Hello friends! I often talk about crafting and creating yard art as a form of gardening. You see, gardening isn’t limited to growing flowers, fruits, herbs, and veggies. Gardening is also about creativity—creating crafts and yard art to make our outdoor spaces even prettier. Creating yard art is a purposeful, therapeutic form of recreation.

Right now, I am working on two special Halloween garden-art projects that I want to share with you: turning dried-up, oversized okra pods into friendly little ghosts, and transforming everyday metal food cans into glowing Jack-O’-Lantern luminaries.

If you’ve been following along with me on social media, you know my August was a bit of a circus. Between the blistering Alabama heat, a little drought, and taking some much-needed vacation time, my garden got away from me. I’ve spent the last few weeks playing catch-up with the weeds and reclaiming my patch. But as we step into September, I’m looking forward to a fresh start by planting my fall vegetables. There is nothing like getting some cool-weather greens and root crops in the ground to make a guy feel brand new. Collard greens, broccoli, and cabbage—those are just a few examples of fall vegetables that’ll carry us right through the cooler months.

I went on vacation a few weeks ago, including a nursing conference. Prior to that, I spent a lot of time updating my website and working on my blog. There are only so many hours in the day. Plus, I have my day job. Needless to say, I have neglected my garden a little. My cantaloupes are at the end of their life cycle. The tomato vines are dying. Grass is beginning to take over the watermelon patch, and I am late getting my pumpkin seeds started.

What can I say? Life happens! I can only do so much in a day. Managing my arthritis and tendinitis further complicates things. It is now late summer. The Alabama heat and humidity can be treacherous, especially for older adults.

However, I am not going to let this overgrown mess or the oppressive heat get the best of me. When I was a younger man, I could have renewed the whole garden within a day or two. Now that I am nearly sixty years old, I am not as industrious as I used to be.

My mind stubbornly insists that I’m still forty-something, but a scary hot morning in my vineyard proved my nearly sixty-year-old body has slowed down. Read my cautionary hydration story and learn how to recognize a nurse’s early warning signs of heat stress.

Supporting local workers on our new public farm seemed like the right thing to do, until a smooth-talking contractor left us with thousands of dollars in damages. Find out how a painful lesson in community trust forced me to pack my critical nursing thinking alongside my garden tools.