September Catchup

This weekend is the official start of autumn…Yay! I’ve been planning my autumn decorating and will be enjoying a pleasant few hours decorating for the season. My front door entrance is looking rather faded and washed out so it’s the perfect time for a refresh.

The girls and I have been gathering autumn decor supplies from the fields surrounding out home. We thought we had missed out change to gather a little bundle of wheat when we noticed the harvester out in the field…but he was just testing the harvest I guess because they soon packed it in and left it a week before bringing it all in.

DD1 started uni this week and she is loving it! She is loving meeting new friends and being back in an arty environment. Her bubble and spark has returned, it is wonderful to see her so inspired again. It just goes to show how important it is for our children to choose to work at something they love. It’s like a duck to water.

DD2 starts uni this Monday – she’s quite a little networker and has already been making friends with people on her course via the universities FB page. She is feeling more relaxed about starting on Monday.

I can’t quite believe that we have reached that time already. It seems like just yesterday that we started homeschooling. It is wonderful to see them both happy and doing what they want to be doing and I’m really pleased that they are both living at home for their first year at university – I don’t think I’m quite ready to have an empty nest just yet!

The countryside is a busy place at the moment. Fields are being harvested, the wheat fields surrounding our house were harvested yesterday and the farmers have been stacking bales of hay into the barn next door to our sweet cows late into the evening. They really do work very hard, it seems relentless at this time of year.

I really do enjoy the rhythm of the countryside year, it helps me to slow down and appreciate the moment rather that just rushing from one thing to the next.

Look at what my neglect is producing! My yellow courgettes are now reaching the end of their season. This one plant has kept us in excellent supply over the last month. My pumpkins are coming along nicely. I have about 3 or 4 that should make it to maturity – I can’t believe how quickly they are growing. They seemed to take ages to get going.

My Sunflowers are doing well, I planted the seeds so late this season that I was beginning to wonder if we would get any flowers. I really will be more organised next year! I say that so often!

Finally…my aunt keeps solitary Mason bees. She has done so for years and seeing her bee nests in her garden really has inspired me to try my hand at keeping them too. I would love to learn the gentle art of bee-keeping but I have neither the time nor the right garden (yet) to keep them in the manner they should be kept. Mason bees, or any solitary bee, is much easier and less time consuming so I have decided to give this a go. My lovely aunt is going to send me some little bee larvae when she empties her bee tubes. How exciting!

Anyhoo, that’s about it for today. I hope to be back next week with an autumn decor post. Such a lovely time of year isn’t it?

Have a lovely weekend all…