Our neighbor has two big beautiful apple trees in their backyard. We stopped over the other day and he filled a grocery bag full of yellow and red apples for us. This weekend I peeled and sliced well over 10 cups of apples, and I still have a sink full. Catybug and I made this lovely deep dish apple pie, and I made 5 loaves of apple walnut bread. We shared the loaves with the neighbors, of course!

In other news, and as you can see (unless you’re feedreading), I’ve finally completed the blog design to match my new gallery design. Please let me know if anything is broken – or if there are regular features that you can’t find.

Now that the weekend hustle and bustle and slicing and dicing is over, I can resume normal activities – and munch on some tasty goodness during breaks!

What have you been up to? And more importantly, when is the last time you made (or ate) home made apple pie?

MmmMMMmMmmmmm…

Our little Tucker reminded me so much of Barkley with his little innocent “petmepetmepetme” look.

“Come forth and pet me like the soft fuzzy puppy that I am”We had a little photo shoot this morning since he’s freshly bathed and I gave him a pretty little furcut to clear his eyes. The top of his head is turning creamy white now, and I really don’t want to have him groomed or trimmed because he’ll wind up losing that pretty Wheat (aka Wheaten/Wheatie terrier) color they’re born with.

Here are a few more feature shots from our little Studmuffin Tuckerhead today:

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I cut these roses from my garden this morning, the twins are called Double Delights, this is their second year and I’ve had about 7 long stemmed roses from this plant so far, and it looks like there are a couple more buds, too. The peach rose is an old fashioned rose that was here when we moved in 10 years ago. Talk about long stemmed, I did not have to bend to smell this rose, it met my forehead (I’m 5’6″) and I had to bend the stem forward to smell it.

I just had to cut them and bring them inside, now I’ll get to “stop and smell the roses” throughout the day while I’m painting.

Fall has altered the colors in my hydrangea, as well. The pale pink flowers are now deep raspberry, and the leaves are changing in a reptilian sort of way. Purdy.

Clear skies this morning really made the fallen leaves stand out against the grass. I had to get out there with my camera, of course. I love the leathery sunlit glow of the leaf against the green, it makes the photo seem warmer than the air outside right now.

I added this photograph to my prints collection, you can view the details here. This photo would really turn heads in a nice mat & frame, I think. I’ll be testing one in my own family room, of course.

For Laura, and anyone else yearning for a bit of fall foliage.