Since I last posted, we've had a couple of heavy frosts. No more pretty nasturtiums for salads. The frosts have officially done in the few summer stragglers left in the garden, but the kale, broccoli, lettuce and other fall crops shrug it all off as soon as the sun hits them. Despite the chilly nights, we are enjoying some beautiful, balmy, blue sky days. I'm itching to go for a hike somewhere!

Just yesterday the lady bugs made their appearance, numbering in the thousands! The past few years have really made me hate ladybugs. It's like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, swarms of them, always managing to fly straight for your face, sometimes even biting. And that nasty lady bug smell! Even in the house you can't be free from them as they manage to find their way in through every crack and crevice. I remember naively making the comment a couple of weeks ago that it seemed we had missed the ladybug epidemic this year. I spoke too soon.

The outhouse is SOO close to being done. I was tempted to cross it off of our project list the other day, but if we do that we are likely to mentally cross it off as well and never finish tying up the loose ends. At the beginning of the year, the theory was to have the outhouse finished and available for use during pizza parties and summer gatherings, but... NEXT year. I can often associate with how Alice must have felt when she was in the world on the other side of the looking glass, where you have to run REALLY fast just to stay in one place! A whole spring and summer have flown by and it seemed sometimes like we hardly got a moments rest but somehow have very little to show for it. Then I look at all of the canned goods on my shelves and remember where much of the time went, and I'm satisfied.