FALL

It is Autumn. The leaves are changing fast. Just as I was having the thought that the leaves were peeking in our area - they did. Within a few days the brilliant yellows, golds and reds are fading. There is quite a chill in the air and winter is knocking on the door.

 Just a few days ago I still had Marigolds and these beautiful purple flowers in the walkway to our front door.

Now they look like this.

I only got 2 tomatoes from the plants I put in. The summer seemed to be hard on them. As soon as it got cool the plants perked up and I got two more tomatoes. 

So glad I wasn't depending on my tomato crop for canning. Thank goodness for the local farmers markets and farms. 

We recently ate these after they ripened - yum!

 I got one more butternut squash from the garden before all the plants gave out and I'm still getting carrots.

Butternut carrot soup - was very delicious. 

The green in the front on the left are the carrots I have remaining. The green behind that is arugula. It went to seed but still tastes pretty good. On the right are kale and more arugula. The cooler weather has been much better for the greens. The bugs seem to have disappeared. Now I only have to contend with falling leaves.

 Speaking of falling leaves... this is our driveway.

 I can't pick out a favorite autumn leave color. They are all so amazing.

We hike a lot now so we can take in as much of the beauty before it is gone. 

 A view from our living room.

This is a view from the west side of our property looking back at our house. You can just about make out the green roof just to the left of the big pine tree. We wanted our "green" home to blend in as much as possible. From this angle we were successful. 

 On one of our early am walks we were greeted by a rainbow.

No words needed!

We have had some fall visitors. Some unexpected and some expected. 

Momma bear returned...

 with 3 cubs.

All four were looking pretty hungry but didn't find anything to eat at our place.

Since the humming birds have departed for winter, the feeders have been removed and the bird seed is not reachable (they have tried and just can't get to it). 

We thought the cubs were pretty cute until they began mimicking mom by standing and putting their paws on the front door glass. No longer cute! Jim opened the side window and introduced himself. They are not habituated so they got spooked and moved along. Probably to the neighbors' garbage cans. A few day latter one was turned over in the street. Another thing we do to discourage bears is keep our garbage cans inside. They are only mildly curious about the compost bin and haven't done any damage to it. Small blessings!

Other guests this fall were my cousin Peggy and her husband Bill. 

Peggy mentioned they have been following our blog and were curious about our house. Since they were in the area they stopped in to say Hi and take a look. 

Thanks so much for visiting! 

As you can tell we love sharing our home.

The bluegrass group we play with, the Berry Pickers, have been pretty busy. We played a barn dance last night and the photo above was taken at a wedding a week ago. 

It looks warm and sunny. It was until the sun went down. I discovered some overalls at Tractor Supply that are one of the best cold weather investments I've ever made. They are sort of quilted with a padding to make them warm. And boy are they. It was 40 in the barn last night and I was nice and toasty!