Apple time

It's that time of year again. I know I told you before that October is crazy busy but I really love this time of year! I got a ton of errands done today and now the house is filled with the smell of cooking apples. I have apple butter cooking down as I type. This is my first attempt so I'm anxious to see how it comes out.

I still have apples left so I'm thinking about trying to make and freeze a couple pies so they are ready for the holidays.

After the apples are all taken care of I think I'm going to try making grape juice. Sounds like fun to me!

Our visitor

As I walked into the kitchen this morning to start a pot of coffee something out the window caught my eye. It was this guy. Sorry the picture isn't great I took it through the kitchen window. I tried to sneak onto the porch to get a better one, but he heard and me headed to the woods. I was so hoping he'd hang out and let me get a couple more good pictures. I'm not too worried though, he'll be back soon.

As you can tell in the pictures fall is definitely here. All of a sudden we have leaves all over the yard and the trees are starting to look bare. Our summer's been so dry that the "experts" say that the leaves probably won't change color, they'll just fall off.....I'm VERY glad to see they were wrong. Our colors aren't as dramatic as they usually are, but they are still beautiful.

Busy days ahead

It looks like this fall is going to a busy one. I was just looking at my calendar for October and I have nearly every day off planned out already. Here's the rundown:

Deer season starts (bigger deal for Brad than for me)
Clip for the Cure, Breast Cancer Research fundraising day at work
Covered Bridge Festival (probably 2 days)
Lunch with Indy area HP gals
Doctor's Appointment (or 2 or 3, hopefully)
Fabric Shopping Field Trip with Ladies' Sewing Circle
Family in from Alaska
Color Cafe hairshow

That covers the highlights but doesn't include all the fall to do list (redo flower beds, clean leaves off the porch, put up gardening stuff, etc) or the normal household chores (laundry, cooking, dishes, etc) or working or hobbies (quilting, knitting, starting Christmas gifts). Yep, it's gonna be a busy one!

3 years....already

I can't believe it's been 3 years since my last post! So much has changed, or maybe everything has changed so much we've come full circle to where we were....Brad has worked everywhere from Iowa to Alabama and finally is back in Indiana. The dogs are both doing great, over 70 lbs each and still playing and wrestling all over the house. We are still trying to have children, but that's a long story probably best left for another day. The sheep, singular now, is in need of a new home or a barn-mate. We have newly born kittens, but they are the grandkittens of one that was new born at my last post. Strangely enough, Brad altered the bar, but we are getting ready to change it again....funny how life works.

I'm going to try to keep things more up to date from here on. We have internet on the farm now. We just became high tech since they decided to offer something other than dialup out here. YAY!!! It's so nice to be part of the 21st century.

Farm Happenings

Well, I got a job -- I'm back to doing hair, which I love. I'm not totally sold on this salon just yet, but we'll see how it goes.
We have new kittens, born yesterday - 2 girls, 2 boys, all very cute.
The new puppy (12 weeks old) is doing great! Wow the energy those 2 have when they start playing. I can only imagine what it will be like when the little one is full grown and we have 2 70+ pound dogs wrestling in our living room!
The sheep are happy and getting friendlier everyday. I really love walking out the barn to talk to them -- so does the puppy - she loves to go visit "the boys" she sticks her head through the fence and licks all over their faces and in their ears -- I don't really understand it, but both sides seem to really enjoy the ritual.

I am knitting these days, though it's coming pretty slowly as I'm trying to adjust to working again. I've got a sweater started for my sis for Christmas, somehow I think I've committed to making one for my mom too - I think I'll tackle hers as part of a top-down, raglan sleeve sweater class that I'm going to try to fit in.
I just started a Yahoo!Group for our local knitting group - I'm trying to organize a charity knitting day for the group, the biggest challenge is trying to pick a good time to have it. I'll get it all worked out soon, I'm sure. I'm thinking about a Saturday morning event and serve coffee and pasteries -- I have so many ideas I could burst just thinking about it all

Brad is still working close to home - it's amazing how much more gets done around the house when he's home every night. We've gotten lights hung, hardware on the kitchen cabinets, he's getting ready to alter the bar between the kitchen and living room...

Well, that's about everything that's happening here -- if you want to know a little more about me and my knitting, ranting, and other misc things check out my other blog http://www.xanga.com/aksunrae I post there a lot more often

Double Smith

OK - SO Brad still doesn't really like this name - but I went ahead and established an e-mail address and blog just in case I can persuade him that it's the perfect name for our little place. Anyway - check back in the future to see if the name sticks or not...