Late Summer Thoughts

I apologize for not updating this with a post sooner, but things have been busy. The semester started last week and it is going pretty well with classes so far. I enjoy teaching, so that is definitely a bonus and a blessing to truly enjoy what I do for a living!

Yena's cross country season is in full swing, so we basically are going to meets every Saturday. She is doing well and looks like she will be in the top 5-7 at least on her team, so will be running varsity. She looked very strong this last Saturday. It is a great relief that she is injury free and we are praying that this continues and she stays in good health as her focus seems to be more and more on running. She has recently made the decision to not do high school swimming this year, which in some ways is a bit of a relief because swim season is intense! We think it is wise to focus on just one sport, especially if she possibly wants to run in college.

I want to remind everyone that as summer is starting to wind down and fall is on the way with sweater weather and sitting out on the porch with a cup of hot cider under a blanket is the perfect time to cozy up and read. Both of my novels are on Amazon and The Zumba Class is both in eBook and paperback formats, while Betty & Clark is only in eBook format.

Now as many of you know, something that I am passionate about is gardening and sustainability. I have decided to work on dedicating more and more of my yard to native plants. Yesterday, I got started in earnest with the front yard. I spent some time dividing up the garden phlox, purple coneflowers, and wild bergamot in the back. I have a little patch where I have put these and it doesn't look like much right now, but hopefully it will be popping next summer. The beginning of September is one of the two best times to do this (the other is early spring) so that the plants can establish themselves before it gets too cold and the ground freezes. I am going to plant native Columbine seeds in between too, so hopefully they will start to come up in the spring. I am not finished yet, I still have some things that I want to get started on the other side of the driveway and also plant a couple of things by the curb on the other side of the sidewalk. Part of the reason is because I don't mow my lawn as often as most neighbors and I don't want them to get too irritated, so by planting native plants in a somewhat orderly way, it doesn't look like I am just letting things go.

I encourage everyone to use native plants in their landscaping. This summer I have seen different types of bees, ladybugs, Monarch and other types of butterflies. Yesterday I saw a Widow Skimmer, which is a rather large flying insect that eats mosquitoes, flies, and other things. I also encourage everyone to get the iNaturalist app on your phone and you can take photos and document what you see.