Signs Of Autumn

Although not quite officially fall, the signs are evident that it is close at hand.

The final garden flowers.

We picked the grapes from our Concord grape vine earlier this month.  We had enough juice to make three batches of grape jelly (12 pints).  My brother generously offered the grapes from his vine and even picked them for me and delivered them to our house.  In total, I made six batches (24 pints) of jelly, froze 10 cups of juice (equivalent to 8 more pints of jelly) and made a quart of grape juice that we drank.  I’m quite certain that I don’t want to look at another grape for a very long time.  We are stocked with grape jelly for the entire school year of lunch boxes filled with PB&J’s.

Sophia’s school had a “Harvest Festival” this week.  Students were asked to bring in something from their garden to show during the festival.  We still have carrots, peppers, tomatoes and apples, but Sophia decided a bouquet is what she wanted to share with her fellow schoolmates.

She won 1st prize for her bouquet.

We were fortunate that the festival was early in the week.  We had a hail storm come through on Wednesday which shredded the leaves on our few remaining garden plants, our grape vine and took many leaves and small branches off the trees.  A few hours after the storm had passed, this was what still remaining on the top of our rain barrel.

The decks were littered with pieces of foliage and sticks.

We are planning to get outside tomorrow to take care of sweeping the decks and cleaning up the yard.  A little bit of nice weather would be nice so that we can also enjoy my nephew’s soccer game Saturday and Sebastian’s last day of baseball camp on Sunday.