Last Bit of Summer Middle Bit of Fall

Coleus Given By A Friend

Glowing Strong

How the Pea Tendrils Grab

Canna Missing Flower

Beautiful In A New Way

Leafy Sidewalk

Butterhead Lettuce

Remaining Ripes

Texas Hummingbird Sage

Blinding Pampas

Penstemon

Shaw Nature Reserve

In a large rotten tree, proving how difficult it is to have all in a photo "smiling"

Rest Time

Our Fearless Leader

Sunday was a perfect day for a warm, fall hike. In fact, it was so warm we had to avoid the prairie and other sunny spaces for fear would not be able to complete our task.

http://www.shawnature.org/

Lovely place as always.

Hard Life

Regarding all the unspeakable things that happen. How do we have any hope at all? What do we say to a mother whose 4 year old dies from cancer?

"...the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." Romans 8:26

And it is okay that we cannot even pray. Our tearful moans are prayers in themselves.

Our House

One evening, after a weekly library visit, i paged through this book with curiosity. I was interested in the pictures and thought it would make good wind-down material. I love our STL city, neighborhoods, and random information.

Imagine my surprise when i turned the page to find our house years before. (First house behind the redbud.)

Ozark Mountain Weekend

Dying Brightly

Moss?Lichen?

Big Grin Boy Little Tongue Skink

Feather Found

Cypress Arm

Beautiful Decay

Pirate Spy

On a recent weekend, we had warmer than usual weather that did not require sweatshirts in the evening and did require sweating in the day. It was a delightful time.

Before the kids went to sleep, we walked out into the clearing to gaze at the stars. I said, "Let's see who can see the first falling star." Two minutes of gazing later, one very long shooting star sizzled across the dark sky. All 4 of us saw it. Magical.

Darryl made a washtub bass and i tinkered around on it enough to know i would like one for myself. Everyone else played "real" instruments. We stayed up real late and played music on the front porch. The coyotes yipped us to sleep.

We saw a water scorpion, which i haven't heard of or seen before. It looked like a walking stick with moss on it's back. And he was swimming in the water.

Avery still had on his cast, so he enjoyed playing pirate best. Jasper caught a skink and practiced starting leaves on fire with a magnifying glass. Tullaia turned over every rock and fished as much as she could. Papa relaxed. I breathed deep and didn't even take pictures of moss

Good Times On The Fall Farm

Old Bloom Old Barn

Wooly Bear White Tiger

Zinnia, Barn, Flannel

Lookin, Playin, Rollin

Lollygagger

New Bloom Old Barn

Bullets and Ice Cream

Real Deal

Front Porch Shoot Out

Target Practice

Two Boys With Boo Boos

We were in Iowa recently for a friend's wedding. The weather was prime time (except for her wedding day...boo)and we were fortunate to stay an extra day. Eric's run-in with a 9mm in St Louis is healing well. He is still unable to walk but is enthusiastically cleaning up the farm in his over-sized motorized wheelchair (AKA excavator, skid-loader, and 4-wheeler). Everyone, minus me, was excited to operate the previously mentioned excavator.
Mom grew pumpkins this year, and they were perfectly ready for picking. The kids carved pumpkins, picked a bushel basket of pears, and hand-fed Gloria. She is going to be the Christmas pig. That we eat.

American Gothic House

And although the American Gothic House is only 45 minutes from my farm, I haven't been there. They provide costumes and pitchforks. We made Grant Wood proud! And after Justin peeked in all the windows, we found out someone lives there. Oops!

Balloon Glow 2010

We woke up Friday morning with Judy and Stella all up in arms, barking at something outside. It was a balloon landing a block over. I am not sure if it was an early test run, but we enjoyed the balloon weekend of the Forest Park Balloon Race. We had a picnic across the street and watched the balloons glide gently up and away.

Our Mantis Laid Eggs!

Dew Drops on Wheat Grass

The wheat grass sprouted overnight. Which was amazing, but this morning each one was capped off with a tiny dew drop from the open window.

Happy Flower

Pirate Festival

Jeff and Erin gave us some tickets for the pirate festival in Wentzville. The kids went on a treasure hunt and then become honorary pirates. Thanks you guys!
http://www.renstl.org/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=65&Itemid=161

September 11

And despite all the hate the whirls around each country and race, we have constant reminders of goodness and Truth.

And the friendship we have with this Afghan family is one.

Today, (coming home from Seema's and being reminded by Justin) my prayers are lifted up for all of the people missing loved ones. The ones that were lost 9 years ago and the ones that continue to die in the conflict today.

The differences between us and our Afghan friends is great.

Sometimes too great to bear.

But it is how we learn to love one another.

Polyphemus Memory

I was reminded of Daniel tonight and since it was before blogging days, i must share the excitement with you now.

Years ago we found a fat, green, wriggly caterpillar trucking across the path in Forest Park. We snatched it up and it was so strong we nearly had to pop it's legs off to get him into his new home.

He spent a bit of time munching and crunching but made his chrysalis rather quickly. We found him in Sept and by late April I started thinking maybe it was a dud.

I made a mental note to throw him out.

But one morning, Tullaia was first to go out on the front porch and she shouted for me to come quick.

Daniel was Daniella. There she was in the butterfly house in all her beautiful Polyphemus glory! There were also 5 or 6 males perched nearby her.

The males can "smell" the female pheromones from miles away and make every effort to get to her. There they were and had already done the deed through the mesh of the cage.

Daniella laid hundreds of eggs the next day and we were fortunate to continue the cycle with her babies.

Why why why would anyone want to burn a Koran with this type of activity available?

Judy Update

Judy came home last night without a fever and will be staying home until next week! She is barking at people she wants to bark at, TRYING to steal food off the table, hassling Stella...back to her normal puppy self.

Now we need to plump her back up again. No small task.

They think it is a case of pancreatitis and unsure of the future repercussions. For now, a special diet, antibiotics, taking it easy.

As for me, i am sick with a sinus infection. So it goes.

Sick Girl

Judy is really sick...

For a week now she has been vomiting and lost 10-15 pounds just in the last few days.

Her fever is hovering around 104.

She is sad. We are sad.

So after all the many x-rays, blood work, IV, antibiotics, lots of money, tests for this and that. We still do not know.

She heads back for more IV and antibiotic treatment tomorrow. Initially they thought it was an intestinal blockage. But several x-rays and Barium came back normal. Now, they think it might be pancreatitis although the test came back negative for it as well.

It is often caused by eating too much rich food. She has been known to eat entire sticks of butter (still in wrapper), entire hams, entire PB toasts, Littlest Pet Shops, pencils, plastic dinosaurs...the good stuff.

Visions of Peace September 2010

I know feet gross out my Aunt Phyliss. But what about feet on moss?

Old Acorn Waits

September 2010

Justin surprised me with something wonderful! He told me to leave and be quiet. He set it up and I left in a spontaneous way for Visions of Peace.

http://www.visionofpeacehermitages.org/hermitages.html
And as important as our jobs

and places in life may be,

nothing

is more than this.

Watching. Waiting.

Listening. Praying.