Lovely Trees

Thanks to all the rain we've been having here the past month -I think it has rained at some time or other almost every day since Labor Day -I haven't been out walking Sam near as much as I should. My walks with him haven't been near regular enough to really do me much good in the exercise department, mainly because too many days my joints have been really notifying me -big time -that they are there and not happy about walking much. I've not had many walks this past summer where I went the distances I normally walked last summer due to the combination of the yucky, wet weather and the aches firing up on me a lot quicker on those walks then too.

I did however get a couple of pictures about two weeks ago that I meant to write a post about the trees but got waylaid by some other important matter of some sort I guess.

This is how the trees just down the road from my house looked about two weeks ago -just starting to turn colors a tiny bit.

And this view, is just past the area in the first picture and was taken two weeks prior to the first picture. Everything the end of August was still all nice and green and quite lovely and two weeks later, autumn painting had begun!

This tree -or bush -is located at the corner of the property catty-cornered from my house and I had never noticed this one before this year. I don't know why, but just never noticed it so, if it had something in the way of a fruit or whatever on it in previous years, I'd not seen them. But I saw them this year and have to confess I have no idea whatsoever what kind of tree/bush this is and therefore, certainly have no clue as to what it is producing on it either. So, if you will, take a closer look at the "fruit" and see if you can identify it for me!

Here's a picture of one of the three apple trees located along the dirt road down the street from my home -and which Sammy and I walk past on most of our strolls. This tree has been just loaded with apples this year! Around the end of August, Mandy, Ken and Maya took a great big bucket (I think it's a 5-gallon size) with them one day when they were walking Sammy and filled that bucket to the brim with apples they picked up that were on the ground and presented them to me to use for applesauce or pies or whatever. These apples are really remarkable to me in that the trees are totally untended, certainly have never been sprayed or anything, and when I peeled them, I never came across a single wormy apple!

This apple tree is almost across the road from the one above and as you can see, it had produced a very large crop of apples this year too. But by the time I took the photo of the first apple tree -two weeks after this picture was taken -this tree had shed almost all its apples! Both trees yield a very tart apple, but they do cook up well for applesauce and/or pies!

This picture was taken of an area along the old road going down to Peale -the ghost town -and just behind that log across the little rill or ditch there, are all kinds of big mushrooms growing. I have no clue if they are the kind of mushrooms one can pick and cook with as I never learned how to differentiate which are good and which are poisonous, but never noticed as many mushrooms growing around here as there seem to be this fall!

This is the beginning of the wooded area behind where the apple trees are growing -which is the hillside behind my house directly in the middle and to the right, is the woods on the way out Cooper Two Road. Sam and I occasionally walk that road out Cooper Two Road and up to where the mine reclamation project was last year. This year, I have no walked up the mountain though on Cooper Two Road and up to the reclamation area but I do have a very good view of that project down at the end of my road, where Peale Road begins. Unfortunately, my little camera can't capture that view very well though so I have no shots of that this year.

About two or three weeks ago, we had visitors here at our house! These are my two lovely nieces -Angela and Heather -who had come here for the weekend to attend their Mom's baby sister's wedding.

And here are the cousins -Maya, Lizzie, Kurtis and Gracie -when they were here for a short visit that weekend. Maya is four days older than Lizzie so both those girls will be 8 this month now. Kurtis, of course -the thorn between the roses, ya know -is 5 now and little Gracie, is four! We hadn't seen Angie, Heather and the girls for three years so, when I happened to hear some voices in the yard and looked up from my garden to see two little girls running up the steps to our back deck, I had no idea who in blazes those kids were! Until I walked up to the deck myself and got a closer look -plus Angie came out of the kitchen to the deck then too and of course, I recognized her immediately! Aren't they a cute little group though?

This is Maya, last Saturday at Burger King, doing what apparently is one of her "interpretive" dances in honor of my son's girlfriend's little boy (Ryan) for his birthday celebration there!

Here's Elizabeth -Clate's girlfriend -putting the finishing touches on a special cake she fixed for Ryan's party. It's all different kinds of fruits -cantelope, honeydew, watermelon -stuck into a cake via toothpicks. Now, this is something that held absolutely NO interest whatsoever for Maya and Kurtis as those two picky ones wouldn't dream of touching any of those tidbits of fruit, not even if their lives depended on it! But, the other little kids there cleaned house on those pieces of melon! See Maya -some kids do have good tastebuds after all!

Kurtis -getting into the swing of things with his own special dance techniques!

And finally, here's Ryan -the birthday boy himself! He was being a tad on the shy side when we got this shot of him, but the shyness was very short-lived (as it usually is with Ryan) and he quickly took command of things and was racing and chasing around the place, having himself a high old time! (That's my son standing beside Ryan there.)

And that's about what's been happening around my little neck of the world -short walks with the dog, watching trees change color and judging apple production levels with a short but very much enjoyed and appreciated visit by my nieces and great-nieces this past month!

Hope the weather begins to dry up a bit here soon so I can get a few more nice walking days in and here's hoping that Angie and Heather (my very favorite nieces, both of 'em) along with Lizzie and Gracie have an opportunity to come back and visit again soon and when they can stay a little longer then too!