Here is about half of the butter tarts Jack baked in the past couple of days. We have a family reunion (his) here on Sunday so these will be part of the desserts we will have. It's a potluck so there'll be lots of goodies to tempt us. 
This is part of our veggie garden. The potatoes have huge tops...just hope there's hugeness going on under the ground too! In a couple of weeks we will test them out. Can't wait!
You can see the garlic is growing really well! Good thing we like garlic (and so do our friends) because Jack grows a lot of it.
And this is Henry, an extremely heavy garden statue who overlooks things and instructs them to grow. To the right you can see the few milkweed plants we have (trying to keep them under the 'radar' of the weed police in the area...they're classed as a noxious weed and are frowned upon). We live in hope that a monarch butterfly will chose our plants, but no luck so far. It just plain makes me cross that the local authorities are so against these plants, because destroying them means the decline of the monarchs. At least we're trying to do our little part to keep them alive!
This is just one clump of the blooms on our catalpa tree. They remind me so much of orchids. The tree will have long brown seed pods in the fall, most of which will cling to the tree over the winter. 
My husband tried unsuccessfully to start a catalpa until he realized that, if left to Mother Nature, the seed pods would be frozen over the winter. Once he placed a seed pod in the freezer and then planted the seeds, they grew quite easily. (Each pod has a large number of seeds, not just one). It has now grown into a lovely shade tree in our front yard.
Here's our 13 year old cat reclining on the sofa in the sunroom. The only reason the sofa is the place of choice is because there doesn't happen to be a handy lap to perch upon!
Here are my three antique dolls. Unfortunately I don't know very much about any of them. The above fellow is, I think, made of composition and was given to me by one of my elderly customers from when I was selling Avon a number of years ago. She is in her mid-eighties and said she had this doll when she was a little girl. I didn't want her to give it to me and felt it should be kept in her family. She said her daughters and grandaughters had absolutely no interest in dolls and would just throw him out. I was horrified and promised to give him a good home. I must get busy and make him some clothes!!
The doll on the left is one that I kept admiring in our local second hand/antique store. I looked at her every time I went in and finally decided that I had to fork over the money so she would have a home. Her head looks to be porcelain and her body seems to be paper wrapped around wire. Her legs are paper too, but the insides feel to maybe be pieces of straw or very thin wood. Her clothes are very crudely made from a material that might be felt. The beaded 'flowers' are a puzzle because I'm not sure if they are original to the doll or something that was added much later. They seem to be wired directly to her hand, so I assume they might be original.
This is my other 'old' doll, which I received the same Christmas as the one I showed yesterday. My bachelor uncle gave this one to me (never expected he would even think to buy a little girl a doll, but he did. I think that's mostly why I treasure her). This is her original dress, but I have long since misplaced her underwear, shoes and her hat. You can see she has a 'broken' arm (which I took to a supposed restorer, who did an AWFUL job). She is all soft vinyl, which is really starting to deteriorate.
Below is my treasure, old and tattered tho he may be. He was once a pajama holder & has a zipper in his bottom. I never store pjs in him - he held little pieces of paper with all my childish writings and treasures. He is totally threadbare and his stuffing is falling out. Some of it has been replaced by my mother with old nylon stockings (no, they aren't panty hose!).
I remember my aunt giving me what she thought would be a replacement Lassie, but I couldn't bring myself to love it. This poor fellow was my bedtime huggee for years and I still can't bear to part with him. Funny thing about memories.
