Halloween {a wee bit late}

Here's our ghostbuster, Coraline, & monkey

the beautiful leaves in the front of our house

ghost pancakes from Grammie

and my very favorite: candy apples

It's been a very hectic week with mid-terms, fevers, and all the regular stuff combined.
I hope to be back to blogging
as I've got a few tutorials I took some pictures for
and
I'd like to share my jelly presentation with everyone.
I'll be back...

If you can...

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposter's just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son.
-Rudyard Kipling

fish and apples

We decided to take a mini vacation to the New England Aquarium this week-end. It was just as much fun as the first time we went {which was so long ago the kids didn't remember}

The week-end before we went apple picking. And I finally found something that Gavin loves to help with:

peeling apples

which I turned into apple pie filling

I took the peels and cores from that to make jelly which still hasn't set up but I'm thinking I didn't boil it long enough. As for the jelly with honey~ it was a bit runny. I'll need to fine tune that recipe too.


And here's what I grew in my garden last year.
Seems some of the seeds that were knocked over from the greenhouse made it into my garden.
I can't wait to carve into it!

Happy Leif Erikson Day!

cleaning out

the garden while giving the bunnies some space to run around.

I thought they would be nibbling but they were too busy digging holes.

I used to hate thinning plants since it felt like I was killing something we could eat but now the bunnies eat them & I don't feel bad.

They LOVED the radishes.

The garden just tuckered them right out!

I am so in love with these guys. If I had known how sweet they were I don't know if I would have gotten any kittens...

these past few days...

{and in no particular order}

taking samples of apple tree diseases for a project

made mini pumpkin whoopie pies

lost a whole hive of bees

Team green is no longer with us & we have no idea what happened.

Now we are busy with jarring honey & my kitchen counters are covered in beeswax!

studied plant tissues & aced my quiz

{this is the actual picture I took from the lab}

went apple picking with the fam

working on scary concoctions with the kids to decorate our front porch

harvested a few carrots that ended up being nibbled on by our sweet bunnies

made 2 types of grape jelly
one with natural pectin and
another with honey
for another school project

lately

enjoying the beautiful fall days at a local amusement park

anxiously awaiting the arrival of our raspberries

picking grapes from both of my sisters' back yards

to use in a school project

can you guess what I'll be teaching my fruit science class?

ten rules

Ten Rules for Being Human
by Cherie Carter-Scott

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, "life".
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work".
4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6. "There" is no better a place than "here". When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will look better than "here".
7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie within you. The answer's to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. You will forget all this.

back to school

Just for Aunt Laurie.

Because I know she'll be looking for these pictures!

Hey baby~ I like your soil.

I wish you could tell from the photo how dark & rich my compost is.
I decided since it was nice and cool out today to add some compost to my garden.
Especially in the spot where I finally pulled out the collard greens. The bugs covering the greens ended up being cabbage aphids.

In other insect news,
check out what I found climbing all over the zucchini leaves:


I'd be upset to have so many different types of bugs in my garden,
but as it turns out
I'll be taking a entomology course next semester & these will be great to add to my collection.

I found these really cute jars that were in a box of canning jars at a garage sale.
I washed them all & then painted chalkboard paint on them.

Now they are storing my dried herbs.
A shelf to hang on my kitchen wall would be great for these {Hint, hint}

As for the few veggies I was able to get from my garden,
I decided to make a basic veggie stock.
I'll be freezing this for later.

And last but not least,
I have chosen a winner for the line dried challenge:

marie*jolie said...
I'm totally with you on this! I love line-dried laundry, and we just got laundry line up for the year. I'll take pics!

Thanks Marie for joining me! Send me your info so I can send you a copy of "Green is the New Black".

Enjoy the rest of your week-end!
Everyone's looking forward to the kids back at school this week
{they've been asking to go back for weeks now!}

Joey's here!

I'm an aunt!

My sister delivered Joey

September 2nd at 11:38pm.

He was 7 pounds, 14 ounces and 20 inches long.

He's just adorable!

Full head of hair.
He didn't make a peep the whole time we visited.

Look at that smile! Scarlet was so excited to hold a baby for the first time. She didn't want to let anyone else hold him.