a beating and pumpkin escape artists

 I put MC and Roger to work this morning beating the dust out of the rug we keep in our mud/laundry room.  We vacuum it regularly, um, semi-regularly, but had never given it a good beating.  Just look at all that dust!  This is a perfect gross-motor job for a child with heightened sensory needs.

 Finally, we have pumpkins.  I'm hoping at least one of them will hang on long enough to turn orange.  True to form, the pumpkins have escaped the garden space.  This year, we have pumpkin vines where they have never been before.

 This one climbed up a handy nearby red pine tree--I put an arrow on the pic so you can see how high it's gone, and actually, that's not even the top.  The garden itself is about 4 feet off the ground at this point--that little vine is probably 30 feet off the ground.

And, yes, there's a pumpkin up there!  I'm wondering if I need to put up a

Watch for Falling Pumpkins

sign.  Good thing the little apes (they don't have tails so they can't be monkeys) are good climbers...