October was a bust!

In September I went back to work for the first time in 11 years. (What does this have to do with food or gardening???.....hang on....I'm gettin' there.....) I started substitute teaching in the local elementary schools. I started working the second week of school, and have been working more and more as the school year progresses. So I haven't had time to do much cooking. My "cooking" has been more along the lines of reheating something from the freezer. Thank God for all the batch cooking I did over the summer!! (I really could go another couple months, serving dinners from my freezer stash.)

The garden too, has needed some TLC. The dead sunflowers are starting to fall over. Thankfully we've had a series of dry, sunny days, which was good for the seeds. On Sunday I collected a brown lunch bag full of sunflower seeds. There's a lot of other guck in there too, but there's really no reason to clear it out. It will all just get planted in the spring, along with the actual seeds. Some of the sunflower heads were starting to get moldy, so I made sure to check before collecting!

And, all the little grass starts are spreading near the lawn. They're a bugger to keep under control during the wet fall/winter! I don't like to use Round-up, so I'm constantly pulling and filling bags by hand. Sadly, I haven't pulled a thing in the past month!

My roses are so tall (at least 6') that I worry they'll tip over and uproot themselves like they did last year. Around here you're not supposed to prune them back until mid-February. Cutting back encourages growth, and right now is definitely not their growing season! There are still a few random blossoms on them. It's so tempting to pick them for a vase in November!! Also doing EXTREMELY well are some fuschias that are tucked into a protected raised bed on the side of the house. And the volunteer cosmos in back that sprouted in late summer is really doing well. (I'll have to remember to plant some cosmos in the summertime, so there's more in bloom at this time of year.)

So, back to the work thing...I am soooooo tired when I get home! There's still the housework, the rides to/from practice, homework help, church activities, and family life! I truly have no idea how women manage full time careers and motherhood.

Anyway, the good news is that I *do* have a few recipes/pics to share! Just give me a few minutes to get it all loaded, and see what I can spiff up in photoshop (some of the pics are just so-so....but it's either try to work some PS magic, or wait until I make that same dish again...). So hang tight...there are some recipes coming!!