I am resolved to stop with beginning blog posts with “It’s been a busy couple of weeks…” Considering we have three kids, multiple house projects, two full time jobs, and holidays and visitors moving through the calendar and house that is obviously a “no shit, it’ll be like that till ya die” statement. So like, here is a recap of some of the recent goings-on.

First up in recaps-villa: the Garden!

Oh thank goodness it’s looking better! The temps have cooled a bit, the dead plants have been pulled out, some mulching has been done, and everything is looking much improved. The gourd vines are gone, with nary a gourd being produced, but the butternut squash is still going strong and even putting out new flowers- there may even be more squash in the future, depending on how long frost holds off.

We’ve harvested three butternut squash off this one plant so far. First one looked like this:

We ate most of the first one cubed and roasted and then the remainder of it in a tortilla soup. But with absolutely no difference visible in the plant or change to the watering and fertilizer schedule, the next two that were harvested looked like this:

But…

I gave one of the tiny squashes to my parents and the other to my aunt and uncle. Perfect size for cutting in half, roasting, and using as a two person meal side dish. If I could just get all of them that size I might like it, honestly- for the sheer novelty.

There have been a derth of flowers and therefore butterflies in the late summer garden- but we finally have some things starting to bloom again and therefore the return of these  beauties:

The pot with the marigolds also has cuttings from the huge and really decorative basil we saw growing at the hotel in Castroville on my birthday weekend. I rooted it in water and it transitioned to being planted in soil incredibly easily. I’ll be trying to keep that one alive through the winter so I can take more cuttings in the spring and have more of them.

In updates on the cats:

The 2 longer haired cats are getting their winter coats, which is good because Lacey, the middle daughter’s brown tabby, looks so incredibly moth eaten in the summer.

And Alabama, the adopted stray, is enjoying himself in the cooler weather as well:

In other news:

With the onset of truly fall weather I was able to get back on the water and do some fishing recently (husband’s gone a couple of times with the older girls in the last few weeks, but was the first time for me), and it was the first time for me taking our new (to us) canoe on a longer paddle.

In other, other news:

It’s October and that means the ramp up to Dia de los Muertos has begun! The girls and I got the ofrenda up last weekend.

I reposted the blog post from last year on putting an ofrenda together last week, found here, but below are some pictures of the one we put together this year:

Happy October to all!

(The blog post title is a riff on the Roger Zelazny book title: A Night in the Lonesome October. It’s a favorite.)