Well that title certainly should catch your attention.  What could they possibly have to do with one another?  Nothing much except the first two has been needing my attention a lot lately, keeping me out of the garden.

The “seniors” refer to my twin boys who are seniors in high school this year.  With that comes the college adventure; trips, research and then applications.  We’ve been all around looking at schools for them this summer and fall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read everything under the sun to hopefully find just the right matches, and now it’s time to buckle down and get those applications out.

“School Board” refers to what happens when you get a low turn out for a local election during a teacher contract year.  Long story short, there was a lot of friction between the board and teachers, leading to a potential teacher strike threatening to derail my kids’ senior year, college application process and XC running season.  Needless to say, I have spent a lot of time writing emails and attending school board meetings.  Looks like we have a solution, still crossing my fingers unit the contracts are signed.

Sunflowers, well, they just make me happy and they’ve been a fun addition to my garden this year.

I thought I was going to be able to save some heads for some winter bird treats after the bees and butterflies were done with them.

 

 

But a couple of weeks ago, the seed-heavy heads just started disappearing.

In only a few days they were all gone.  Cleanly cut as though they’d been harvested with shears.  I would love to know where they went, since earlier in the summer if one was taken down, whatever the critter was tended to set it next to the garden and shred it to pieces.  These were hauled away for winter storage no doubt.

So, after looking at the headless stalks for far too long (see reasons above), I figured I’d better cut them down.  I hadn’t realized how thick giant sunflower stems are.  I needed to head to the shed to get some bigger clippers.

And a bigger shovel.

The sunflowers are done for the year.  I’m looking forward to them again next year.  Are you starting to remove things from the garden yet?