Signs of Fall?

Hi, everyone!

On Saturday right after I wrote last time, my church friends came out to the bay for apple picking!  Grandma made sure I was all set with my bag before everyone else got to the orchard.  The earlier apple varieties were ripe and ready to pick.  Lyla-chan helped me pick Macouns.  Most of the ripe Honey Crisp apples at lion-level were already picked, so I had to use the long-handled picker to reach the ripe ones at the tops of the trees!

After our bags were full, we picked some apples off the ground and went across the road to the farm animal sanctuary.  The donkey took one bite of apple but couldn’t figure out how to eat the part that dropped on the ground!  The horses could finish an apple in three bites when Grandma and I held it for them!  When all the feeding apples were gone, my friends Lyla-chan and Lily-chan and Nina-chan and I played in the tree fort and made friends with the farm cat.

Then we all went back to Grandma and Grandpa’s cottage for supper.  I’m glad everybody liked the chili I helped make!  After dinner, there was a Clue game before everybody went home.

That Sunday, Grandpa finished putting everything back in the garage.  He did some work around the door frame to keep the chipmunks from chewing their way in!  When Grandma came home from church, she put her car back in the garage, too!  Grandpa says that project is officially done!

Wednesday after that was Rosh Hashana, a day of celebration for the Jewish congregation that shares space in our church building.  Grandma explained that Rosh Hashana is the beginning of the new year in the Jewish calendar and congregation Etz Chaim was holding an evening worship service.  That meant Mt. Rise choir rehearsal had to move out of the sanctuary.  Whenever that happens, choir rehearsal ends up at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  I helped get everything ready!

Then on Friday, Grandma’s friend Rita-san came to town to visit her family.  The biscotti we made for her the last time she came were still in our freezer because she was too busy then to see us.  I made sure we got all the bags of biscotti out of the freezer to take to Rita-san, then Grandma and I drove across town for a visit.  Rita-san was happy to see us — and the biscotti!  It was fun visiting with her and hearing about all the important things she is doing.

Grandma decided to roast the spaghetti squash one day so she could serve some with cilantro pesto and goat cheese for dinner.  I got to help!  Splitting the squash in half so we could roast it took our biggest knife and a lot of effort!  The squash was so big that it needed to roast for two hours!  Grandma let me help scrape the cooked flesh out of the shell.  It   comes out in strands like spaghetti!  We only needed about one fifth of the cooked squash for two meals, so I helped Grandma freeze the rest to have this winter.

Even though it’s almost the end of September, the weather has been feeling like August!  This week, we broke three high temperature records with daytime temperatures near 90 degrees F. or above.  We’ve had the longest stretch of days without rain for the entire summer! There hasn’t been a frost yet, so leaves on the trees are staying green until they dry up and fall off.  At Sodus, there are only a few patches of color in the trees.  The water is finally down to normal early summer levels, not usual fall lows.

Last night a cold front came through, and now the temperatures feel more like fall.  More and more leaves are falling, even if they haven’t turned color!  I think I’ll be having raking adventures soon!

Love,

Lion-san