fall thrall

It's finally OCTOBER, my favorite month!

Halloween decorations are up (more scattered throughout the house).

Leaves are starting to turn...acorns too!

Fall-themed puzzles are in full force.

I probably have at least 30 flannel shirts and I'm wearing one almost every single day!

(Pepita approves.)

Gorgeous sunrises and sunsets.

My roses only look really great in October, for some reason.

Baking intensifies!  This week, German chocolate cupcakes for a birthday party.

I bake bread every week for my daily toast, and have for years.  The past six months my loaves have gotten worse and worse.  I tried replacing the yeast and still got this:

I replaced the whole wheat flour next, and it made a HUGE difference.  Now that's toast-worthy!

The cats are still sleeping the days away...

We had some temporary plastic tubs on the dining room table and the boys loved them so much, we had to make them permanent!  They prefer them even to their heated cat beds.  

Pepita too.

Warm days, cool evenings with our nightly horror movie, a cat in the lap and a dog snoring on the back edge of the couch...it's the best time of the year!

from our SC house...can't wait until the leaves turn here!  Another couple of weeks.

all paws on deck

 The season is marching on and I love it.  Some leaves are starting to turn!

The trail is lined with White Snakeroot, a sure sign of fall.

Bees, moths, and butterflies are active much later in the morning because of the chill.  You see them clinging to the bottoms of leaves and flowers, waiting for the temperature to rise.

Praying mantises are really active in the fall.  This is a rarely-seen Carolina Mantis, a native to Indiana.  We've tried to cull as many of the invasive Chinese Mantises as possible, since they will actually eat our native mantises.  

terrible cell phone pic

The fall asters are out!

blue wood aster

Acorns, too.

More caterpillars!!

imperial moth caterpillar

mottled prominent caterpillar

This looks like a caterpillar, but it's a sawfly larva.

Fall berries, too!

American spikenard

maple leaf viburnum

There are even some pre-Halloween ghosts out and about!

I'm doing my part.

brown butter maple pumpkin cookies

I'm even putting up Halloween decorations this week, although very slowly because of the pinched nerve in my back.  At least I'm still able to take my daily walk...

Pepita slipping her harness and dashing for the car...again.

The cats are doing the usual.  Helping.

Calliope 'helping' me with yoga

The Barnacle 'helping' me with photography

Frances 'helping' me sort clothes

I appreciate the extra hands...or paws.

Another week, another step closer to my favorite season!

apples to apples

 More hazy mornings...

...and days that can vary as much as 25 degrees from one day to the next.  That's early fall in Indiana!  The berries are starting to take on a slight blush...

...and at last, it's apple-picking time.

We got a fair amount this year...

...maybe around 20 pounds.  Enough for a pie and a couple months of baked oatmeal breakfasts.  I've been processing just under 5 pounds per day.

We didn't even try to get the apples at the top of the tree!  They are for the birds, and later they'll fall and feed the wild animals here.  Bees love them too!

I've been putting away summer clothes and pulling out warmer things (it was 58 this morning and I wore long sleeves and jeans.  Tomorrow it will be 95!).  The Barnacle has been a huge help.

This is a great time of year for walking...

Pepita loves the fresh air...

...almost as much as she loves doing nothing.  ;)

Even though it's September, there are still plenty of flowers in the garden, and plenty of butterflies on those flowers.

zebra tiger swallowtail

silver-spotted skipper

Plenty of cool mushrooms too, even though it's been fairly dry.

velvet-top fungus

berkeley's polyphore

false caesar's mushroom

turkeytail

golden bolete

violet-grey boletes

I've started physical therapy for a pinched spinal nerve and it's progressing well.  I'm juggling medications to help deal with the hormonal migraines I've been plagued with over the past 6 weeks...and I'm hopeful that I'll be ready to join the land of the living again soon!  Although Frances loves my down time...and I've become addicted to my heat pad.  I've finished three books in the past 2 weeks and it's a great silver lining.  

Looking forward to a more active October!