It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

 
A neat little shop near me that has an enormous amount of Christmas villages for sale.

 

There are still 3 weeks until winter begins but these are the only leaves left on any tree around me. Only 3 weeks and a few days until Christmas... if anyone is counting.

The Fox River

 

The Fox River is a tributary of the Illinois River in the states of Wisconsin and Illinois in the United States. It is a fast moving river when it rains! The ducks are nice to look at when you amble along the path around this part of it.

Inverness Town Hall

 
We residents actually call this the "castle" as it is supposed to be a Scottish one I think.. but this is where I go to vote. I was out over the weekend taking some photos and trying out new settings -or different settings on my camera besides "Auto" ....I really don't get the whole white balance thing. This one is a bit blurry but it really strikes me as a fall shot.

The Windy Inverness

 
Chicago is known as the "Windy City" but over the weekend, the wind was certainly whipping this flag around as if we were on the lakefront! Hope you had a good weekend!

Fall

 
I was struck by how quickly we went from no leaves to a lot of leaves. This is in the courtyard at St. Ignatius High School in Chicago. The grounds to this school are very nice and this school, which is run by the Jesuits, does not have a cafeteria .....it boasts a "dining hall". I will be the first to assure you, they are correct......it is such a lovely "dining hall" that brides love to rent it for their wedding reception. This tree and bench is just one of the views from the "dining hall".

Fall...sort of

 
We have had 2 frosts this weekend and the leaves are getting ready to change. I think the frost hurried the leaves off these trees! no showy color just yet!

a baby shower

 
I helped host a baby shower for my goddaughter this weekend. This is the table before we added the food. I have been very busy with a sick friend in an ICU unit so I have had not a lot of time to blog. I hope all is well in blogland.

Glass Flowers

 

These were lovely glass flowers I saw at a store. They seem like they would catch an awful lot of dust! But they do look better than my flowers that are in my garden. It is that time of year where the outside flowers need to be disposed and I have had no time to do that !

Cousins

 
My mom and all of her grandchildren except one grandson (my son) that lives in China. They left
a space for him to be photo shopped into....I just can't find the right photo to do that! This one is by height. Out of 3 daughters my mom got 1 granddaughter and 7 grandsons

Dead Trees

 
Here are two of our trees that need to be chopped down. The redbud is suffering from a fungus and the Austrian pine is suffering from some kind of bug infestation. Once the Austrian pine is gone, we have been told to plant a fungus resistant tree.....like that is going to be easy.....sigh.

A cool summer

 
We have had a very cool summer this year. This is a shot of one of our Austrian pines after a rain. Turns out Austrian pines aren't supposed to do so well here in the north.....we have 10 on our property and they have done ok for 23 years. However, we seem to be losing 4 trees to a fungus this year. Our tomatoes have succumbed to a fungus as well so all those lovely tomatoes are rotting on our vine. We are an organic outfit here.... no bad chemicals on the lawn and we don't use them on the veges or trees either. The tree guy that came to look at our trees suggested we might want to "rethink" organic. With 4 dogs, a daughter that is an environmentalist and us with a well for our water....probably we won't be using chemicals still. So bye bye to 4 trees ( I will post them tomorrow).Hopefully, we won't lose anymore.

Sunrise

 
The weather has been very cool in the mornings. This is what our back yard looked like yesterday morning. We still need some warmer weather to get our tomatoes to ripen. I fear the plants will die before that happens! The plants are starting to fade back....let's hope we get some soon!

Dawn on the Deck

 
I was out with the dogs this morning around 5:30 and as I looked off our deck ay my neighbor's driveway, this view struck me. It has been so "fall-like" here. Our average temperature the month of July was 69.6*F which is the lowest since they started recording tempratures. The dogs are enjoying the cooler temperatures but we have an entire garden of tomatoes that still think it is June. Lots of greenery but no red tomatoes. I hope it warms up long enough to riped them but it won't be the first time we have lost a whole crop of tomatoes!

Dolphins

 
I love how these look....so real...but how do they keep them watered?

A Chinese Garden

 
This is one of the many decorations around Beijing last year for the Olympics. I was looking in my archive and thought this would be a good one to post. No, I wasn't in Beijing but I do have a son that has lived there for 5 years and took this.

acro yoga

"bat pose"

I am not sure who can do this but my daughter can. She took a Thai Massage course when she was in Thailand and this was her teacher. I am pretty sure I would be in the hospital should I try to do this.....or the person trying to do it to me would be!!!!

A Desert Landscape

 
This is what a desert should look like. I was taken aback at how green it was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I shudder to think how much water they waste watering the golf courses and pieces of green grass that are all around the businesses...

Sisters

 
Well, All we seem to get is older.....my sisters and me and our mom at my nephews wedding in Albuquerque, New Mexico......

An organic garden

 
This is an organic garden in Petosky, Michigan. It is on an acre and they have volunteers come and pick the produce. It was pouring the rain the day we were here but it was a lovely place to visit......

The Sandia mountain in Albequerque New Mexico

 
This mountain turned red when the sun finally set........a lovely place for wedding photos......unfortunately....some gentleman decided to blow his brains out on the first golf hole in the early morning so no bride or groom could go out and have their photos done.....a very sad event for a beautiful wedding.

A New Mexico dance shot

 
We were on vacation for a few weeks...this is Shannon doing one of her dance poses.....

A horse is a horse of course

A few years ago, Chicago did a series around town of cow statues painted and decorated in a variety of ways. One of the communities near Inverness, Barrington, is doing the same thing with horses. This horse is outside Good Shepard Hospital. I did not realize it looked like it was eating a person until I posted it!

Campbellsville, Kentucky

 
This is a picture of the admissions office at Campbellsville University. It is a Baptist Christian University 80 miles south of Louisville and Lexington, Kentucy with 2800 students. I was attending a Scholastic Summer Bowl Camp with some of my students and this is one of 3 locations they held camp. It was a lovely small town but what impressed me the most, besides the friendly nature of the residents, were the stunning flowers EVERYWHERE... I felt like I was at Disney World where the flowers are amazing and there are no WEEDS to be seen. Same here. The staff worked very hard to keep it weed free.

Raspberries

 
I saw this bush of raspberries while I was on vacation in Kentucky (now THERE'S a great destination!) and I almost sampled one of the ripe ones. But the bush was in someone's front yard so I opted for a photo instead!

Transformers

 
Truly, looking at this, it is really quite an impressive car. This I found in my archives and remembered how unbelievable and BIG this was at the Chicago Car show.