Here's a shot of Albuquerque in October during the balloon festival.
Coming back home is a relief, though. This is how it looks on our way home. Breathing is easier and my face loses that squinchiness it gets when I am stressed.
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| That's not our home, but it's pretty, isn't it? |
At our place fall is making its presence known. The maple tree is losing its leaves.
The three loaded apple trees are An Event, since we only get apples every three or four years around here. Late frosts kill the blossoms.
I am trying to wrap my head around preserving them all. Drying, making apple pie filling, applesauce, and storing the very best ones seem like the way to go.
The grapes surprised me. I did what I thought was a klutz job pruning the vines and wondered if they'd even live. Here are the grapes from just one third of a grapevine.
Two baskets full of grapes made three and a half quarts of concord grape juice. I did the whole canning thing, crushing the grapes, extracting the juice in a big pot, and bottling and canning the juice. I wondered if it was worth all that work for three and a half quarts of juice. Then I looked at how much a quart of organic grape juice was at the supermarket. Dang! I made $24 worth of grape juice!
This winter I will climb the stairs to our bedroom closet, the coolest place in the house, and select a jar of grape juice. In the the kitchen I will open the jar and pour the summer of 2012 into my glass. Then I will inhale its essence and say, "Yep, it was worth it."
Happy First Day of Autumn!
