uhm, not me. The plastered one I mean. Although I do like my wine ... No, I was speaking of the weather we had on Saturday. Really windy and nearly two inches of rain. The leaves at times rained down like wet confetti and stuck to the windows, deck—you name it—driven there by the wind and the rain. It toppled my mums. The tree tops swayed alarmingly to and fro and I had visions of a power outage. But none occurred.

Here is my shadow (in baggy robe) trying to get some of the leaves decoupaged onto the deck from this morning.

I didn’t really mean to get myself in the shot, it just happened that way.

Today was the last farmer’s market in Warwick for the season. boohoo. We hadn’t been in several weeks and were surprised (and extremely pleased) to see a few new vendors. Mainly the mushroom vendor (hurray!) whose farm is not far away and hopefully will continue to sell their wares straight from their farm. We left our email just in case they follow through on this. She had Hen-of-the-Woods, oyster, lobster, creminis, white portabellos, and king oysters. Tomorrow we will be making a mushroom risotto from the Hen-of-the-Woods that we bought and the kings.

The other vendor had this ...

... and this that made its way home with me. Hey, I couldn’t resist local alpaca (spun with bamboo) now could I? Soft and squishy, this will make a nice scarf.

I also bought a bunch of veggies that I plan to cook a stew with in a few days when the weather is supposed to be really cold. We’ll miss the Sunday market in Warwick until it returns next Spring.

Today we also dismantled the poolside cabana. We flicked off all the little spideys hoping to make it their forever home from the screens and curtains, hung the curtains on the line to completely dry, and folded them up to store away until next year. The cabana frame still stands as it’s bolted down.

In doing so, we discovered this cool caterpillar. It was about 4 to 5 inches long and to me looks like a piece of tinsel off a Christmas Tree. It’s body sparkled so! I have no clue what Mother Nature has in store for someone who hasn’t blossomed into a butterfly at this late stage of the season. I ran my fingers down its porcupine back. This one has some natural defense going on for sure. I’m not sure the photo really captured its glitz.

That was my day today. And by the way, what you see in my blog is my real life. Not some made-up existence (which is blog fodder for another day). I’ve been working on a blog entry for days now about our wonderful hike that we took a week ago, but it’s slow going. I have so many photos that I am wondering if anyone is going to want to wade through it. But, this blog is really about me. For me. About my life. It’s my way to keep a diary (but a public one) of my life. If you choose to read and enjoy, welcome. But this is really for me. Me me me! (Thanks to all who read!)

I’ll close now with the view out my kitchen window. Who could want for anything more?

UPDATE: Thanks to Gretel who suggested the caterpillar was a moth! It is! A quick Google search came up with a Giant Leopard Moth! Follow this link to see. Here’s another photo I took blown up a bit. You can see the tiny red bands peeping through and bristles much better.

While taking photos last week at Skylands (the New Jersey Botanical Gardens) I came across these bees clustered all over these flowers. They must have known colder weather was coming and were all trying to gather that last bit of food. Even though they look like they are being industrious, they were actually quite sleepy. You know me—can’t resist a sleepy bee!

This one I call Cross(ed)-Pollination.

The night before last we had our first frost of the season. It coated everything with white sparkling crystals, turning the grass into a carpet of white. As I stood outside in my robe and slippers trying to capture some photos before the sun rose too high, the only sound I could hear was the crackling tinkle of frozen leaves falling to the ground. My breath puffed out of mouth and just hung there in the frosty air like one of those word balloons in a comic strip. ahhh ... it felt good.

The leaves that had already fallen were rimed with frost crystals like someone had knitted or crocheted a delicate lacy edging on them.

Soon the sun would penetrate the trees and melt it all away.

This is not what I planned to blog about today. I have several other posts I need to be working on but they aren’t coming easily, so this will have to do for now. Now I need to go and shower and get ready for the day. I plan to take some photos before the leaves get all blown away by the windy day we are expected to have tomorrow. Until tomorrow!

Last Sunday we loaded up the canoe and drove the less than one mile to Green Turtle Pond. I just love having this small body of water so close to us. You can see how much the trees have changed at our house in the photo above.

It was a beautiful morning: blue skies and no wind. A perfect day for paddling!

The lake’s surface was very calm and perfect for reflecting the autumn colors.

A few other people were enjoying the beautiful morning too, mostly fishermen. Since Green Turtle is a wakeless lake, only trolling motors on boats are allowed. This makes for a very peaceful paddle.

As we paddled around I couldn’t decide how to place my camera. Should I take the sky and trees or should I go with the reflection? I have to admit that the the reflections won out over and over again.

Either way, the colors were stunning.

Paddling close to the shore I spied this beautiful paper wasp’s nest.

Some trees couldn’t decide what color to be.

We paddled into my favorite part of the lake, the little cove.

And with one last look, our little trip came to an end.

The changing colors in my back yard as seen this morning. Don’t you wish you were here?

From the dictionary of Lynne
Gloriousity: in a state of gloriousness