Fall is falling

We took a trip to the Chicago Botanical Gardens last weekend. The wind was brisk but it was a beautiful day.

I've been pretty busy with shutting down the garden for the season (digging up cannas, mulching, transplanting and tweaking, bulb planting etc...). Steve has been finishing up the chimney cap project which I will be doing a post on very soon.

For now, I'll share some more photos from our field trip. With all the rain we had this year, the fall foliage has been so pretty.

How about these mums for some color therapy?

This is from the prairie section of the garden. What you can't get from this picture is the sound of the grass in the wind. There's a reason why "The Wind in the Willows" makes a great book title.

Of course, we often get ideas when we visit places like this. Steve saw this evergreen container garden and said this would be his garden project for next year.


Speaking of evergreens, I realy liked these in the Conifer section of the garden.


Not sure what this is, but it reminds me of some kind of thistle and we both thought it was very cool.



One last look at the fall foliage...

I guess I kind of hope that life follows the cycles of nature. If so, the autumn of life should be pretty great.

Puttering

I am a big fan of what I call "puttering around the house." The thing is, a day spent puttering can actually be alot of work. Fall and Spring are my favorite times to putter. The weather is conducive to wearing layers and going in and out of the basement and yard.

This weekend, Steve and I decided not to work on the pantry. So, I thought I'd take care of some odds and ends while Steve worked away at his day job.

So while doing a few loads of laundry, I gave my house plants a shower in the kitchen sink.


Then, I dead headed the mums in the front yard, shop vacuumed the back stairwell. Vacuumed and dusted the front stairs and entry. Swept the front porch and washed the windows.

Next I decided to repaint the two radiator covers that had gotten scuffed up and have been annoying me for a while. After that I mowed the law and fertilized the front and back lawns. Then I decided to launder the shower curtains in the bathroom.

I took the recycling out to the garage (We have to bring our recycling in to a center as the city's program STINKS).

Time to bring in the hoses, which I also did. And (with Steve's help) put away the air conditioners in the first floor and uninstalled the monster a/c in the tenants unit.



As we were carrying the big a/c down to the basement, I said to Steve, "What are we going to do when we get old?" Steve assured me we would have something figured out by then.

Then, I decided I should paint the trim around the outside of our pantry window. So, I deglossed it and quickly sanded it and painted it.

At about 3 o'clock I stopped and thought to myself, "wow, I'm turning into a whirling dervish here and I have plans tonight. I better ease up."

So, I saved the pumpkin carving for today. I don't know why I love being a busy bee like this. I think I'm very results oriented. I like doing things that have a tangible outcome and the house fulfills that quite nicely it seems.