Hello! We're still here!

I'm having trouble finding time to make updates, but I promise it's due to a lack of hours in the day. Things are good! My continued dry spell in posting is solely due to being so busy, the whole having a full time job and trying to be a full time mom while managing a chronic illness is a lot. And it's just that time of year for crazy schedules. There's something going on almost every day between sports games, practices and training, weekly allergy shots, play dates... wait why did I agree to be on the PTA board again? Have a lots my mind? We are finally getting into a groove with full-day, full-week school for both kids (kindergarten and fourth grade!), mastering the art of quick dinners between soccer and taekwondo, of filling out reading logs, trumpet lessons, remembering library books and spirit day and to charge the chrome books nightly. 

The Halloween decorations went up, the garden is being cleaned up. I'm repotting things to go in the greenhouse (though the weather has been so unseasonably warm that even the citrus trees are still outside). I'm working on a September/October garden wrap up post. I need to take photos of our annual holiday decorations. I want to write about dahlias. 

In the meantime... instead of regaling you with tales of house cleaning and how I'm reorganizing the cabinets... here are a few happy things, snippets of joy in the little yellow house recently: 

I found pink mums for the porch. Not dark purple, not fuschia - pink! They were a lovely find and really freshened up the porch steps as the summer plants withered from mildew. Pink mums in aqua pots! 

Here's what they look like blooming pink.

There have been butterflies! Friendly butterflies migrating south that willingly crawl into my hands.

This one needed a bit of rescuing so I brought it into the greenhouse and gave it some sugar water. The butterfly spent an hour climbing all over me while I tidied. In the morning it was gone, I like to think it made it to its destination. 

In August we enjoyed our annual Cape Cod sunsets on the water. Hurricane Henri threatened our trip and we lost a couple of days due to an abundance of caution (no thanks to staying in a beachfront house during a hurricane), but it made us appreciate the days we were there all the more. 

The fig tree has been BOOMING with figs. Wrapping it in insulation in the winter was a game changer. We can't even keep up with it. I made a big batch of fig jam to use them up and there are more on the tree every single day. I've also discovered that if you miss a day and the birds get them, rotting figs are MESSY. 

While harvesting and drying herbs I started making some smudge sticks with my sage. These are my first attempt and I probably didn't wrap them tight enough, but we'll see how it goes once they dry out. I've been reading about the ecological impact of white sage, palo santo and resins - so it feels a lot greener to at least attempt my own, locally grown in my own yard. 

I'm still consistently harvesting buckets of flowers and will continue until the frost. The extra weeks of warm weather are much appreciated on the flower front. To consistently have fresh flowers around the house is just so cheerful. And since I mainly harvest from my cut flower beds in the raised bed garden, the backyard is still teeming with flowers all the time. I get the best of both worlds. 

The greenhouse has finally been cleaned, swept out and organized - ready for the plants to start coming in. Many of the tropical plants that have been in here all summer will go into the house when the cold weather hits, making more room for the things I am planning on overwintering. 

(Yes, at the base of that shovel is a snapdragon growing out of the floor cracks in the greenhouse.)

I was tidying/organizing a cabinet in the house and found this forgotten butterfly windchime. I hung it in the greenhouse, because... why not?

This year I'm planning taking more snapdragons and geraniums into the greenhouse for winter bouquets. I did a few last year and it was lovely. This year I'm doubling the number if I can squeeze them all in.  Cheers to extending the flower season, even if its just tiny bud vases.