Autumn Harvest

And here we have a basketful of butternut squashes There are eight in the basket and probably as many (if not more) in among the vines that weren't caught up in the great powdery mildew debacle. These come from plants which have already died back having lost the battle against the mildew and  as a result not all are as ripe as I'd have liked for storage. Still even those are certainly edible now.

It's odd that some plants were badly affected - mostly those in the back corner of the garden - while others simply shrugged it off and some responded well to the milk spray while those next to them didn't. We've had an unusually cool and humid summer - only a few hot spells when the temperature reached the high 30s instead of weeks of it. The climate has definitely changed over the past fifteen years and gardening is changing with it. If I want to keep my vegetable garden going I'll have to rethink my summer plantings for next year, I guess, and I'll have to find new ways and new places for plants susceptible to mildew. Where I've grown them successfully for so many years no longer seems suitable.

Still Waiting for the Fun to Start

In the meantime a few random things.

1. Waiting for Pisces outside a doctor's office yesterday. A couple with a baby in a pram arrives. Mum goes off to do something and Dad sits down to wait for her. Baby, who looks about 10 or 11 months old, is busy checking out the space. Then his eyes fix on me and a slight smile begins. Since a small person around that age is very much apart of our lives I do what I do with her and wave at him. By now Dad is watching and enjoying the interaction. Baby stares at me obviously unsure but fascinated. I wave again and now Baby is totally fixed on me but he isn't going to actually respond. No, he's trying to play it cool but he can't help the smile flickering and spoiling the solemnity. Dad is laughing by now and when Mum comes back we have a quick chat until Pisces arrives. The whole time Baby's gaze is fixed on me and when I stand up and go to the lift he watches me until the doors close.

2. Having a tooth extracted is better than I expected. This is because dentists are really good on pain relief these days and because our health insurance covered the whole cost. I have to wait for three months for everything to heal up, though, before they can look at giving me an implant to replace the missing tooth - and I'm still amazed that a tooth which was root canalled and crowned years ago could develop an infection after such a long time.

3. I decided not to do the A-Z Blog Challenge this year. I'm too disorganised due to all the health issues Pisces and I have both been having. Feels a bit odd though not to be spending April in search of interesting alphabet blogging subjects.

4. I have signed up for the Australian Women Writers Challenge again. Everything crossed that I actually get to post some reviews this year. I should because I've already read more this year than I have in a long time. Being sick does that to me, I find. As soon as I'm beginning to recover I start reading.