The First Week End of Fall

Cooler air, gentle breezes and a few clouds.  Perfect.  The flowers beds seem to enjoy the change in the weather.  The color in the garden is magnificent.  All the flowers that are still blooming are so beautiful just before it is time to call it quits.  Have to get some mulching hay and decide which plants to prune and cover in the next month.  Some succulents will be re potted and come indoors until spring some will have to be replanted in safer less wind exposed places and a few will move with the potted roses to the side of the house.  The cycle of life...who stays, who goes.   

Small progress is being made in the storing food department.  So many apples so little time.  Am taking bushels to the soup kitchen and food pantry.  Wild horses get some and of course the neighbors. Still there is apple sauce and apple butter to be made and apple slices to pare and freeze.  I often think of my great-grandmother Hattie at this time of year.  I've mentioned her here before,  a hard-working farm woman.  Managed her family and life with skill.  Found time to be a mid-wife to neighbors.  Every fall she, like so many farm wives, prepared food to get the family through the harsh winter that was to be theirs on their Spanish Fork (Utah) farm. 

Yesterday we had new Mustang visitors:

Another small band of bachelors.  I don't know if they have been chased off by stronger stallions or if their herds were rounded up for auction in Fallon - some Mustangs always escape the helicopter round-up.  Several are very young.  Many had bite marks on their hides.  Life is not easy for these guys.  They gorged on apples and the sage brush blossoms.  They are very wild and stampeded off if I or the handy man move too quickly in the garden.  Still they are curious about these humans and the three dogs that follow us around the garden. 

The dogs don't bark until the horses eat apples.  Then all hell breaks loose.  They think those apples are doggy treats.   They hate sharing.  

Time to get another cup of coffee and organize the day.  Hoping your is peaceful.