in southwest Missouri are pretty muddy compared to the Northeast...but here it is. Straight off my back deck, across the meadow, into our woods.

Happy Autumn, everyone! And thanks for stopping by.

Shades of Autumn

The leaves are beginning to turn...Mom is visiting...it must be fall!

Mom arrived on Saturdayfor her annual visit. She will be here for 3 weeks. John and I love having her and miss her so much when she's not here. She lives in Prescott Valley, Arizona so it's not easy to run over to see here whenever the whim strikes, which is often.

Mom and John have a mutual love society going on. They truly adore each other. (Mom picked him out for me 36 years ago. They worked in the same building and she decided he was the one for me - Good Job, Mom!!)

The leaves are starting to turn down in our grove. I looked out the morning-room window the other day and the leaves looked as though all the color had drained out of them. With a slight breeze, the trees will lose their leaves and be left standing naked till spring.

In lieu of a real photo, here is something to tide you over till I can get a good picture.



Thanks for stopping by.