Cabbage Patch Kids

Last Monday, I went shopping in the the garden for "a salad". About all that is left growing out there are some frost-bitten tomato plants still ripening a little fruit, some potatoes (which need to be dug), and our Spring cabbages. These are the cute little guys I found, each no bigger than a softball, but just as tasty as the bigger members of the family.

How we got these?? When we harvested the bigger cabbages in June, we cut the head off just below the last row leaves curled around the bottom of the head, leaving the stub of the stem still in the ground and little buds exposed in the axels of the remaining leaves.

These "Babies" came from those buds and extended our cabbage crop to fall. Each one is just right for a bowl of cole slaw serving 3-4 people. Great blessing, I say!

The trees are changing their clothes this fall afternoon. Falling leaves create a serene feeling.

Trojan Horses and the Colonel

Computer images are things of the ether waves. Put your heart and soul in there and it can all be gone in the snap of a finger . . . or maybe even faster!

Wayne was doing his family history the other day. Then he received notification that the computer's security system had detected a "Trojan horse" which had found a nice warm home with "the Colonel". We aren't into house pets so that horse just had to go.

Best way was to take our poor little infected machine to the computer doc for a check.

Results: Complete new program guts in the computer. Some of the documents were saved . . . (a bunch of un-useful stuff that we should have deleted long ago).

Alphabetically, our document list now goes down through the D's, which does not include Wayne's PAF file with over 4,000 names, or my Elsinore Ward History 2008 that I have been compiling since January. We are hoping that some great, good miracle will find these two little items for us. If not, we start again and restore as best we can.

The patient recouperates with quiet bed rest at home before resuming regular chores on Monday next.

I was right. That doggone arbitrary colonel can leave his horse outside next time !!

Fall in Sevier Valley

"When are we going to Maple Grove? I wanta see the leaves." Wayne's brother Jim has been wanting to go for a couple of years now and wouldn't go by himself. We decided to take Grandma and have a picnic supper for FHE a couple of weeks ago. Potatoes mined from the garden made a trip to the kitchen, and I made potatoes au graten which would taste good and hold the heat while we made the half hour drive. Luzell (Grandma) is never sure if she is hungry at mealtime any more, but there are two things she will ALWAYS eat: chocolate and potatoes! There didn't seem to be quite enough of it that day. The food tasted so good, eating outside in that wonderful fall air perfumed with the color-changing leaves. Ever noticed that fall tang in the air that tells you the leaves are coming down? It is just Fall!

Our garden has been about 3 weeks late this year, due to a coolish, wonderful gentle Spring. I wondered if the raspberries would ever produce. We were getting teeny little pickings, then all of a sudden the warmth of fall enveloped the the raspberry plants and they started to pop nice big, fat red berries out, a gallon bucket at a time -- plenty for cereal in the mornings and making jam for winter time.

Then the apple and pear trees generously produced several bushels of fruit a piece. About 30 years ago, Mom sent me money for Mother's Day, and when I bought a fruit tree, she said, "Would you like some more trees?" The trees that lived are a Jonathan apple, a yellow delicious apple and a Bartlett pear, and they have been gorgeous this year. I wish I had taken pictures!

The garden is gone now. We had 19 and 20-degree nights, a couple in a row, about a week ago. There are a few things left, but the more tender plants didn't survive even covered with a tarp. We are still looking for people to adopt the apples we can't use ourselves. I can heave a sigh of relief because I know the end is now in sight! I love the fall work, preserving the harvest. I love to be outside. That fall warmth makes me feel like an old cat, wanting to find a sunny spot where I can soak up the sun before wintertime comes.