Getting ready for Christmas.

That's right.

I harvested three batches of lavender this year and haven't quite decided what I am going to do with it yet.

Soap? Scrub? Tea? Sachets?

We'll see.

Any suggestions?

i spy

notice anything unusual?

Let's just say I have a lot of green tomatoes. I didn't want them to freeze so I brought them all indoors and they have been utilized in my fall decor instead of pumpkins.

Then about every 4 days I have enough ripe ones to blend into sauce and freeze for the winter.

At this rate I should be done with tomatoes just in time for the transition to Christmas decorations.

we went to the apple orchard

we bought lots of apples and Aidan is a champion apple corer/slicer/peeler.

I had bought one of these a few years ago, but it was still in the box. we know boys like to play with machines, especially sharp ones, so he thought that peeling apples was pretty fun.

all i can say is amazing. thanks to my machine (and my little operator) i now have bags and bags of sliced apples in the freezer and lots of applesauce too.

i love the way the house smells when you are making applesauce.

you will have to stop in for some apple pie.

can it really be october?

i am shocked. not only is it october, it is mid-october.

i am a little behind, and way behind in the world of bloging.

i will admit i haven't really been reading blogs either, i have hardly opened my laptop. i finally upraded to an iphone which can do way more than my blackberry did, and so i have hardly needed to go online. shocking, isnt it? but now our minnesota summer is officially over. (we had quite the indian summer.) so it is time to start enjoying indoor pursuits again and with all the baking, cooking and autumn celebrations i thought i might dust off my laptop and attempt to blog again.

we also have a new addition who is keeping us quite busy. he is named "proton" courtesy of aidan my science-loving eight-year-old.