PUMPKINS? ...

Happy Monday Friends & Folk ~

...hoping you are all enjoying the cooler, drier temps where you are?

Virginia has had some pretty weather since I've been home, 

~ and boy am I thankful for that!

Yesterday I decided to take a short walk to our pumpkin patch.

{a.k.a. the compost hill out beyond the barn}

every year something volunteers and grows here, usually beautifully.

most years we have squash, watermelon, gourds & pumpkins, but this year only pumpkins grew.

and not too many of them either, sadly….

while taking a closer look,

 I think I found the answer to why we didn't have a bumper-crop like years past….

~ those tiny little white specks that you see on the pumpkin below are squash-bugs.

{they look like grey warts on the lower right}

so I decided that I needed to save them 

from having the life sucked out of them from those pesky critters, 

~ and I harvested some…

very early yes, but at least they won't rot in the patch and we can enjoy them a bit.

a small wheelbarrow-full of beautiful orbs!

some haven't even turned completely orange yet, but I love them still ~

I'll place these around the farmhouse porch & the shop porch too….

I went back to the patch to see if I could find any others that 'needed' me,

and found the carcass of this one below…

seems as though the squirrels like my pumpkins too!

not only do the squirrels love pumpkins, they love nuts.

and we have over 100 black walnut trees for them to choose from.

~ here I am standing in a spot where it looks to me like they had a picnic!

pumpkins & black walnuts…

yum!

the empty nut-shells look like tiny owl faces to me….

Hmmmm….wheels are turning.

on my way back to the farmhouse I visited one of our butterfly bushes ~

wow, lots of activity there!

swallowtails, red admirals, white sulphurs…

silver-spotteds and the occasional hummingbird moth!

I haven't seen but two monarchs this year though….

they are becoming more & more scarce.

we are directly in the path of their migration route, 

and usually see them flying over head or stopping in for a quick drink.

please please grow milkweed for them in your garden if you can ~ 

they only lay their eggs on the milkweed plant and the larvae then eat the leaves. 

...the only leaves in their young diet before turning from caterpillar to butterfly.

here is a snap of our little bunny ~

 Peter named him Buckwheat ~ not sure why though. lol.

remember that Roxy our lab brought the bunny to us and I bottle-fed him?

yup, this is him…I swear he is a dwarf cottontail. he is still SO small!

But he is healthy, happy & loves us ~ he eats fresh veg's, alfalfa, nuts & clover…

...along with pellets.

I will be working on orders today…

beginning with shipping the July/Aug/Sept kits for the Little Stitches Handwork Club ~

Distributors po's and Etsy orders.

it should take me only a couple of days to get caught up, then once I am ~

I will release our new Hallowe'en/Harvest 2015 designs ! YAY!

I am trying to finish up another little painted Hallowe'en-themed wooden sliding box for Ebay tonight 

...if plans go accordingly too ~

My sweet Hubby

 has been putting in a lot of overtime helping me here since I got sick…

taking care of me & making sure I don't over-do-it 

{which I have a tendency to do}

and with his help everything is falling back into place where it should be!

~ Love You Peter John to the Moon & Back ~

~ Blessings from the Farm ~

 Lori