"It's another Windsday. . ."

The wind is all blustery today.

The leaves all swirling across the garage floor and catching themselves on the garden gates, between the cracks in the frames. 

Pieces of gold, all Octoberish and mysterious.

It's a good day for French braids. For blue jeans, t-shirts, and sweaters. Slippers and tea. And a blog post. 

All mama's precious canned goods have been deported to the basement for the wonderful cause of there not being enough room upstairs, such as the bountiful season of gardening bestowed upon us!

They are terribly beautiful and poetical all arranged on the shelves in the laundry room. Inspiring. Homey. Comforting. And they make you all happy inside. Very, very Octoberish.

One day the cotton woods burst into color and the cloudy skies broke for a moment and the sunshine rained down, all golden and perfect.

I don't necessarily like chickens, especially the Leghorns, but they look like home to me. They do much better in pictures than in real life, and I like to hear the rooster in the morning.

We have dreamed about having wooden chairs around our dining table all our lives! So last year we began collecting them. Dad began it all with a birthday present for Mama, and that sort of exploded the whole thing. Last month we bought our last pair. This was our first dinner all together with all our new chairs. I am so happy to see Mama's dream come true.  

Dark branches with shining snips of sunlight clinging to their branches. Such was the ending days of September, awaiting the awakening of October.

I made pies!! My first pies! I am utterly overcome!! Mama taught me how. I had had the blackberries in the freezer for weeks, and one morning, Mama asked me, "Would you like to make your pies this afternoon?" And we did. Gluten free, too. Blackberry, with a bit of blueberry because there weren't actually enough blackberries.  I floated away to the moon that day! I can't wait to do it again, for I feel as if I could make any pie now!!

The chickens, nasty creatures as they are, invaded mother's flower garden upon several occasions, nearly destroyed it all, and brought Mama a great many tears. So, what did father and the sons set about doing for their womenfolk? Building a fence.

You can still see remnants of our barricade, the cot, the logs, buckets, the barrow. But they threw the whole thing together in one afternoon. And put the door up. But what did the little devils do but go around the big garden and attack the flower beds from the other side! So---with Daddy at work, what did the boys and I set out to do?

We built a fence. 

Ha. I laugh at that because you cannot just "build a fence", as I quickly discovered. And it took two and half weeks instead of a day. :) But it is finished, thank heavens, and we have dubbed the little place Mama's Nook. Next spring, grass seed is in order, and a swing, or bench, a bird house and a bird bath. All safe and sound from the peckers.

 Here is our fence all done! Daddy chain-sawed the tops all down for me, they were quite jagged looking.

And here is Daddy's fence. All finished. Dust-your-hands-off-grin-big-I-built-a-fence finished! And then you smile and laugh and shake your head, because you really are deceiving the poor innocents who have never built a fence before in their lives, and you take them very seriously when they say, "Well, that's cool." 

Very seriously.

We harvested the garden last month, too. One morning, Mama sprung upon us what we were to do that day, and off we went! Here the two boys and I are with the pumpkins and Hubbard squash. If you ever drop by in our part of the country, I'm sure we shall load you down with all sorts of good things because we had a harvest like none other!

Acorn squash. These are my favorite!

Look at all our pumpkins!!

Butternut squash! Another of my favorites! We worked all morning--cutting the produce off the vines, tearing up the vines and hauling them to the goats, collecting all the squash and pumpkins, loading up the wheel barrow and hauling them off to the garage!

Doesn't it just make your heart happy to see them all there together? Piled in the glory of the work of your hands? I think there is nothing better than standing, smiling, hands on hips, down at all your work heaped high for the glory of God. Scratched, cracked, and bleeding your hands may be, but brown and strong and oh so thankful for the Lord's bountifulness!

Love,
Kayla