Goodbye Summer!

We finished off summer the right way around here.

We took one more sunset trip to the beach.
We went to Taste of Cleveland and made pigs of ourselves.





We saw Weird Al rock the house.


That was the real end of summer because the next morning was cold and rainy, which can only mean that it was a Cross Country meet morning.

The Girl ran...and then The Boy.
They both ran amazing times despite staying up too late and eating a bunch of junk the night before.

Today we are having quite a wind storm out there. Dust clouds are being kicked up in the streets, doors are slamming and trees are being shook so they drop all that they have.

Like these.

I went outside to take some pictures of my poor sunflowers that have been knocked to the ground.

Isn't that just sad.

While I was out there the wind kept blowing and blowing and then the chestnuts started falling. I saw all of these guys hit the ground. That's as fresh as they get.
They are pretty when they first fall, cold and shiny, but they get ugly fast. They'll keep falling now for about a month. They'll disturb your sleep when they hit the roof, dent your car if you park in the wrong place and trip you up wherever you try to walk. If you are coming to visit, consider yourself warned.

Tomorrow the kiddos go back to school in their brand new building. If you have to go back, that's a cool way to go.

Sunflower Time

They took their time growing. They took their time blooming. It was worth the wait.
Ahoy there! There be other giants about as well, me hardees!
Shiver me timbers!

Blooming Sunflowers

It started happening last week. First just one. Then next morning there were three more. And now there are oodles and there are still more to come.

Here's the view from my living room window.

And standing outside beneath them. That my bedroom window above them. The view of them from up there is a sight I didn't anticipate, but very much appreciate!

As much as I love the big ones, these little ones that peek up through the center of the tangle are like finding hidden treasure.

And this tiny one came out purple! Neat!

Picture Worthy

Check out this nonsense.

Five disposal cameras. Where in the world did all of these come from? What, oh what, could be on them? I have no idea. Yesterday I found two together in a basket. I recalled that there was one in my desk drawer and one in the glove compartment of the van. When I got the four together, the Girl brought down the fifth one from her room. And here's the really weird part, they all had exactly one picture left on them!

Armed with these cameras we all went walking through Cascade Park and took five pictures of the kids climbing rocks in various dangerous ways. After I get these cameras developed I'll let you in on what we find. I know one went to camp with the girl and one went to camp with the boy, but the other three are mysteries. Stay tuned.

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I know what you're thinking. You want to know how my sunflowers are doing. Go ahead and click to see what they looked like a month ago. Here's what they look like today.

And the view from my kitchen window. Yay!

Yes, they are very, very tall. Even compared to my overly tall kids.

But we are seriously lacking flowers. Most of the plants have what will be a flower on the top, but none except a few shorter ones in the center have opened.

These giant leaves already make me so happy. I can't wait for the flowers!

The first sunflower

My Mother's Day gift this year was for the ugliest part of my yard to be dug up, turned over and then planted with dozens and dozens of sunflower seeds. Previously that patch of Earth contained a very nasty thorn bush, a scraggly holly bush and an assortment of weeds that we mowed down now and then but flourished in the sunny space. Today it looks like this.

The other side of that window is the kitchen sink and very soon my view will be sunflowers and not the neighbor's porch. And yes, there are too many and they are too close together and I don't care.

Here's the first flower, right on the verge of blooming. This is from one of the mid sized flowers that the package claimed would bloom in a variety of colors.

My planting technique on these seeds was the key to their success. I opened the packages over the newly turned dirt and then walked all over them. I'm fussy like that.