Autumn into Fall

The other night I had a dream where I learned that a person was only allowed to call the season "autumn"  until the end of it when the leaves start to fall. THAT's when you call it "fall." I woke up thinking half the day that that was true.

And now that it is officially (according to my dream) "Fall," I add a last update of the things we did that did not warrant their own post. And these are going to be out of order (note to my future self reading this.)

Ahem.

A few weeks back we cleaned out the garden and collected our final harvest. We planted a million seeds and most things grew! Even the watermelon. But if you would have seen the garden this summer, you would have seen a chaos of weeds. Once I got pregnant and sick, I lost all desire to keep up with it. I'm glad things still grew! (I also lost desire to further jam or dry peaches and sad to say most people were too slow to come gather them, and many peaches rotted...)

Photos below- The last harvest: See that bundle of green center right? Those are my herbs- four kinds but in particular a huge bunch of fresh spearmint that I was going to dry and use for tea all winter. I had been waiting all summer to gather it all. And who decided to pee on it soon after this photo was taken? No, it wasn't Buck. It was ABE. That savage dog! We had to throw all the herbs away! Sad times.
The snake: We found a wounded snake that day and, being the bleeding heart saint that I am, I decided to take it in for the week to see if it could recover enough to move. Pretty much it sat in a large plastic tub all week with occasional visits from June and that was that. He moved (enough) when we set him free so maybe he survived. Or maybe he is with our tortoise somewhere.

We are so festive with decorations from our own garden. And a tree trunk...?

I was feeling all autumny and whenever we had guests on the weekend I had a little party. Nothing too elaborate, but folks, there's homemade caramel apple cider in that Armenian cup. You should have come over. 

June and Abe continue to get along splendidly. He doesn't pee on her, thank goodness.

June went on a date to Wheeler Farms the other week. They seriously held hands the whole time while they talked about the animals. Elliot- "Look! Cows! And those ones have UDDERS!" 

June-" OOooooo!"

Then that same week she went on another date with Rio. This time to the discovery garden. There were no other people there but those two and us moms and it was calming.

June continues to play with her doll house. For large amounts of time. She will go into her room and shut the door and I hear her playing different house scenarios with different voices for the mom and dad and baby and dog. Often I go in to find set ups like this. They were watching a show.

In the midst of all the stress of working and finishing his thesis, Buck was able to have one last spontaneous bon fire in our yard.

Aside from our Halloween photo shoot/party thing, we also carved pumpkins with family,

I'll have you know that Buck free lanced these beauties- especially that dinosaur one for June!

And go to the ward trunk or treat and then trick or treating on the real night. We didn't go far but June ended up with all this. I don't know what to do with it all! 

 

 The week Buck was gone we also got sick. June recovered fairly quickly but I ended up with a prescription after a week and two middle of the night pregnant melt downs because I couldn't breathe.

We also went to sushi with a friend. June had to bring her dinosaurs along and insisted on feeding them the noodles, instead of herself.

I went to a funeral for an old boss of mine. She wasn't just any boss though. She was from when I was younger and worked at a lodge at the North rim of the Grand Canyon. I lived and worked there for a season and learned much from my old boss and her kids who all ran the place. She was 90 (!) when she passed away last week, so the funeral was a beautiful celebration of her life. And of all the random things- Elder Nelson was there! Turns out he was her neighbor! I got to meet him and thank him for dedicating the land of Armenia for missionary work.

When Buck got home from being gone all week at a conference we got him an army balloon...

....

And he got me flowers!

 

 Fhew! Other than that we have been trying to play outside as much as we can. The winter is nearly here and these warmer days will be sorely missed.

And as November hits I find myself kind of hating this month, even if my birthday is in it. I've been reading "Little Women" and ironically I came to this page like two days ago.

So here's to November and "something very pleasant" happening to make it a "delightful month." (because a broken down car, expensive vet visit, sickness, and cold weather are not my ideas of "pleasant.) ;)