The new room is habitable. Not finished. There is no paint, the drywall is not taped and the shingles are only half up but it's a usable space now, and a few more evenings work of hammering shingles and finishing walls and adding paint will see it done. The garden is offering up potatoes, and lots of them, although not much else. I was more than a little jealous of the long, lush, full of goodies beds in the school and master gardens during our Community Harvest Dinner. One of these days I'm going to have a real garden that can grow more than potatoes and lettuce. Although even that is better than nothing.
We've been to old fashion fairs and modern funky fairs and apple orchards and farmers markets and had visitors and have all come down with colds and gotten well again. Last night Will and I chased a raccoon out of the chicken coop. I usually think raccoons are kind of cute, but not in the dark when they are trying to snatch my favorite chicken for a midnight snack. There is still wood to be stacked and garden beds to close up and grass seed to lay down. So much to do in the fall.
The leaf peepers are arriving in their shiny cars. Local cars are dusty, or more often downright dirty, the tourists are the only ones with clean and shiny cars. We joined the trend and drove through the hills down to Woodstock which really might be the prettiest town in America as they claim.
Even with the busyness, I love fall. Especially fall here. The weather is crisp in that wear-a-sweater-look-for-pumpkins kind of way in the mornings and evenings but warm enough in the middle of the day to go back to t-shirts. My knitting love becomes, if possible, even greater as I start to see the kids pull on scarves and hats on cold mornings. We use the woodstove but don't really need it, which makes it a treat instead of a chore. My wool skirts have been rescued from summer storage and are getting plenty of use. They are my favorite thing to wear. I used to wear wool skirts all winter but there comes a time here where it's too cold for anything buy pants, so now is the time to get my tweed on and rock the skirts. And the apples, oh the apples. Everywhere, everywhere here, there are apples.