While most of our days have been nice and warm and sunny, the night are downright frosty. I’m fighting the urge to turn the furnace on (I try to hold out to November each year). There’s even been the soft glisten of frost on the yard in the morning.

But it hasn’t been hard enough to knock the gardens down yet.

The Dahlias are just stunning. Which I love… but… I also need to get them dug up!!! That’s hard to do when they are still blooming.

I need to work on getting them to bloom a little earlier so I can enjoy them longer. The ones I bought from the garden centres did that just fine – but the ones I started myself didn’t start blooming until late September.

The Zinnias have been an absolute blessing for the pollinators that are still coming out when the sun is shining.

Same with the Cosmos

I absolutely adore these double bloom cosmos and so do the Honey Bees.

But we don’t discriminate and welcome all Cosmos to our gardens!

The marigolds are also doing their part in the late-season pollinator buffet

Most of the marigolds are in the vegs beds, but I also have clumps of the Strawberry Blonde Marigolds (right) throughout the beds in front. And they are officially my favourite marigolds! I started them from seed – and planned to save some seed from these to plant again. But I’ve since learned, they probably won’t come true from see if I do that… so I will have to buy new seed in the spring. But I think it’s worth it!

I’ve wrapped most of the roses in burlap (something new I’m trying this year) But Bolero (left and middle) and Good as Gold are still blooming, so I’ll wrap them in another week or two. It would be a shame to cover up all that beauty.

The Bicolour Monkshood is always one of the last flowers to bloom – but it’s well worth the weight. Juat look at those masses of flowers. This is the best year for it yet. I tried to start some solid purple Monkshood, but it didn’t make it. But seeing this makes me really want to try again.

And last, I leave you with a little spicy discovery I made while putting up the giant skelly. Tucked among the fading autumn foliage, I discovered a beautiful Saffron Crocus (Crocus sativus)… except I never planted any! My best guess? A sneaky little saffron bulb must have hitched a ride in a bag of giant crocus bulbs I planted last year.

Unlike giant crocuses, which bloom in spring, Saffron crocuses bloom in autumn and produce something rather extraordinary: the world’s most expensive spice! Those brilliant red threads you see extending from the centre of the flower are the stigmas, and they’re the part harvested to make saffron. Each flower produces just three, which must be carefully picked and dried by hand. It takes roughly 150–200 flowers to produce a single gram of dried saffron!

So.. I’m not sitting on a Saffron Fortune.. but it’s a wonderful little discovery none-the-less!

Furby…. always keeping an eye on the neighbours…

I forgot to share one very important part of our Halloween set up!

Gertie finally has a costume (and a repainted beak! I did that at the start of my vacation.) Back in the summer – I ordered her a pile of outfits for every season, but hadn’t tried any of them out because of the beak situation. But now that the beak was looking fab,it was time to dress her up!

The hat did come with a cape – but Gertie isn’t your typical porch goose, which are more upright (and a touch bigger), so the cape didn’t quite fit right.

But you know who it did fit?

Susannah! And doesn’t she just look so beautifully majestic?

In addition to getting the Garden of Bones up, another goal of my vacation was to get a quilt top done…

The one featuring leopard print, which I showed you a little while back. It’s going to the sister of the young man I’m making the muscle car quilt for. With that in mind, I decided to do a similar (but not same) layout. This diagonal with the solid black squares really let those crazy print shine.

Because it was a simple layout, it didn’t take too long to get it together…

A long afternoon, and a bit into the evening, and it was done!

I had just enough of the hot pink leopard print left for binding… and some brown, black and light pink leopard print flannel for the back.

I have a date set with Mom at the start of November to get these quilted… and of course, meet this little nugget…

Mom has officially named him Oliver. I can’t wait to make his acquaintance!

With a little side-eye from Lemmy…

I stitched away on the Bee block.

And I managed to finish it! And it’s a very pretty little bee, if I do say so myself.

Shift Change late Sunday night saw us get a small start on the next block – a very pretty little bird. We didn’t get too far before bedtime, but we’ll make more progress this weekend!

The yard isn’t the only thing that gets spookified!

We love Hallowe’en, so the livingroom gets done up too.

Our vintage radio console under the TV is always decorated for the seasons.

And then there’s my small glass/ceramic pumpkin collection. These guys stay out all fall – until it’s time to put up the Christmas stuff.

Over on the hutch…

I thrifted this little light up tree earlier in the summer. It’s not a Halloween tree per say, but I knew it would work well for that. These cute little ornaments from Michaels really brought it to life

And underneath the tree, my two favourite additions.

These two gorgeous ladies that I thrifted early in the year for a steal. The pictures do not do them justice – they are stunning and the little details are amazing!

This is Halloween! EVERYBODY MAKE A SCENE!

One of the main goals of my vacation was to get the Garden of Bones together again for the season. And of course, this year had some big additions.

Mainly… Mr. 12-ft-Skeleton. He took Dave and I about 2 hours to get up. But now that we understand how he goes together, I’m sure subsequent seasons will see erection for much faster. It’s definitely a two person job, and at least one of those people needs a little muscle…. but it’s not super complicated.

Once he was up, the cemetary emerged

And you can see our other new acquisition, Gary the Gargoyle, overlooking the yard.

And Doug has been brought in front of the Burning Bush since it’s too tall to put him behind now.

And after that, the skeletons just started sprouting from EVERYWHERE!!!!!

It’s really quite the scene.

And it’s extra spooky at night!

Now we count down the days! 13 more to go!

Here we are again. It’s mine and Dave’s 24th anniversary. I can’t help but feel incredibly grateful to have someone by my side who is not only my partner in life, but also my biggest fan.

Someone who supports my crazy ideas (and there have been plenty… I’m looking at you, 12ft skeleton – more on that tomorrow!), encourages my dreams, and believes in me even when I don’t quite believe in myself. Someone who cheers me on, puts up with my endless projects (mostly garden related), and never makes me feel like my ambitions are too big or my ideas too ridiculous.

Life isn’t always perfect, but having someone in your corner who genuinely wants to see you happy, growing, and chasing whatever makes your heart sing is a pretty wonderful thing. I am a very lucky lady.

Here’s to us, and to all the crazy ideas still to come.

If you’ve been on the Bearbottom page, you know..

There’s a new little member in the family. On Sunday, Mom texted me that picture. Since her Tibbi passed, she’s been waiting for the right time to add a new family member.

And I guess Sunday was the day.

He’s quite tiny, probably around 5 weeks old.

Naturally, Princess Winnifred is a little put out.

But everyone else is in love with him!

I will get to officially meet him in a few weeks when I got to do my Christmas quilting!

I had a little treat arrive in the mail….

As you know, I haven’t been buying yarn (except thrifted… which is rare) because I have a closet full that I will probably not be able to knit up before I die…

But… a facebook ad caught my eye.

It was for Mary Maxim… Fruit Stripes…

And for some reason… I just had to have it!

Naturally… some others had to come along so I could get free shipping. The right is all solid Kroy singles – which I got for heels and toes for all that thrifted Kroy I’ve gathered.

But the left side is all different stripey sock yarn for socks just for me!!! Including some sparkly Festive yarn to make myself a pair of Christmas socks!

But first, I have to finish this pair for my mother-in-law.

First one is done – I just have to cast on the second. Thankfully, they are DK and my MIL has even smaller feet that I do!