I don't know about you, but it seems to me that the weather has gone crazy. It started just about the time we moved here and hasn't really stopped.

We had tornado watches (not warnings) for most of the night recently (you probably did too…) and the high winds and damaging rain actually wiped out my largest sunflower.

It wasn't coping well under the weight of its own flower and it was actually leaning on the sunflower next to it for support. The wind was more than it could bear and it fell over – right on to my eggplant bush. Bummer. Did some pretty cool damage to the eggplant, but that's bounced back.

I think the remaining sunflower misses its companion. It looks pretty sad.

The other plants in the garden are winding down. We still don't have any ripe tomatoes – although the greens ones are massive! We can't wait to have a tomato sandwich from our garden.

We have had bobaganoush (eggplant based hummus) – that was tasty. We're also getting pumpkins on our vines that have turned orange! (A little early, but they're very pretty!)

In other news.

The John Deere is still MIA. The repair shop hasn't called with a diagnosis or estimate yet. Bill (and his son Jason) say that it will likely be expensive simply because it's a John Deere. Bummer.

Bill did offer to cut our grass again – I tried to tell him which parts were more important and he said he didn't like to be told how to mow… oops. Gift horse. Mouth. My bad.

We've started repointing the bricks on the house. We started outside my window and based on the 3000 square feet of brick and how long it took us to do the 30 sqft outside my window I put early estimates on the effort at about 18 months of repointing (if we only do four or five hours per week).

Turns out my estimate was a little high (sort of like the ditch estimate oh so many years ago – turns out that was a little off too). The brick outside my office was so bad that there were spots with no mortar at all. We even had to take some bricks out, 'butter' them and then put them back in. Really, really not good.

Last night we wandered around the house and noticed that only about 10% of the house needs to be repointed right away. Someone did a really nice job of it about 30 years ago and someone did a really bad job of it after that.

It's amazing what a difference a little skill and a little knowledge will do for you.

Makes you kind of wish that you could go back in time and stop whoever used the concrete mix as mortar. Or at least make him wipe the bricks off when he was done.

We heard that one of our only neighbours – Cathy – is planning on selling her house. Bummer – she just finished her kitchen makeover too…

We've switched insurance companies completely now – the paperwork is all done and we're now insured for way more coverage for only a little more premium.

Wow, we've come a long, long way in just a year. We're looking forward to another beautiful fall and really hope to see you guys here soon!

Whew.

A little sleep and a little planning and a little execution (the plan not a person) really helps with the stress level.

It'll take a couple of months to get out of the cash flow problem that I've created for us – but as long as nothing major breaks we should be able to come through this without any more meltdowns.

Did I mention that I have great neighbors? One of them noticed that my lawn mower was broken and mowed my side lawn for me! Thank you so much, Bill!

I also found my Reel Mower (the push kind) in the wood shed while we were cleaning it up to put more cordwood in. Since my John Deere was broken I took the Reel Mower for a spin. It worked great I did a quarter acre in 15 minutes and I felt like the King of My Castle again.

I'd never want to have to do all six acres with the push mower, but I guess if I had to… well… I think I'd pay Bill a visit!

Whohoo!

I actually asked the question this week.

Did I do the right thing?

Should I try and go back?

What if I'm not strong enough to create my dream here in reality?

A few things conspired against me this week. I was a little run down physically and then we had a couple of pieces of bad news. Then we had an unexpected bill come in the mail and the insurance company said they needed to have a "risk inspector" come here and point out all of the flaws in my house (and see our snow removal contact and inspect the nonexistent sidewalk from our 'parking lot' to our front door. That would have caused a 'review' of our insurance policy).

Then my lawnmower broke.

My John Deere. Broken.

It was more than one person could bear.

By the end of the week we had changed insurance companies, had our mower sent in for service, freed up some investments and made sure that I had gotten enough sleep.

Whew.

That was a scary week.

But with a little rest, a solid plan, a lot of encouragement (thank you, Sherry!) everything seems a lot brighter now.

Whew.