Good Tuesday morning. The pets are all fed, I’m on my second cup of coffee and time to write another blog. October being my favorite month I like to spend as much time as I can outdoors. We still haven’t had a killing frost yet and I’m amazed how beautiful the roses are, along with my “pot” flowers.

The current entertainment is the falling leaves. The cats and I enjoy watching them come down. It is quite a study, actually, as some spiral down, others fall like a brick and some take flight and often hit the screens where we do our watching. It is endless fascination for the kitties.

Yesterday the weather pulled me outside. I decided to scrap my indoor list and head for some needed cleanup in my flower bed. We watch our yard a lot from inside and the spikes of dead flowers are the things I seem to look at. I’ve had a miniature red barberry in my garden that pushed everything out and sat like a huge blob in the middle. I’ve left it for several years as the cats enjoy being under it and is a safe haven from an intruder or a good nap. This picture is of the bush in an earlier picture but grew to three times the size.

It must have been labeled wrong as it was the largest barberry I’ve ever seen. With leather gloves and body covered from head to toe I began the tedious job. I have poison ivy in the garden in places so I protect myself as best I can. I was pulling on a root of it and discovered it had a network of roots all over the garden. The more I pulled the more came up under the cover of flowers and leaves. After an hour I decided to take a rest and regroup.

I had water and sat on the deck while the cats checked out what I’d been doing……then back to cut on the barberry. It took a couple times of resting and cutting but finally the job is done. All it lacks now is to carry off the cuttings to the back woods. When I came in it was almost 1:00 o’clock. Time sure flies when you’re in a project.

Becky and I went to Harrison last Saturday and on the way I stopped at an apple farm and bought a half-bushel of Jonagold apples. I’d never heard of them before but they were beautiful and when I fried some yesterday afternoon they were as good as advertised. A wonderful apple flavor and no waste to the apples. I hope you have all had fried apples as they are delicious. With a healthy chunk of butter in a skillet, put the sliced apples in….a good amount of sugar and slow cook until tender and transparent. I put a lid on them to finish and I never peal the apples. The skin is tasty and full of vitamins. Eat them hot with biscuits……now that is Southern for sure.

Essentially Esther