As You Wish

 Nathaniel surprised me with his Westly costume right before our church's trunk or treat celebration Sunday.

I didn't have a  Princess Buttercup costume, but I was able to come up with a reasonably medieval costume with Lydia's old Maleficent dress and some fabric for a head covering.  The evening went very well.  The kids had a ball.  We had a couple of photo backdrops.  I never got a picture of my people in front of one, though.

My niece and nephew were in town and able to join our kids.  I was at the craft station.

The pumpkin hammering station was very popular.  I set out toy hammers and golf tees, and the kids had a ball hammering them into pumpkins.

Years ago, when I taught preschoolers, we did this.  It's great for hand/eye coordination.  It's also oddly satisfying to hammer a pumpkin.

 

More Fall Break Adventures

 

The younger kids and I took a trip to my parents' house for a couple of days.  Emry really enjoyed some trampoline time with the cousins.  We also visited their zoo.  Gyunay always wants a picture with the giraffes.  

The zoo also had Halloween decorations up, so they enjoyed some of those.

On Tuesday, we went to our favorite pumpkin patch with my parents for loads of pumpkins and some delicious apple cider slushies.  We were sad, because this patch is closing at the end of October.  We have enjoyed going there for many, many years, but the owner is retiring and will no longer run it.

Fall Break - Ren Faire

 The kids are on fall break this week, and we started it off with some excitement on Saturday.  Nathaniel and I took them to a local "castle" where there was a small Renaissance Festival.  

Nathaniel bought the boys swords, so of course they had some fun with that.

Lydia spent a great deal of time with the horses.  The black one is her favorite.

Lots of fun for all!

The castle had a dungeon, of course.

And a throne room:

They also had some good elderberry cider that Nathaniel and I enjoyed.

We saw the joust and wandered around the booths selling various things.  We ate some mead cookies, which were quite good.  The weather was perfect, and the kids had a blast.  It was a great way to start off the week off school.

More Chickens! All the Chickens!

 So, a friend asked if we wanted 2 more chickens.  I told her we didn't need any more, but I wouldn't turn them down.  And so:

The three white chickens are all from our friend.  One we've had for a few weeks now.  The other two joined the flock yesterday.  I'm hoping this means more eggs for us!

Yard Work

 The guys that put in our new septic system returned yesterday to grade and seed the yard.  

Straw everywhere!

I have also done some work on the garden area.  The raspberry row is just about finished, and I have started on the walking path next to it (cardboard and mulch).

They did some leveling work here, too, and added some of the better dirt from the nectarine tree to the top and plowed it in a bit.  I just need to clear up the weeds next to the sunroom and get all my rows in order.  I've got a graphed garden plan, with beds and mulched walkways.  We'll see how much I actually stick to the plan, but it is a good plan.

Camping

 Our annual family reunion camping trip was a success.  Seven of us (Pilot was off with friends) joined Nathaniel's family for our camping weekend at Spring Mill State Park.  

The mill wheel has been replaced and is now operational again!  We got to see it run, and of course, we bought some corn meal.

Nathaniel and Gyunay came up on Thursday, and I brought the rest of the crew on Friday evening.  We all stayed until Sunday afternoon.  The weather was perfect!

I still can't sit by the fire, but I can do some hikes now.  We had a couple of nice small hikes.

The nature center has new exhibits.

The kids had lots of fun with cousins.  The boys even got in a basketball game at the park court.

College Boys

 I went to visit my college boys last Friday.

They were on fall break today and yesterday.  Pilot was heading to Tennessee with friends for the break, but Malachi came camping with us, so I picked him up Friday after class so he could join in the camping fun.  Elijah took him back today, and ate dinner with him and Pilot.  

Can you believe Malachi is about to turn 21?!  We were able to celebrate with him while he was here.  He chose ribs (not a surprise - definitely one of his favorites) and a DQ ice cream cake.  He was also pleased to see that I had fresh green beans to cook for him.  He did complain that college doesn't have food as good as home, and he doesn't have dogs there to cuddle or chickens to watch.

Beginning

 I've started work on my new garden!

This will be a raspberry bed.  I'm digging down a bit, adding some small logs/sticks, dirt, and covering with mulch.  

The entire garden area will be approximately 39' x 17'.  There will be mulched paths, and 7 annual garden beds, and one perennial raspberry bed.  I've been plotting it out on paper, and I'm very excited.  I will have room to grow all the stuff!

This is the new garden area, from fence to sunroom wall.

Also, my inlaws picked up some persimmons from their friends yesterday, and gave us 5 bags full. Nathaniel was nice enough to puree them for me:

So now I have plenty of persimmon pulp to play with.  I plan to make a persimmon pudding this week.  I did that once, and it was so good.  I will probably also make jam, since my father-in-law absolutely loves persimmon jam.  The end of this week is our camping trip, though, so the persimmon may end up frozen to deal with later.

September Harvest Totals

 We processed most of the meat birds this month, with 16 birds already done.  We will do the remaining 4 this weekend.  

Chicken - 86.7 lbs total from 16 birds; plus 16 chicken hearts, to the delight of my children!

Cucumbers - 6

Eggs - 5

Peppers, Bulgarian - 7

Peppers, Jalapeno - 1

Tomatillos - 4.4 oz

Tomatoes - 9 (Black Krim and 2 San Marzano)

Zucchini - 1