Saturday, October 3, 2009

A Nearly Frigid Fall

A chill is in the air as fall and winter begin to descend on Northern Indiana. I should consider myself lucky that we had such pleasant weather lasting through September, but now I can see the leaves go from green to the yellow and red shades for fall. The warm colors belie the coolness in the air though. We had our first frost this week.

My tomatoes never did well, nor did anything else I planted this year. I know part of it was the sheer distraction we experienced with the losses we suffered this summer, but I also blame the groundhog for eating my beans and the ground for sucking so hard. There just isn’t enough good dirt to grow anything useful. So, next year, Big Guy is building me a raised bed and we’re going to go through and add real dirt to the soul and hopefully do much better.

I finished my super secret project, which was a 9 square blanket for my sister-in-law for her birthday. It turned out much better than I could have hoped for, considering the crunch I was under. 9 granny squares of 9 rounds, with each grouping 3 sets of triple stitches. Clever enough for a birthday that occurred on September 9, 2009.

I’ve also been busy teaching. I just finished a round of Composition 2 and am preparing to start a class for the basics. This will be my first time teaching this particular class, so wish me luck! I was telling Big Guy, I really do love teaching and it is rewarding to see people connect with the language.

We received our Angel Food Ministries box and already have made some tasty meals from it. My personal favorite involved pork chops, pears and fresh sage from my garden. It was truly delicious and the pears complemented the pork beautifully. I also made chicken and beans in the crock-pot because we received two HUGE chicken breasts so I used one breast with beans and I think the other might be slated for some homemade chicken soup. Yum!