It happens every year – there comes that first night that the weatherman predicts a freeze. 60-70 houseplants have to get inside and right now before I lose them. I start with my favorites and work backwards – each plant has to be cleaned of debris and treated for insects before they are moved into the house. This job almost kills me. Some of the pots/plants are so big I can hardly handle them. Remember the school desk I planted? I was able to get it into the house by myself – inch by inch.

Please don’t think people haven’t offered to help! Many have but how do I know which night this is going to happen? I don’t and all of a sudden it’s upon me and people already have other plans.

And here’s the kicker. It doesn’t get down to freezing that night and once again nice warm sunny weather returns and all my plants are inside. The first time I don’t head the weatherman will be the time I lose my plants and some are over 40 years old!

Some plants are in the front room, some in the piano room, sewing room, quilt shop and lots are in the basement with grow lights. I can just hear my mom saying “Mary! You make so much work for yourself!” Next year at our sale I’m going to sell a bunch of them.

Are there any Florida readers that can let us know they’re safe? The hurricane coverage on tv is beyond belief!

Reader quilts

And Connie just finished binding Chicken Tracks from our first book, On Behalf of Chickens. You can download this pattern from our online store.

So the past few days have been overwhelming – the porch repair, the longarm maintenance and repair, the piano tuner, choir practice, the pumpkins, the mowing – yikes!

One last question – has anyone read this book? What did you think of it?

This is the page in the Territorial Seed Company catalog that I ordered from. I also ordered the green pumpkin seeds and white pumpkin seeds from Park Seed and Gurneys.

Three sizes are usually offered by grams. Some have 3 seeds per gram and the small packet has 3 grams – 9 seeds and that’s all so that’s probably only 2 or 3 hills of that variety. I did not order any large pumpkin seed because I knew I couldn’t lift them and I am not interested in carving a JackOLantern only decorating.

Growing pumpkins isn’t rocket science BUT most anything grows in our rich black soil so we’re lucky.

Mollie came yesterday for a play date with Keeper.

See why I grabbed this free old lady couch? I took it for the dogs.

Connie’s Lily helping her bind – a cat’s presence is required.

The screened porch was built about 13 years ago and it was time to re-screen it. There were holes in the old screen from birds flying into it and it was looking very tired and worn. I worked just ahead of the carpenter vacuuming, brushing dust and cobwebs and then scrubbing each section. Oh, what an exhausting job! I’m sitting down right now but not sure I’ll be able to get up again – ha!

Do you see those boards at an angle? Can you imagine how hard it is to clean at the very bottom where there’s no space? Not sure I can explain – it would take a putty knife and a wet rag to clean there. When I asked him a couple years ago why he didn’t just put them in straight up and down he said he thought the angle effect was attractive. Of course he did but he never once considered how hard it would be to clean. Ugh.

Territorial Seed Company, Cottage Grove, OR

My catalog is very old and I remember I ordered online so I’ll have to go online to get correct names of the pumpkins. That’s for tomorrow.