Scarecrow Fest!

Today my mom and I took the little one out to the Scarecrow Festival that my teen was volunteering at. We tossed the house looking for clothes he'd outgrown ( yes, those are my absolute favorite pants to dress him in, and yes, they're far too short). Armed with a pile of clothes we went out, bought the heads for $2 a piece, and helped ourselves to about a third of a bale of straw. The park district provided fabric markers and a directions sheet. All in all, it took about 45 minutes to build three, and it was a lot of messy fun.

What traditions does your family have for celebrating the harvest season?

Falling Down on the Job

I was out last weekend, touring a beautifully landscaped garden planted with varieties popular in victorian gardens, and noticed the rutabagas were bigger than my head. Surely they should have been long harvested, as should the tomatoes bursting on the vine and dropping. Although the garden looked lovely, someone was falling down on the job.
Of course, my garden isn't even beautiful this time of year. I fell down on the job over a month ago and haven't done a thing since. This as been the "fall" of sick and useless. I've been sick for six weeks. My son has been sick for seven, and my garden is nearly dead.
Today I got an encouraging email from Mother Earth News, filled with ideas for starting my winter plantings of spinach and other cold tolerating leafy plants, as well as carrots, and I want to do it. I want to get out there and cut down my long dead sunflowers and start putting together a hoop house, but we're still fighting off whatever it is that we're fighting off.
Halfway through my antibiotics, my lungs feel better but my energy just isn't there. Maybe I need to baby-steps back into the garden.
I'm probably not alone, anyone else ready to baby steps back out there with me?