October 28, 2010 10:35 p.m.

I have to admit, I am proud of myself this Fall.  Last winter, the extreme cold killed so many of our plants.  Our yard was in dire need of some primping, and I planted flowers and flowering shrubs this month.  Plants like Pentas, Plumbagos, Azaleas, Bouganvilleas, Mums, Thryallis, Ixora, Firespikes, Crossandra, and others.  Here are some pictures so you know what I mean...




Not super fancy, but a big deal for me.  I am even remembering to water them all every day.  Pretty good for this girl.

I am beginning to weed places that have been ignored for too long.  We also had to hire a tree service today to do a minor job, but we simply didn't have the equipment to do it on our own.  So within a half hour's time, a work crew came here and cut back the live oak tree from the front of our house, in order to diminish the fire hazard due to a lightning strike.  (Our dear homeowners' insurance company threatened to terminate our coverage if we didn't do this).  So here are some before and after shots...

Before.

AFTER!!  (even the clouds were removed, see?)

Before.

AFTER!!  What a relief!

Another thing, I am bad about holiday decorating.  Really bad.  Every year I think I'm going to decorate, and then I have no time to even think about it.  So I am proud -- no, amazed -- at myself for actually coming up with an autumn decoration.  And it is still just October!  Are you ready for this?

Oooooohh!   Aaaaahhh!

Here are some highlights from the past few days. My dd and I decided to bake bread the old fashioned way, without a bread machine (ha ha!). That's pretty major for us. My daughter participated in a lot of the work, including kneading the dough for a full 15 minutes. Then, the dough was divided and placed into two loaf pans.













Boy that dough did rise a bunch! DD couldn't believe it.













Here are the results after baking.. truly golden!



this bread turned out to be yummy!











While I am speaking of fruits of our labors... of the sunflowers we planted earlier this season, the first one bloomed on Sunday. Our son noticed it immediately upon our return home from church. See how big it is?
















And here are some regular visitors to our yard: a couple of sandhill cranes. They come by a lot this time of the year. They make a fair amount of whooping noise, and they ain't shy one bit. They walk right up to us. I noticed them from the window of the school room today. They are nearly as tall as our daughter!














Finally, daddy tried to design a squirrel stumper modification to outfit our "squirrel stumper" bird feeder. Prior to this design change, I'd say the squirrel was stumped for only about three days; then he figured out how to get to the bird seed. Will this ingenious engineering solution save the day?



We have had regular visits from a cardinal couple, a blue jay, a dove, and another bird my kids call a "hoppy bird" because we can't identify it.

That's all the news for today. Stay tuned!