Wonders from the garden

This is one of my "eat-something-you've-never-tried-before" experiments from the farmers' garden. It's a French vegetable called ficoide glaciale, or ice lettuce. It's eaten raw, such as on salad, and it tastes slightly salty. It looks like a succulent--the photo doesn't really do it justice.

ficoide glaciale

I also bought a bouquet of beautiful dahlias--purple with yellow stamens. When I was trimming them and putting them into a vase, I found two wonderful surprises. The first was a cricket...which I put into a jar with some greenery and plastic (with air holes) for the boys. Nicholas christened him "Paco." Then I found this glorious specimen, a gold ladybug!

Goldy!

I was quite taken with this little bug!

Kieran is obsessed with Halloween preparations--he spent much
of the afternoon "decorating" the front of the house for Halloween

Halloween decorations

Kieran plans to be a vampire again this year--and purchased his own costume last week. Nicholas will be a pirate, and he's caught the Halloween bug as well. Every day they ask us how many days to Halloween!