Hi, everyone!
Right after I wrote last time, Grandma took me for a walk on the Brickyard Trail! One of my church friends posts a lot of photos on Facebook that she takes there, and I wanted to see it for myself!
The Brickyard Trail is in a town of Brighton nature reserve. It’s a walking and biking trail that connects two busy streets! The area in between is a wetland, because lots of clay was dug out to make bricks! There weren’t many people using the trail when I visited, but I made sure to follow the rules about social distancing!
I saw lots of interesting plants! Grandma could help me identify some of them.
There are patches of open water among the reeds and one big pond. We stopped there to read about the history of the brickyard. There’s a bridge over a creek, too! The creek water was muddy when we were there!
We started at the south end of the trail and walked to the north end, then walked back. On the way back, I saw turtles crossing the path! I made friends with one of them!
The trees were starting to turn fall colors! I was happy to see a late-blooming dandelion. They are my favorite flower!
The next day was special! It was the anniversary of when Grandpa and Grandma first met! It was also the first Philharmonic concert of the year! Because of the bad virus, the concert was going to be streamed, instead. When Philharmonic concerts are live with an audience, Grandma and Grandpa usually go out to dinner beforehand. This year, there was an eat-in fundraiser for the Genesee Land Trust. One of my baking friends delivered a catered picnic featuring produce from farms protected by the Land Trust. So I got to be part of the celebration, too!
When we went inside to watch the concert, we got a message that it would be delayed because of technical difficulties. Later, the message was changed to say the concert wouldn’t be available until the next morning! Grandma and Grandpa took me to the bay for the weekend, so we didn’t watch the concert until Saturday evening. Before that, Grandma and I kayaked south of the bridge to see what the beavers were building. Between the wind and weeds, we had to turn around before we got to the channels where we saw brush piles last visit. Now that the sun is setting over land, rather than water, we don’t need to drive to the Point to watch sunset. We can see it from the end of our road!
The next day, Grandma finished a very hard jigsaw puzzle! All the pieces are white and have unusual shapes. It took Grandma several weeks to solve it! She said that looking for pieces was hard because they rarely were the shape she expected! I helped her number the pieces on the back when she was done. Then we went out to enjoy the fall color of some of the tree branches in the yard!
The first weekend in October, we were back out at the bay. Grandma took me to Burnap’s Farm Market to pick apples! Of course, I had to play on the train, first! Then we picked Crispin apples — Grandma’s favorites to use for pies. The Crispin trees were right next to the trees with Thomas’ favorite purple apples!
Before we took our apples home, I made friends with some squash, pumpkins and gourds. Then I enjoyed some more fall color in our yard!
On Sunday, I helped Grandma make pies from the apples we’d picked. First, we made crust and rolled out the bottom crusts for two pies. Then, we peeled the apples, cut them into quarters and sliced them in the food processor. I made sure the filling had the right amount of sugar, flour and spices!
Then I helped Grandma spoon the filling into the bottom crust, roll out the top crust and put that on. We baked the first pie for dinner, but then we made three more to put in the freezer.
Yesterday, we went back out to the bay again. Grandpa wanted to take the powerboat to the winter storage place. First, he drove the trailer up to the storage place and left it there. Then he came back to drive the boat up to the storage place. I helped him get the boat ready, then Grandma and I drove up to the storage place to meet him. The storage place will haul the boat out onto its trailer and put it inside a barn until next year.
Once the boat was delivered, Grandma and Grandpa hauled in the rails for the marine railway. I wanted to help, but Grandma said I would get too wet and muddy if I did! This morning, I looked at how much more fall color was in the trees, then we came back into town.
Happy fall, everybody!
Love,
Lion-san
My, but you’ve been a busy lion! Hiking , kayaking, apple picking, pie making, visiting farm markets and stocking up on winter vegetables. In your spare time you got the power boat ready for storage. Then going for fall leaf peeping. Joe-san would like to know if you would like to donate one thimbleful of your energy. Hope you get a couple more chances to have kayak adventures before storing the kayaks and raking the leaves.