Yup, I am alive....

I am still here....really, I promise.

The thing is, I got distracted. Fall is definitely here, with the colder temps and gorgeous flaming trees. The rain finally came, and everything is wet and chilly. All I want to do is lay in bed and watch the world go by. So I have been.

We have a chipmunk living in our woodpile. Oh, I am sure it is more than one chipmunk, but I only see one at a time, so that is all I am claiming. And the squirrels have made no move to renew their residence in our attic. Thank goodness. There is just something not right about sharing quarters with rodents. They are loud neighbors, anyway.

Once again, Fall has come and I am looking back over the last growing season and finding myself lacking. I did better this year at taking care of the produce from my little veggie patch, but I still did not live up to my (or the garden's) potential. I would like to blame my evil work schedule, but the truth is that there are 24 usable hours in every single day, and I didn't make the best use of those hours I had. *sigh*

So again I am promising myself that next year will be different. That NEXT year will be the year of cupboards full of home grown/home canned goodness. Next year will be the year that the heat and humidity have no effect on me. Next year will be the year that I somehow manage to get all the produce taken care of the day it comes into the house. Next year will be the year that I am out foraging for berries BEFORE the birds and other folks get them. *sigh* It's always going to happen 'next year'.

When folks tell me that I am a pessimist, I tell them no. I am a gardener. Gardeners are perpetual optimists, we just talk like pessimists. There is always too much rain, or too much sun, or too much wind....something. Yet we always find it within ourselves to plant every spring and hope against hope that everything will grow well despite the mistakes we will make and the hardships Mother Nature throws at our little gardens. So I am an optimist. Kinda.

Anyway, that's what I think.