Vacation is over, and the garden looks great.

We did spend the evenings of Oct. 15 and 16 away from the house, but the rest of the time through this morning was spent puttering around the house.

That meant that we did a lot of things that normally get put off because we don't have enough time. The area where we store our pea fences and some of the tomato cages is neat. We have planted our fall bulbs. The vegetable garden -- where we finally had a frost Oct. 23 -- is cleaned out. I've cut up some firewood, laid some used bricks to extend our driveway, and generally practiced for my retirement years of just keeping busy and out of Nancy's way.

We still have raking and other cleanups to do, and will be spending quite a bit of time outside, but it is sort of a time to reflect. All in all, I am pretty happy with the year.

But now, I'm back to work.

If you haven't seen it Sunday's column was about the Portland Arts and Technology High School horticulture program, and the community garden they are going to create.

So for now I am going to have to get back to mixing my gardening with a working schedule. It will be tough.

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