I really didn’t have any set plans for the weekend. I thought about gardening, but it’s still too hot to start a fall garden so I blew that off. Since it was cool Saturday morning, I got in the mood to slap the outside Halloween decorations up. Little did I know what that would lead to.

But first, as always, I headed out to The Funny Farm to see what produce was hanging around.

The Twins

We had an inch of rain the other day (I know, a miracle from God) and boy did the magic eggplant bush perk up. I was surprised to see 12 eggplants growing. These guys aren’t near as big as at the beginning of the season, but they are just as beautiful and healthy.

Through this hot summer, I also manage to get about this amount of these every day.

Purple Hull Peas

I’m almost up to four quarts. What a lucky woman I will be on January 1st!

When I wandered around front, I began throwing out a couple of outside Halloween decorations. After all, Halloween is the holiest day of the year around here, as that’s my birthday.

 It started with just three pumpkins and a witch

And all of the sudden, I was on a roll. I decided, “What the heck! Let’s start celebrating the season around here, even though tomorrow it’s supposed to be 100 degrees. Sooner or later, it’s got to cool off.”

So I headed back to the garage and pulled out all the outside decorations. More about those tomorrow. I finished decorating out front (notice how dead the grass is from the drought) and headed back into the house. There, I found this.

Sammy, The Siamese Terrorist

He’s always into something and is almost as scary as The Bates Motel. Luckily, he sleeps some, too.

Being over a certain age, the next thing I decided to do was this, as it’s always hard to focus on just one task at a time.

I took down all the hummingbird feeders

In the Hill Country the hummingbirds come March 15 and leave around September 15. There are always a few hanger-oners, but they are supposed to head back to South America about this time. I took down all five feeders and waved goodbye to my buzzing friends.

So then I glanced over and saw my old/new couch. It’s a long story, but I gave up on it, took it to the dump, it got saved by the wonderful local upholsters, and after my providing some new material, it is back in my life and better than new.

Ta da!

Problem is Chuck matches the couch perfectly, so I have to be careful when I sit down. I love this Crate & Barrel couch and am so glad it’s back where it’s supposed to be – under my butt.

Anyway, because the couch is so beautiful, I decided to surround it with all my fall and Halloween decorations. I went out to the garage to get the boxes in via my Dad’s handy dandy dolly. I call her Hello Dolly. She helped me drag everything in.

I know, I know

How can anyone have 13 boxes (if you’re counting there’s only 12 there but one was already on the table ready to be unpacked) of Halloween Decorations? All I can tell you is this: it’s my favorite day of the year because it’s the day I was born and people give a person born on Halloween lots of Halloween decorations for their birthday. Hence, 13 boxes.

I brought them all in because I decided that I needed to go through every box and get rid of about half of everything, just because I’m trying to simplify my life. I also think that if I met the perfect man, he might run after he saw the amount of decorations in my life. Frankly, the Christmas decorations are worse.

Tomorrow I’ll give you a tour of the house decorated up. Maybe it will get you in the mood. In the mean time, look what I found when I was finished decorating.

The Siamese Terrorist plotting his next move

Spreading laughter throughout the world…one chuckle at a time.

Mikie Baker
www.mikiebaker.com