Plant Camp Monday's

We are heading into one of my favorite holidays this month. Thanksgiving with family and friends. Lots of food and wonderful smells from the kitchen. My favorite is those orange dishes, pumpkin pie and candy yams. But lets talk about those pumpkins. I have a couple on my porch. I don't get into the spooky holiday and carve them but I do love the Autumn Harvest and leave them whole. They make a great decoration until I'm ready to open them up and roast the seeds, can even cook up the pumpkin too.

Heres a pic of some pears I picked and the pumpkins in the background.

I didn't grow pumpkins this year but planning on next season. Sis and I for the last couple of years have a pumpkin growing contest. See who grows the biggest pumpkin. Her idea the first year, I won, she forgot to plant the seeds. Last year she won, I forgot to plant my pumpkin seeds and this year nobody won we both forgot to plant. But wait tell next year : )

Heres some pic's from the pumpkins over at the old homestead.






The grandkiddies love the seeds roasted and my sister loves to make pumpkin bread. I like it all , the orange colors in the Autumn from all those pumpkin patches to the stacks of pumpkins at the grocery stores.

Heres a cute little pumpkin that we seen at Powells Gardens , a botanical garden that we live close by. We went on their pumpkin walk a week or so ago and seen all the artistic carved pumpkins all lit up. No spooky stuff just a nice walk in the dark.

This is a baby pumpkin thats potty trained.





So what do you do with your pumpkins after the spooky holiday?


Thanks for stopping by the camp , cool weather setting and we may have to light up the campfire. See ya next week.


tc linda

Plant Camp Monday's

Oh a little late getting back into the Plant Camp. But I'll get it started with all the beautiful fall colors of Chrysanthemum's also called Mums.


I love these beauties and each year and I can't wait tell they are along roadside stands, garden centers and even the grocery stores saying take me home. I always plant them along the gardens after the flowers are spent and see if they will grow back next spring and most the time they do. I'll pinch back the foliage until July to make sure I'll have a little fall color in fall.


Heres some Mum's I picked up this last weekend to give the porch a warm feeling and say fall is here.












The ones I got are garden mums and here's a link to how to grow.

Chrysanthemum

Also some more Mum pictures , they are beautiful!

Mum Pictures


Chrysanthemum is from the Greek, chrysos (gold) and anthos (flower).
The Chrysanthemum flower symbolizes fidelity, optimism, joy and long life.A red chrysanthemum conveys love
A white chrysanthemum symbolizes truth and loyal love
A yellow chrysanthemum symbolizes slighted love


Heres more interesting facts,
Chrysanthemum Facts

A Bit of Interesting "Mum" History, quoted :"It was way back in the year 1798 that chrysanthemums were first introduced to North America from Europe. After the official Chrysanthemum Society of America was founded, their first exhibition of mums was held in 1902. Research shows that mums were prevalent at least 2,500 years ago, and that mum festivals are still celebrated every fall in Japan. A chrysanthemum festival highlighting the arts and culture of Japan was held at the famous Longwood Gardens near Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, in the fall of 1999. Longwood's gardeners grew and trained more than 20,000 mums inside this spectacular conservatory. During that festival, Japanese artisans demonstrated the art of making life-size dolls using the chrysanthemums grown in the Longwood conservatory. It is also notable that of more than 160 different species of mums, most of them are native to China, Japan, and Europe. "

So I hope you have a porch full of Mum's for your fall look. Its always great if the weather stays nice to carry the colors into Thanksgiving but sometimes thats pushing it. And sometime you just gotta buy that look alike that you never have to water or plant and can bring it out every year for the holiday seasons. I got a couple of fake decorations but I so love the real ones the best : )

Happy Fall at the Plant Camp

tc linda

Back From Trip

We got back first of the week and its so nice to be home. We had a super good time traveling some 11 states , seeing our new grandson, camping out next to alligators and bears , swimming in the Gulf of Mexico to climbing the mountains of the Great Smokey Mountains. It was great.

Started our road trip close to our neck of the woods, Missouri Ozarks, then further down south to Arkansas, Louisiana,Mississippi, Alabama, Pensacola Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky,Illinois, and back home to Missouri.


Heres just a few of the close to 3000 pictures sis and I took. It was just three of us traveling on this trip, my hubby ,sister and I. Sis's hubby stayed home to turkey hunt , oh well he missed a good trip.


First the reason for our trip our sweet little grandson , he makes our 7th. This is our son's first baby and was so happy he was home from Afghanistan to see the birth. Our son is so cute to see him take care of his wife, our daughter in love and their little son. It was hard to leave but I', already planning another trip : ).









This little guy sleeps all the time and his folks say he does a little possum sleeping too. Hes a good baby and I love him so, wish they lived closer. TRIP TIME!



Louisiana we stopped at a park with this boardwalk it went all over with all these huge cypress trees in the water, it sorta looked like gator territory









Heres a pic of hubby and I in Mississippi next to the river.





Down in FL sis and I played in the cold water and looked for shells. I don't know why we were holding hands, maybe scared of sharks or something we were not sure of. We would have gone crazy if something big and unknown showed up.






We had a ten man tent for the three of us, we up it up take it down and agreed not to yell at each other , it worked good when we had a plan. Most the time we would have had a yelling match getting that house up.




We cooked out on the firepit and always had coffee going. A couple of stays in the alligator camp was something else. There were gator slide tracks all over and one by our tent. Sis and I would go out with flashlights to see if we could see one but no deal. But we knew they were there and I'm sure they seen us.


This camp ground was beautiful, the hiking trails looked like snow , the sand was so white. It also had lots of boardwalks running to the bay. one could rent canoes or kayaks to run the gator river. We almost did this, next time for sure.

Heres a gator foot print, it was very big.





The gator hiking trail





Alligator river, it looks like a small Amazon River








Heres a quick breakfast in North Carolina campsite, we were heading to the Smokies. This camp had hiking to Lake Fontana;










I took tons of tree pictures but not as many as baby pictures :)







We woke up to a foggy morning and oh was that pretty












Then on to the beautiful Smokies, oh my!



















And here I am at one of the Appalachian Trails , unprepared for hiking to Maine that is for sure but we did go up a 6600+ ft. mountain, mostly driving but walked up to Clingmans Dome, huffing and puffing along with the hundreds of other ppl doing the climb.





So this is a pooped out picture of me , but someday I will walk that trail all the way from Georgia to Maine.






Theres so many more beautiful pictures I took and I hope to share in another blog or two later on.


Its great to get back home and I have my little mountain (hill) to look out in the woods and when the fog comes it reminds me of the Smokies. Even tho we hit 11 states it was jsut a drop in the bucket what we seen. We did so much in our week long trip and plan to do section hiking and sightseeing as we make more trips down to see our grandson.



Thanks for dropping by, Plant Camp will start up next week so see ya soon.

tc linda