October in my backyard

Between our few "cold" spells, we get summer temperatures, so...

                                                    Summer flowers keep blooming.

Flowering shrubs don't know when to quit.

Our lemons and oranges will be ripening soon and showing their true fall colors of yellow and orange.

In the meantime, my fall garden is struggling not to wilt during the hot weather this week ("cold" front coming the end of this week). I've solved the problem of our pesky resident squirrel digging holes in the garden to hide all the pecans he strips from our tree.  Hanging inside the panty hose in my garden is a bar of Irish Spring deodorant soap. Squirrels don't like the smell.

                                       Meanwhile, Grandpa has fun painting the house.

But not as much fun as he had 20 years ago, when he painted our first home. (He is in front of the 2nd story window that Mark fell out of when he was 4 years old, and miraculously survived with just a tiny compression fracture of one of his verebrae in his back. He was supposed to be taking a nap. Instead he unlocked the window, opened it, and sat on the ledge to watch a swimming pool being built next door. He leaned against the screen, and out he flew.)