Dear Hurricane Irene,

Thanks for NOTHING! Not a DROP of rain! Okay, so there were a couple of drops, but if I can count the number of individual drops, it doesn't count (no pun intended). So, I've just spend another hour or so carrying buckets of water to the remaining productive plants in my garden. I was going to plant lettuce, but I just can't bring myself to voluntarily bring another being that requires constant watering into this world. I did plant broccoli, kale and cabbage transplants the other day, and they are more than enough extra work at the moment.

Whereas my fall garden crops may be few and far between this year, we're making good use of the summer crops. We've been digging up the potatoes as we need them, which so far is working great. Of course, we'll have to get them out of the ground before it freezes, but it is nice to not have to figure out where to store them just yet. Joe and I cooked up this beautiful, straight from the garden, root vegetable medley to take to a back-to-school potluck hosted by one of Joe's new professors. Joe almost didn't want to take it because he didn't think they'd appreciate it. He was right, they didn't. In fact, they hardly touched it. But, it was a win-win situation because we got credit for bringing a dish and we got to bring it home and enjoy it for dinner last night and lunch today!

Photo courtesy of Joe, who's into the artsy, angled camera look. This photo was taken before the veggies went in the oven. When they came out, they were all bright red from the beets.

Speaking of professors, today is Joe's first day of classes at Radford!! He started his graduate assistantship job last week, but now the real adventure begins. It looks like between classes and work, he's going to have a packed schedule all day Monday through Thursday. He's hoping to have most of his Fridays free, but we'll see how it goes. He's pretty excited, and I'm very excited for him.  Now that Joe's back to school, he's gone through a complete wardrobe transformation. From somewhere deep under the bed came a tote of clothes that I didn't even know he had.  Five years of marriage, and I've never seen these outfits before. The Joe I know isn't completely gone, though, because he is talking about making a pair of nice duck pants, suitable for school. ;)