Fall Happenings

Although I titled this post "Fall Happenings", there really hasn't been a lot happening worth blogging about. I've just put up a few picture from the past few weeks. Her's the pumpkin College Girl carved when she was home for the weekend. She's had a good transition to college so far, has made friends and seems to be doing okay, so that's a relief.
TB's football team got to play their last game of the season on a stadium with artificial turf, so that was kinda cool and not nearly so messy. Unfortunately they got walloped, TB didn't even get to play, so it was kind of a sad end to the season. He had a good time playing football even though he didn't see a lot of playing time in games due to an injury and inexperience. He was sick again this past week with an H1N1 type thing, but he was over it in about 4 days, so it may have been something else.

One last fall picture from the yard. This bush surprises me with its color every year, waiting til most of the other leaves have fallen. I've done pretty well with the yard work this year hauling many bags of leaves out. Now I just hope it waits awhile longer before we have any more snow.

Next week will be a busy one. Besides the usual activities, DH is making a trip to his parents to tour apartments with them, trying to convince them to down-size before winter. Over the weekend we will go to my mother's to move her out of her house. She wants to go to an apartment, but unfortunately her house has sold and none are available in her small town right now, so she'll move in with my brother temporarily. That's about it for now, I'm hoping for a nice evening by the fire watching my favorite hockey team play. Go Gophers!

A better fox picture

Here's some better pictures of Mrs. Fox. I did a lot of yard work over the weekend, so I heard her kits arguing again and saw her running around. Another neighbor said that there are 5 of them, so she probably has to spend quite a bit of time hunting food for them. The last picture shows her sauntering away. I didn't have the camera on zoom at all, I was pretty close to her and she didn't seem to mind.


I've got my yard looking pretty good and powerwashed the patio and patio furniture last night. We had a beautiful weekend, so I was able to get a lot done. Tonight we have a baseball game, so not much will happen at home. I spent a long time on the phone with my sister this morning. She had been to Iowa to see our mother and said she seems to be doing okay. Time will tell if she'll be able to return to her home. Today is SD's last day of high school. She graduates Friday night, but her party isn't until the 14th. They have an all night party for the grads, so I think I may have some of my friends over after graduation. I have a feeling I might be a little sad that night, we'll see.

Mrs. Fox

Here's the fox I called Mr. Fox until last weekend when I saw the four babies arguing over a rabbit in the neighbors yard. The neighbors on the other side had mentioned that they thought they had a fox living under the deck and eating all the chipmunks in the yard. Their house has been vacant since late last summer, so I suppose she felt comfortable over there. I was up to let Sammy out at 3:15 in the morning (note to self: remember to let him out before I go to bed) and saw Mrs. Fox standing in the middle of the street. Sammy saw her too and started barking (sorry neighbors). I wish these pictures were better, so hopefully I'll get another opportunity. The one above is of one or two of the babies and the unfortunate rabbit.

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In other news, TB will be playing baseball on the summer VFW league and has his first game already on Monday night. They had tryouts but everyone ended up making the team. He came home from the last tryout feeling pretty happy. His coach had given him some tips on pitching and batting and he felt like he did pretty well. To play in the summer league the boys have to write a little essay about their strengths and weaknesses as a player. That made for some interesting reading and really made me realize that he thinks of baseball on an entirely different level than I do.

Spring Cleaning

The weather has been great the last couple of days so I've been hitting the yard work hard. After three trips to the yard waste dump and I feel like things are starting to look a little better. I'd like to get a little more raking done before it rains because I know that with the warm weather we've been having, a little rain would make everything shoot up like crazy. We're starting to see a little green in the grass and some of my perennials are starting to grow. Oddly enough though, when I was raking yesterday I uncovered some areas still frozen with ice. That's Minnesota for ya I guess.

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Today is College Son's 20th birthday. Have those years ever gone fast! The weird thing is when he tells me about some of his college experiences, it seems like just yesterday that I was doing some of the same things. I really envy the new parents today that are able to document their kids lives so completely and easily with blogs, facebook, etc. To think about that when my son was a baby I had to take a photo with a film camera, get the film developed, then remember to mail the photos out to people so they could see him. A friend just got a new grandson the other day and immediately had a picture of him sent to her on her phone. Pretty amazing. Anyway I hope he won't kill me for this, but here's a picture of him from when we dropped him off at school in the fall.

Whew!!

Boy am I ever out of shape from sitting around all winter. Today was fairly nice, and there's a big storm in the forecast for later this weekend, so I thought I 'd better get some yardwork done. I spent about 2 1/2 hours raking the yard and I'm totally pooped! TB helped for a little while, very begrudgingly I might add. 16 year olds just don't see the point in raking the leaves and dead grass up from the yard. I have a ton of work left to do throughout the spring, so I guess it's a good thing I got started. I'm considering focusing on a small area at a time and trying to get a little done each morning before I go to work. That's my intention every year, but it doesn't happen too often since I'm not much of a morning person.

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In my continual quest to save money, I started some flowers from seed this last week. I got a little "professional greenhouse" that holds 72 little seedlings. I planted my seeds, so now I'll just have to wait and see if anything happens. I figure if a few of them actually grow to a point I can use them outside, I'll have saved a lot of money, so we'll see. I'll post a picture when they sprout and you'll see why "professional greenhouse" is a massive exaggeration.

A Slow Saturday

Kind of a slow day today. We've been doing yard work with plenty of breaks. Surprisingly the weather is perfect today, low 80's without the humidity we've had. My two sons and my daughter aren't always to excited about helping with yardwork, but we got the rest of the bushes trimmed and a lot of weeds pulled. The boys also cleaned the basement lair as college son is having a bunch of friends over tonight for pizza and a movie. We thought about a trip to the county fair tonight, but that may not happen. We have a few more days to make it out there. I like to see the farm animals and the quilts and eat some really great fair food, so it would be fun to go. I still hope to get a little sewing done tonight. I have been working on a little wallhanging that seems to have had about every seam ripped out at one time, bleagh! I think it will look okay when it's done though.