Lesson number 1:  What not to do with an egg.  Never ever leave rotten eggs lying around.  Seems like a no brainer.  Did you ever play that little childhood game with your kid buddies, “what’s grosser than gross?”  Well, I’ve got one.  What’s grosser than a rotten egg?  How about a dead embryo egg, that you thought was cracked, left outside for the bugs to eat, but after a month it still hasn’t disintegrated.  SO you kick some dirt over it, and in the dirt is a rock, and when the rock hits it, the egg explodes with such force and sound that your child thinks you set off a fire cracker, and out spews this stuff that looks like hummus and smells like…. the grossest thing you’ve ever smelled all month??!  Yeah.  It’s that gross.  I win.

  Anyway… moving on… Lessons have taken a back seat lately as we try to pick over the garden and process what we can.  I think of it as “intensive home-ec”.  Really, it’s gatta be something like that.  I have at least a bushel of tomatoes that I hope won’t rot before Friday.  We sorted potatoes, picked our corn and processed what we could.  It really wasn’t a lot.  For what I planted, I should have had a wheel barrel over-flowing.  I need to do some research, but I think the pollination was poor.  Most of the ears are only half filled out.  Some are only 4 inches long.  Rare was the ear that was fully developed.  SO rare in fact that we were able to eat them all, in two sittings.  I’m a little disappointed.  But on the whole, this year has been a learning year.  I can only see us doing better.  I hope. 

  On a different note, I registered for a class at our local Junior College, to learn how to do digital photo manipulation.  We were to meet every Thursday evening from 6:30-9:15.  Unfortunetly, only approx. 3 signed up, so they canceled the course for the Fall semester.

  Dear son will be joining swim team this year.  Sign ups are on Saturday, practices start after the holiday.  They are 5 days a week, but for the littles, they don’t expect attendance to be every day.  But for what I have to fork out to join, he’s going to be there most of the time.  We are both excited.  He’s still in piano, too.  We’re planning a trip to the Field museum in Chicago.  He’s really excited about history all of a sudden, and seems to be retaining well.  He discussed with me all the things he wants to learn more about, and recalled quite a bit from our lessons covered this year so far.  I guess I must be doing something right.  He loves to listen to SOTW on cd.  He wants to bring the book along when we go.  In his own words “I don’t think they’ll like me walking around with my boom-box the whole time”.   *grins*  Now if only he was as passionate about learning his addition facts….

  I am looking forward to fall.  It’s my favorite season, believe it or not.  There’s just something cozy about it.  The air crisp, the leaves bright, the garden being tucked away for the rest of the year… Routines coming back.  There is just something nostalgic about fall.  It’s starting to feel a bit fall like outside.  Mornings here are cool and dewy.  Everything seems fresh and new, cleansed by the morning light.  Then by evening, everything is hot and tired again.  Go to sleep, repeat.  Currently we’ve had a dry spell.  Even the weeds are starting to droop.  But I can feel the season’s change coming.  It doesn’t feel like summer at all to me.  I know fall is still over a month away, but there is something relaxing with it’s nearing.  A certain sigh, comforting, like the warm blanket you snuggle into deeply in the early morning.  Windows open, breezes coming in, that crispness that makes you want to stay in bed.  ahhh….