Saturday Slight

Yesterday was pumpkin-picking day at the Lovestead.  This is the second cart load picked from the manure-pile garden. 

While most garden varieties were fairly mediocre this year, my pumpkins thrived.  I planted two seeds in the top of the manure pile----each, a different species. 

Once the two plants were fenced off and covered with netting to protect them from overnight pilferers, they grew and grew and little pumpkins started appearing all over. 

I believe the harvest amounted to about 25 pumpkins of different sizes and colors. One variety turns yellow right away, while the other needs a few cold nights for color transformation. 

They make nice decorations in the front yard, and that is good because one week from today, the cousins arrive.  We could still have flowers blooming because no freezes are predicted, but it's nice to have the pumpkins added to the fall scene. 

Once we hit Halloween, I'll probably give several away and scrape the innards from at least a couple for our freezer.

After last year's dismal attempt where the deer just plain ate all the vines and the pumpkins, I'm pretty pleased. 

The entire focus for the next few days includes house cleaning, yard work and even some animal primping. 

One of the cousins, Patti, who's coming from Seattle, is a big Kiwi fan.  So, Kiwi gets to go to the beauty parlor so she'll look and smell pretty for Patti's visit. 

In other news, Laurie finished 12th in her dressage class yesterday.  It was a much bigger class than Wednesday's junior horse class, and she's pleased, especially because of Pache's comparatively young age for a dressage horse. 

She'll have one more class tomorrow and then head home Monday. 

Annie has been having fun over in Germany wearing her flipflops and taking in some rather spectacular sights in the Alps near where the Sound of Music was filmed.  Today, I think she was actually working for the entire day at the geocaching event. 

Annie will be back in Seattle Tuesday and then in Sandpoint for next weekend's cousin-related activities. 

Guess that's all for this Saturday----lots of sports events to watch and outside "to do's" ahead. 

Happy Saturday.