Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice today & it feels like spring here.  The windows are open & laundry drying outside (I've been living sans dryer since August, by choice).  

Levi & Joe are using the straw rake on the back of the lawnmower & gathering piles & piles of pine straw.  We'll use it to keep all the landscaped beds around the house looking fresh.  

We're having a party here tomorrow for Joe's family & are expecting 17 total - so some of today will be about getting ready.

Indi is using clay on the backporch & has created pages of hand and foot prints.

Tonight will be a fire & stouts.  We're burning a brush pile over one year in the making.  Maybe we'll stay out late enough to watch this waning moon rise.

Playing Catch-Up

Halloween downtown Cairo

pumpkin guts

satsumas are ripe - lovely that citrus ripens in the winter

I love the winter garden - arugula, lettuces, & kale

Levi & Joe had a 'man-weekend' in Athens & went to a Georgia football game

Levi 'high-fiving' Hairy Dawg

Levi with some of the UGA baseball players - he told them 'I play baseball too!'

My mexican sunflowers still rockin'
the 26th of November & still no killing frost here, yet

brewing a new batch of beer
Sierra Nevada clone - Joe's favorite beer

Joe's last time in his dress uniform.
Tomorrow is his last day with DNR, after 5.5 years.  Bittersweet.

Trays of seedlings in queue for the garden.
I'm holding most plants until they're 4 weeks old now until transplanting.

"you're so helpful"

Reading a beautiful loving book to her baby.
Levi brought this book to her as a surprise from his weekend in Athens.

Last Soccer Game of the Season

last Sunday in October

Southern Two-Striped Walking Stick

roasted beets - Levi & I will especially devour these

green beans planted here in mid-September will make
wasn't sure if it was too late
no killing frost yet 

brass headboard I couldn't live with
though I hesitated for months...

primed & ready for the next: dark charcoal metallic

weekend lesson in flint/steel fire starting
teaching Levi how

Levi got a fire started all on his own

sleepy girl

racking a carboy of stout

the capper

now the waiting
2 weeks until we crack the first one

Sunday afternoon playing guitar

October full moon

This was last weekend - learning to ride without training wheels.
This weekend, as I write in fact, boards & cinder blocks are being made into jumping ramps out in the driveway.  (And yes, he does have his helmet on now).
How quickly they learn.

When walking to the beehive barefooted...

Full Moon Rising

Chilies to roast.  We're still hitting high 80s in the days & 60s at night.  Perfect for these poblanos.  I've got a steady stream of them coming in.

A little news from us:  Joe has taken a new job, beginning in December, teaching classes at a nearby technical college.  

He'll be the new director of the their land/forest/wildlife program.

a visit from the folks