You know me—I love a good storm. Sitting in Colorado under all that blue sky while back home they were having two really good storms drove me crazy. As predicted, the Nor’easter came. But it was pretty much a fizzle. Yes, it rained but not nearly as much as they had thought it would. No biggie, that’s for sure. Today is supposed to be gusty and windy on the tail end but that’s about it. If you want good weather just ask me to come and visit you! But, there is a definite upside to this and that is the changing trees. Right now they don’t need to have their leaves ripped off!

It was still the perfect kind of day (cloudy and cool) to be making this stew. It takes tons of prep work with peeling and cutting all the veggies and making the red wine and porcini mushroom sauce, but it’s totally worth it.

It gets served with some lentils (they get the sauce too) and a celery root and potato purée. Delicious!

Now for the second part of this post. The day before yesterday Rick came home from work and handed me an Apple bag. I knew right away what it was—an iPad! He told me I would probably getting one for Christmas or my birthday, but it’s neither one of those! What a surprise!

I LOVE IT! Thanks so much, honey!

Since Rick got his back in May it’s hardly left his side. I’ve often kidded him about how his iPad can do just about everything. Well, except for one thing that I can think of! And, if it did that he wouldn’t need me at all! After just one day of playing around with it I am beginning to see the addiction. I can just see us now, sitting side by side completely engrossed in our own little iPad worlds, sending each other IM’s back and forth ... how romantic!

Yesterday I was roaming around the grounds of Skylands Botanical Gardens and came across this flowering bush. They had lots of them planted. Does anybody know what this is? The photos show the different stages of blooming through the strange pod that comes after the bloom. The branches are ebony and it’s a large bush-like plant.

Finally.

The air is crisp, the light golden and soft. As we drove to the farmer’s market in Mia on Sunday (top down) we both had our seat heaters on and light jackets. The wind tugged at the brim of my hat, threatening to dislodge it from my head. I thought that spring and summer were the best times for a convertible, but I was wrong. Fall definitely is.

At the market we bought apples for a pie, acorn squash which we’ll make tonight, and lots of veggies to go into a stew that I will make tomorrow as the predicted Nor’easter brings us rain—lovely rain.

The trees are starting to change. Just in the one week that we’ve been home we’ve seen a big change. Today I took all three dogs for a walk (two at once, then Bella). While on my walk with the dogs I noticed some things I wanted/needed to photograph. What follows is the beginnings of fall where I live.

Virginia creeper along our chain link fence.

Love that red!

The leaves of this particular kind of tree (of which I do not know the species!) look like web-fingered hands.

The day was nice, but with spotty clouds obscuring the sun at times. Not the most ideal conditions for taking photos but sometimes the lack of sun is a good thing. I decided to walk down to Green Turtle Pond to see how the colors were coming along. It’s coming along nicely.

I can predict a canoe paddle soon!

More creeper!

Fall ... you’ve gotta love it! I know I do. Now we just need to get all that wood moved in time for fire season!

We arrived home Tuesday night around 6:30 p.m. after a brief stop at the local grocery store. Our trip home was uneventful. On the last day we faced rain most of the day while driving through Ohio and Pennsylvania but it wasn’t too bad. We had a good book on tape and that kept us occupied for most of the day. When we turned off of I-80 onto Green Pond Road we were caught by surprise by the twisty, turning road. Whoa, I said to Rick as we careened around the corner a little too fast, you’d better slow down. We aren’t driving in a straight line anymore! We had gotten so used to the wide, straight roads of the west that our dear familiar little roads were strangers to us.

Where did the three weeks go? Good question. I have no idea. Life at the cabin is so different that it seems surreal to me now. Like being transported to a different country to live. The culture is different, the landscape is certainly different. Since we’ve had the cabin for so many years it’s like another house of ours. It’s completely outfitted, especially in the kitchen. It always amazes us that we have all the right tools for cooking as we tend to forget those kinds of things in the year long gap between visits. So for us it’s not really like a vacation destination; it’s home. We completely immerse ourselves when we are there.

I feel odd and slightly out of sorts. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to be home. It’s just that it takes a little time to get readjusted. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. My own house and surroundings are kind of like strangers to me for the first few days. The dogs, however, have no such qualms. They’ve taken up all their old habits and sleeping places without missing a beat.

It was still summer when we left; now it’s obvious it’s autumn here. Yesterday I donned jeans for the first time in I can’t remember when. While at the cabin I wore shorts (and I have scratched up legs to show for it) since it was in the 70’s during the day and even hit 80. Unheard of for this time of year up there. After looking at deep blue skies with no clouds and a searing sun, we now have clouds, some drizzly rain and a high temperature yesterday of 62. Yeah, definitely more my speed. I get tired of the sun, I really do. We had all these cozy comfort food lines up to make at the cabin that we ended up not cooking since it was so unseasonably warm. We grilled a lot more instead. Hopefully our weather will stay conducive to cozy stew-soup-braises kind of food. Bring it on!

So now it’s back to real life again. There are so many things waiting to be done here that it’s hard to know where to start. We need to move wood underneath the deck for our winter supply and then stack the new cord of wood that is still waiting in a big heap. We need to contact John Deere and order a leaf attachment for our mower since we don’t think it’s a good idea to mulch all our leaves for a third year in a row. We need to take up all the hoses that are imbedded in our new-ish landscaping. I need to transplant some of my bee balm—Maggie are you ready to swap varieties? And the list goes on and on.

This weekend we have plans with friends to luncheon at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY) and to do the Walkway over the Hudson. Should be fun! Rick and I have done the walk before when my sister was here back in May and it was lovely. Hopefully now the trees will have some color.

Then the following weekend we’ll be back up in the same area (only a bit further North) for the Sheep & Wool Festival in Rhinebeck. We had so much fun last year! I thought Rick would be bored but he wasn’t. Not at all. This time I will go with at least one project in mind to buy yarn for. I haven’t been knitting much, which is sad. I hope this winter to get together with neighbor Aileen to have some knit fests. Maybe neighbor Kim might want to learn too.

Did I tell you that I’ve signed up for pottery classes? They start on November 1st. I took one a long time ago when we were first married through our local Parks & Recreation program and it was fun. We’ll see where that leads!

I have some more cabin posts to do, so stay tuned.

Mushrooms growing on our stack of firewood from all the rain we had while we were gone!

We put our first 585 miles behind us today: the big state of Nebraska. Sorry, folks, but talk about boring scenery! When we finally met up with the Platte River the scenery got better. It’s so brown and dry. I guess I am too acclimated to the East Coast! Please don’t take offense.

We are staying in the Days Inn with which we have a long history. My first stay here was on a trip by myself, with Sailor, on the way to breed him in Minnesota. It was pouring rain with black clouds and dark as night when we pulled in. I was hoping and praying that they took pets. They did. I walked him in the pouring rain, thunder, and lightening when we first arrived. When we came back in the desk clerk told me to gather in the downstairs hallway because there was a tornado warning. Geez. Since then we have stayed here on two previous trips to Colorado (on the way back). This marks our third stay. (Or fourth if you count the one with Sailor.)  The kitties like the room because the ground floor level rooms are slightly below ground with a lovely window sill for them to sit on and look out on the world.

Tomorrow’s goal will be to get through Iowa, Illinois, and hopefully all of Indiana, staying just 13 miles in to Ohio. We’ll see if we make it that far. If not, our Ramada Inn in Elkhart, Indiana will have to suffice. They seem to have gone downhill in the past few years and given that the no longer have the Bennigan’s Restaurant attached, it’s not as attractive. And may be the reason for the decline of the whole hotel. But, at this time of year it’s pretty much empty and a good place to walk the dogs.

We are anxious to be home now that we’ve started our return journey. Leaving the cabin this morning and hearing the last bits of water spitting out of the pipes as we drained them seemed so final. As did the closing and locking of the gate.

As I type we’ve had our meal of Hardee’s hamburgers (close by the hotel), and several glasses of good red wine. Rick is busy with his iPad and I got the computer. Bella is asleep at my feet, Hailey and Sam are asleep on one of the beds, eBay is curled up on the pillows of the other bed (on top of the sheet we bring to put on the beds), and Alex is crashed behind Rick. They will need to go out once more for potty time before we can turn in and turn out the lights on this first day of travel.

Before I go I have to say I saw one of the most pitiful sights in my life today which rates right up there with an experience I had as a teen driving from Florida to Colorado with my parents. We had stopped in Amarillo Texas and I saw a truck with an open semi trailer of dead, bloated cattle with their stiff feet all sticking up in the air. It has never left my mind.  Neither will the sight I saw today for the first time: a poultry truck. Beautiful white chickens were all stuffed into crates on top of one another. Crate upon crate. Feathers flying out behind the truck. When we passed I could see their sad eyes staring at me although it was impossible for them to move even a feather. So sad. That image will stick with me for a while. For sure.

So, sorry for that memory, but I wanted to remember it. Off to walk the dogs for final pees now and on to tomorrow’s trek.

Thank you all for sticking with me on our vacation. I’m sorry I haven’t been around to any of your own blogs, but I promise to catch up once we’re back.

‘Night.