Catching Up
October 10th, 2025 at 12:59 pmIt's been a bit since I've last blogged. It has taken me some time to read other's posts because of it. Life has been busy. Between trying to get things done outside and then an "assignment," I've been staying busy. Perhaps not out of trouble, but busy.
With a garden comes the clean up. First pulled up the last of the onions, and then the tomato plants. We tilled it up and put fertilizer on it so things can rest over winter. We are enlarging the garden some since we felt like this one was a little crowded. It wasn't perfect, but we did realize some great vegetables this year and hopefully next year will be even better. I have saved some tomato and watermelon seeds and hope I can start the plants in the spring.
Sadly I had to also pull up some of our flowers. I am trying to get starts from some of them so hopefully they can winter inside and I'll have them for the spring to plant and not spend the money to buy new. I also planted some Crocus, Daffodil, Tulips, and Alium bulbs for the front flower garden. That garden is a work in progress. It has lilies, Iris, and other flowering plants that come up every year, but before they come out, I wanted spring flowers. I planted some daffodils and tulips last fall and it was nice to see them this spring. It's a large garden so buying enough to fill in would be very expensive. So the plan it to do some each fall. I have repotted some of our flowers and hopefully can keep them going inside so I can set them out in the spring. It would save us money if this works out.
We have a small garden next to our pole barn. I planted Oregano and Thyme there a couple of years ago and they come up each year. I wanted to start strawberries there as well, but one plant died and the other still is living, so hopefully we can add to that next spring. Again, a work in progress. I did plant garlic in that area this fall. Before that, we filled in the area with some top soil since it was eroding away from the foundation and I tilled it and then put in a landscape border so it looks a little more orderly. DH had the landscape border so the only cost was the pegs which aren't super expensive.
Our sunflowers did great and I cut off the heads before pulling the stalks out of the ground. I let them dry and saved a bunch of seeds for planting next year. The rest I mixed with wild bird seed. I saw a video on growing sunflowers that we decided to watch. I learned two things, the closer together you plant the sunflowers, the smaller they are, and ifyou want to see blossoms throughout the summer, you need to plant seeds at different times. My own caveat would be I didn't need to know how to turn it into a business.
Our small local library has these craft nights. One was macrame keychains. I've not done macrame before. It was interesting to learn, but I can say I don't think I'll be doing it again. The nice thing about the library stuff is they provide everything. It's a great social program. They have crochet night once a month and this month it was a pattern to make a pumpkin or candy corn. Most of the people are just learning, so they only chose one. I have crocheted before so I did the pumpkin while I was there and then brought the pattern home for the candy corn and I now have two fall decorations.
The other thing I did was I attended a terrarium class. This was something I had to pay for, but it was cool. The couple who led it explained the water cycle, and had all the things, and gave us step by step instructions. So far, the terrarium is doing great!
I decided to crochet bookmarks for the ladies in our ladies' Bible study class so I have been working on that. I finished the last one last night. I had the crochet thread already and of course the crochet hooks so this was a no cost idea.
Now, on to my "assignment." Our church has worked hard the past three years so pay off our mortgage early. We did it in about 3 years. We are having a mortgage burning after church at the end of this month after service. Then a potluck. One of the ladies asked me to come up with stuff for a history table. I went through things and made a timeline to put on the wall and then created a slide show besides. Yeah, I'm anal and an overachiever. But hopefully people will enjoy these as well as the other documents and photos that will be out. And other than my time, it was again a no cost project.
My spending hasn't been bad lately for any of these projects. I'm hoping to save money this spring by having some of the plants either I've had starts of, or are overwintering, or will plant the seeds. But boy, am I tired!