Enjoying Fall's Colors

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 As I type, I have apples simmering on the stove for applesauce.  They were beginning to get soft, and they needed to be made into sauce pronto, which is pretty unusual.  I don't normally make applesauce until November.  But then, this has been an unusual year all around.

The cold snap in early September tricked our trees into thinking fall had come, and they began to turn the most beautiful fall colors.  The colors peaked here around the first day of fall, September 22.  That's a full three weeks early!


 It has been such a dry year, though, and I have heard that it has affected the fall colors.  Outside our valley, the colors are much muddier.  Why did we get treated to such pretty colors?

 



 Chad said it's because God knew we would really appreciate them!




 And we definitely do!  Fall is our very favorite season.  We love fall so much, that we got married on the first day of fall.  The first day of fall also happens to exactly between our birthdays, which are two weeks apart.  September is a busy month in our house, with an anniversary, our two birthdays, two of our nephew's birthdays, and now it's also the anniversary of when we bought our home last year!


 Because we got married on the first day of fall, I try to get the house decorated by the 22nd every year.  It started small at first.  I was just reusing our wedding decorations.  But every year, I add a little extra to our collection, so that our house just radiates fall warmth.



 I'm sure it would be too much for some people, but this is how my mom decorated when I was growing up, and it has become a treasured tradition for us.  It helps us to feather our nest for the cold dark season that is coming.





 Plus it gives me a way to display my crafts, which I love working on when I have any down time.


 

There has been so much going on lately.  We got our chimney swept, and our woodstove cleaned up, the garden is getting cleaned up and ready for reworking, canning and stacking wood, visits from family and friends.  And we have the gravel laid to relevel the spot for the shed.


 

The guy who brought the gravel and leveled it for us is the same guy who delivers our wood.  He's kind of nuts but a hard worker and very nice.


 Now we're all ready for our shed!  We're just waiting for it to be built and delivered.

That's all I have to share for today.  I need to get back to my applesauce.  It's the first bushel of several I will process this year.  I don't have any cute pictures of my own kitties to share, so this time I'll share a photo of my mom's cat Gary, who is spoiled rotten.  Here he is sleeping under a blankey being hand fed by my mom.

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