Another North Dakota Sunrise Picture

We hope you have a fantastic day!  We had an incredible start to the morning here in Grand Forks, North Dakota.  May the sun rise and greet you with equal splendor wherever you may be.

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Snoozin' Pooches and Garden Chores

It's been another long break since our last post.  My stars have things been busy around here!  Busy for the humans at least, the pooches haven't participated in this sustained onslaught of busy times, they've been their usual sleepy, slacker selves.

One cause of our jam-packed schedules has been the beautiful weather we've had over the past few weeks.  Little to no rain and daytime high temperatures in the 50's and 60's have abounded.  Knowing that snow and cold are around the corner, we've seized upon this great weather and been busy in the gardens; raking leaves, clearing out garden beds, and preparing the homestead for winter. 

And today, Sunday November 6th we had our Annual Daylight Savings Celebration.  This is where we try to explain to Shaak Ti that is in fact only 4:00am, not 5:00am and it is NOT time to get up yet.  No amount of bargaining or explaining or rationalizing has ever seemed to work with Shaak Ti, and thus what should be a glorious day of an extra hour of sleep becomes another early dog walk in the darkness.  This has been an annual celebration in our household for almost a decade. 

Resting Up After a Tiring Weekend

We had a glorious weekend here at the homestead in North Dakota, so glorious that we're still recovering from it. We hosted visitors from Southern California, showed them the sights, enjoyed some local cuisine, and basked in the autumn splendor. 

The dogs were so exhausted from all the extra people and love and playtime, that they sacked out before our visitors had made it to the airport.  Friday and Saturday were particularly eventful as they had both sets of grandparents in the house, ready to shower them with love.  It was apparently exhausting, so exhausting that they snoozed noggin to noggin in their cozy beds.  

Even Tito was tired from all the shenanigans. Delivering all that anger and all those snarls to so many folks can wear down even the baddest dogs of the bunch. 

North Dakota Sunrise

Don't fret we're still here, we're just preoccupied. Pesky things like work and meetings get in the way of the quality dog and family time, and suddenly the garden gets neglected.  We've been methodically going through our end of summer harvesting and fall garden preparations.  An hour or two here and there in evening and weekends scrambling to catch up.

Luckily we get sunrises like this in the mornings.  It's a great motivation to enjoy the day and a first glimpse of fall colors splashed across the sky.  There's a blue jay outside somewhere now, I can hear his bossy shrieks through the open window, I'm gonna go see if I can spot him. 

Shaak Ti the Delicate Lady

Shaak Ti is indeed a delicate lady, genteel and proper in every respect.  She even sleeps with her paws delicately crossed. 

As you can see, it was a pretty rough weekend for the dogs of the homestead.  There was a lot of lounging in their dog beds or supervising from their pillowed perch in the upstairs window while us humans toiled in the garden.  

More Late Summer Garden Pictures

We're bearing down on the end of August, then Labor Day and possibly soon the end of summer. Here are some pictures from around the garden in the last week of August. 

This is the Blueberry area, just next to the Petunia Tower in the back yard.  The blueberries are surrounded by some assorted dianthus, sweet alyssum, and more petunias. 

This is the front edging of the garden area on the south side of the driveway.  The plants that aren't blooming are Indian Summer dianthus that I planted this Spring, I expect a great bloom showing next year.  There are also some trailing red verbeena, and the yellow flowers are Helenium autumnale - Sneezeweed. We only bought the sneezeweed because Alycia thought name was cool, but they've bloomed steadily and consistently all summer. I think we'll be adding more sneezeweed next year too.   

More verbeena, sneezeweed, dianthus, and even a lovely pink petunia. 

The Great Wall of Cherry Tomatoes.  These are planted in a raised bed along our garage and face south. Between the all day sunshine they receive and the heat that reflects off the metal siding, the tomatoes are really happy here.  Along the front edge of this raised bed are a few different varieties of marigolds (Inca Gold, Golden Gem and others). 

View of the Great Wall of Tomatoes from the other side of the raised bed.  You can barely make out the celery that we planted at the front corner of the box.  These got a bit overwhelmed, and probably were not my best decision to plant these here. 

Close up of the Golden Gem marigolds. These are one of my favorite marigolds and I either save the seeds every year, or let them go to seed in Fall and spread the seeds around the area where I want them to grow the next year.  Then I let the army of volunteers take over the next Spring, thinning them where it's needed. 

We Won - Free Stuff From Our Blogging Friends

Many thanks to Get Busy Gardening! for their awesome recent online giveaway.  If you haven't checked out their website or Facebook Account, I would highly recommend spending some time on their site.  They are our (almost) neighbors just down in the twin cities in Minnesota and have a huge repository of helpful gardening information.   

We entered online a few weeks ago and won: 

• a Cool Pour and Measure Quart Jar 
• 4-Pack of Old School Blue Pint Ball Canning Jars
• 4-Pack of Old School Blue Quart Ball Canning Jars.  

Thanks so Much to Amy at Get Busy Gardening!

Take Time to Enjoy the Sunbeams of Life

Shadowfax knows how to best manage a Monday morning: Find a good sunbeam and take a nap!

School has started again for both John and me, and we're cautiously optimistic about the upcoming year. Just 9 months to go until summer vacation...