The mornings are cold, it's wonderful.
School is going well so far. I am grateful that everyone is happy to be learning and it seems that all the teachers are going to be good.
Goose misses her siblings. We are learning how to play with Janey's old Loving Family dollhouse.
We're not sure when to harvest T-Bone's watermelons. How do you know when they're done? Guess I could google it.

I've read several books the past few weeks. The best, by far, was The Book Thief . I also thought Life as We Knew It and The Giver were very creditable and gave me a lot to think about. I checked out a compilation of Flannery O'Conner and Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure. I've glanced at those books, but I'm not sure I'm going to read them. It's always hard to slide back to literay novels when I've been dallying with Young Adult fiction. Flannery O'Connor's view of man somehow tires me. I'm sure she thinks she's authentic but I must like something more rosy. Maybe I should give Jude another try. I guess I don't embrace books were marriage is something to be escaped or be saved from.
Let's face it, I've never been open-minded. I couldn't even get through Gloria Steinem's lament that Palin is no Hillary. (Yeah Gloria, she got elected on her own merits and not because of her husband!) I have a hard time ingesting material that wants me to think differently than I do.

On a last agricultural note, I love Joy in the Garden for telling me a couple of weeks ago to plant spinach and peas. I took the seeds from my spring's crop of spinach and planted them and now I have a row of green and the promise of fresh spinach in a couple of weeks. I planted my old pack of peas which I neglected to plant in the spring and they're coming up too.

Okay, a final, final note: Next year, no petunias, just zinnias.