Sunday, October 3 2010

Martin and I planted 3 photinia and a blue spruce today in the dog run. Martin also did the mowing and edged the whole front yard. It was a productive day, though we really didn't get out and do anything fun. My excursion today was grocery shopping. Well, we may not have played, but it felt good to get all these chores accomplished.

After working so hard in the yard, Martin took a well deserved break with a snack and a new 1000 page novel he started.

October is Here

Time to take out my Halloween Village. I can't believe we are moving toward the holidays. Over the last 7 years or so I have been given or purchased the things for our scary village. It's fun and the windmill and Ferris wheel can make scary noises when they are turned on. Martin and I have noticed that we haven't wanted to go out much preferring to hang out at home. We did make it to the dog park on Saturday which has seemed to wear the boys out even today. I wonder if the shortening days are sending us into an early hibernation mode.

Martin had to travel for work this week. He was in Roseburg for an afternoon then went to Grants Pass. He brought home a little gift for me. Halloween salt and pepper shakers. Again somehow, I have a collection of seasonal salt and pepper shakers most of them gifts. It is kind of fun to have a change of pace from the boring normal set that usually grace a table. These are Halloween cats in their costumes.

Hood River Harvest Festival

Today we hit the road and headed to Hood River to their annual Harvest Festival with Molly, Rob, Brandon and Anna. We drove up the Washington side and it was beautiful with all the leaves turning colors. The view from Cape Horn was even more beautiful with all the fall colors surrounding the Columbia River. Unfortunately, it was really too crowded for us to stop and take a picture. The festival was great, not as crowded as last year. We were able to shop for the apples, pears and cider, as well have an opportunity to go through the arts and craft tents. The quality of the things for sale was excellant. I regret that I didn't come prepared to Christmas shop! We did buy some more apples. The tasting we did last weekend enabled us to buy some more of our favorite varieties for as low as .59 a pound. We also found some unpastuerized cider, which is basically fresh liquid apples, so GOOD. Back at the house, we bored Molly and Rob with DVD of our vacation while the kids enjoyed their new color books and crayons we keep at the house for them to play with when they visit. Pictures are of Molly, Rob and Brandon shopping and Anna getting ready to munch on some elephant ear.

Portland Nursery

On Sunday, we were invited to go with our friends Jim and Shawn to the Portland Nursery for their annual apple tasting and sale. They had about 60 varieties, though some of them were already sold out by the time we arrived on Sunday. It was a wonderful opportunity to taste apples that we wouldn't ordinarily find in the store. The apples were cheap only about 89cents a pound. I haven't found them that cheap for a long time. They were rated according to their sweetness or tartness, they also had pears to sample and sell. We bought some incredible apple cider there as well. They had free cider and popcorn for the crowd. There were a few other vendors selling candy and honey. There were also activities for the kids. The picture is of Shawn, Jim and Martin trying out the hard cider. We found that we didn't like it, much preferring the fresh crush cider available for sale. Afterwards we went to a local pub for lunch, great fall afternoon.

A Visit to GAM and GUM's

Today, my sister brought my great niece for her first visit to our house. She calls us GAM for Great Aunt Marlene and GUM for Great Uncle Martin. This is Ann's first two night stay at grandma's and she has had a busy day, visiting a friend of my sister's as well as dropping by our house. She quickly found toys to play with and while she was here she helped me put together my Halloween Village. She enjoyed the lights, but was not at all impressed with the scary noise that the haunted windmill makes. Luckily there is a switch that controls just the sound, so she was able to enjoy the village with just the lights. The pictures show her modeling the necklaces she found and viewing the haunted Halloween village.
The rest of the morning we have been doing chores and our usual weekend errands. Hard to believe that it is fall and next week October begins. I am still finding all my fall decorations and having a hard time believing that summer is over!