Fall has officially fallen

Snow on the mountain means fall has officially fallen! And we had our first frost down here also. (Spokane already had theirs a few weeks ago.)

The first freeze means the end of the garden plants. You had a good run, zinnias! Time to clear out the rest of the trellises and beds.

In the midst of everything else dying off, the baby mail-order roses we planted by the garden gate in August have actually bloomed!

The good news is that the hanging baskets are still looking great. Though Steve had to turn off their irrigation so that the lines don’t freeze, so even if it doesn’t freeze again, the hanging baskets will not last long without their 4x per day waterings.

Official fall also means it’s time to pick the apples to make a little cider and/or applesauce. Our trees tend to be on an every-other-year production schedule. Last year the fruit was abundant, as indicated by what was a blanket of fallen apples in the back field which were attracting all of the yellow jackets in the county. This year the ground remains super clean, and only parts of a few trees in the front field have any actual apples. But we don’t really need a huge amount, and let’s not forget that we are 1/2 mile away from about ten million apples we can pick if we need good (aka sprayed) fruit. But this bin should give us plenty.

The other maples are catching up to the red maple in terms of color. And the crabapple in front looks great in every single season. The back field trees look great, and the big Ponderosa pines on the Whitworth campus are perfect.

Pretty fall sunsets are still abundant.

Through a dirty front window, shot over the dashboard as we were heading out to town.