Summer summary

There's not much to eat in my yard right now.

Papayas and eggs do not a balanced diet make.

The summer veggies are long gone and even though I'm looking forward to a fabulous G&T season as my lemons are about to ripen, it's slim pickin's.

I picked a handful of habaneros at a friend's house and cobbled together a curry.  Hopefully, I'll have my own peppers next year.

And hopefully I'll have my own pigeon peas next year.

The great gandule experiment has had mixed results.  This plant is known for its ability to thrive in difficult environments and compared to India and Africa, how difficult can central Florida be? 

 I planted all my gandules at the same time and I now have 3 types of plants:

Dead

Stunted

Thriving

Our extremely wet summer caused an explosion of scale all over my yard and the gandules took it especially hard.  Still, that's a wide range of results.  I'll keep trying. 

A quick review of home-freezing my garden veggies.

Kale: hated it.

Papaya: s'okay.

Cherry tomatoes: Success!

These tiny heirloom cherry tomatoes have to be eaten immediately after picking as their thin skins don't hold up well, but that trait makes them fabulous to use right out of the freezer.  

The skin melts away and the flavor is rich.  They self-seed prolifically all over my yard and everyone nibbles on them from the humans, to the dachshunds, to the chickens.

Those goofy chickens.

One of my tweens, Pterry, wandered in to see how the other half lives.  Normally, the birds stop at the threshold, as if there were a chicken forcefield in place.  It was the clicking of her toenails, so different from the dachshunds, which alerted me to a new visitor.

And No, she didn't poop on the floor.

Gratuitous cute dog photo:

Gratuitous cute nephew photo:

Not so gratuitous but still cute knitting photo:

Baby mittens!  I think these were knitted on toothpicks!

This skilled knitter gifted me with a selection of fun yarns,

so Christmas presents will be fuzzy and bright this year.

I continue to build up my jewelry inventory

My Etsy store, SolOpsArt (https://www.etsy.com/shop/SolOpsArt) has gratified me with a steady trickle of sales and is a wonderful outlet for my creativity. 

I have started dropping in again at local thrift stores and was rewarded

 with this fantastic string of dyed bone beads for $2!

These will not be featured on a vegan necklace ALTHOUGH 

I do offer vegan alternatives in my jewelry.

I'm not sure what the decision is on fossils but I've decided to use the KISS method

 and do not include them in vegan designs.

Art and inspiration surround me

and I'll take it where I find it

or buy it:

A mere $25 and this lady will be mine.

I feel like I can wake up on those mornings when I was too tired to mess with the makeup remover the night before, and she will understand.