In early August I began clipping, tying, and hanging some of my garden herbs.  When TS Lee visited us for a few days dropping our temperatures to raw wet 50's, it gave me a chance to crush and package the herbs for winter use and make another  batch of tomato sauce for the freezer.  The last of the green tomatoes are picked and ripening in the kitchen.  The fall heritage tomatoes I set in August are in pretty sad shape with spotted wilting leaves so they probably won't survive.  The spinach and couple of lettuce varieties seem to be thriving right now under the row covers.  Found the sheers at a local thrift shop and used fence for the frame.  In theory, this is suppose to keep the insects from chomping the leaves.  So far the rabbits haven't gnawed through the sheers.

 Because of the sun's lower position in the sky, the tall trees are preventing the needed 6-8 hours for growing.  I may still set onions.  Deer and rabbits find them pungent.  The four new cauliflower are already missing leaves.  Not sure if it's animals or insects feasting on the tender leaves.

Gourds are still taking over the acreage.  They grew without any help from me and crept up fences, wound around tree trunks, and wildly meandered into the woods.  Their fancy blossoms and soft flannel-like leaves make them a beautiful plant.  This is my new challenge this fall and winter.  I've never played with gourds but with such a plethora of information online,  I can hardly wait to cure, dry, and try my hand at gourd art.  Mark gave me a Dremel years ago and so I'll be using that as I experiment.

 Sanding is a boring tedious job.  Cliff's been removing the old stain from the steps and front porch.  The old stain never stood up and peeled soon after it was applied.  So he's been picking at this for weeks with the electric sander but manually in hard to get spots.  Yesterday the air was dry enough to apply the new stain which has a rich brown look and we're really pleased with the results.