Welcome to our Autumn Garden

Hello there...welcome to our autumn home and garden. It's dahlia time once again, and I just knew you would love for me to share the beauties that we grew this year. One big difference was that we were able to winter over all our tubers (we dug them up) and didn't have to buy any. We actually remembered to wet them down each month during the winter. One result was that we got more of individual flowers and less variety. An interesting change.

A really nice patch of dahlias, and I have so enjoyed them.

We got a variety of 'mutated' dahlias this year, interesting specimens.

 This one was a two sided dahlia, with two different dahlias grown right together. Two sides, one bloom. At least they color co-ordinated.

And yes, it is an Autumn garden now days. 

Virginia Creeper is brilliant

                               

Burning bush and autumn sedum

Sumac just starting to turn

And lovely crab apples putting on fruit and leaves changing. Yes, definitely 

autumn colors. But the leaves are still on and theres a bit of Indian Summer left too. I love this time of year in the garden. Hope you do too!

Tourist Spelunking

Well, finally here is the next post...whew that took me a while to get to it. Anyway, while Joy and Macy were here we decided it would be fun to visit a local cave for some spelunking adventure. We drove out south of us in lava flow country, parked and got out our lunch. We haven't had a picnic together in quite a while, and it was fun and made us wonder why we don't do it more often. Simple good food, sunlight on the pine trees and family...a great mix.

The insurance man  took an afternoon off and we were all glad he was with us.
The cave we went to is called Lava River Cave, and it is a large lava tube running underneath Highway 97, and was originally found in the 1930's. Today it's a tourist attraction. Back in the day that we were raising our three girls, we investigated this cave, as well as three other local caves. Some were flat, some rocky and all adventurous. So now it's the granddaughters' turn to do a little cave exploration.

We look prepared, with jackets, gloves, headlamps, a walking stick for me, and smiles!

 On our way....

Nice to have ramps over the rocks as you descend.

 It's quite a ways down into the cave, and it's an even 42 degrees all year round. 

There were several informative signs along the way which was helpful. When Macy started she was hanging back and wouldn't let go of her mother's hand. By the middle, she was running ahead of all of us, and telling us to hurry up! We had a fun few minutes when we turned off all our lights, and actually FELT darkness. Macy was OK with that, because there really were no living things in the cave (besides people). 
A fun time, and probably my last time, so I thoroughly enjoyed it.

August Doings

 We have been spending time in Burns with my in-laws. Good summer times together. Here we are relaxing in the shade of their front porch and watching the world go by.

 We always enjoy good food together, and Mom baked an apricot pie...my first! Her pies are always great!

We had a visit from granddaughter Kory, always a fun time.

We wanted to cook together, so we tried out a ham and veggie Risotto. It took a lot of stirring, but between the two of us, it wasn't bad at all....and the results were tasty! With a bit of fresh dill on top.

We got creative with breakfast too, and made an Eggs Benedict, only used fresh spinach instead of an English Muffin (gluten free) and I tried a Hollandaise sauce made in the blender. Loved how easy it was. We took it outside to eat, and it sure was fun having Kory here. She has now officially begun her first year as a high school science teacher. Good luck Kory!

 Next came a week's visit from Joy and Macy. We were blessed to have Macy with us for two weeks this summer. 

One night I put on some Frank Sinatra, good dancing music of course. We listened to music and danced as the sun went down on another beautiful summer day.

 Joy is a walker these days, and an early  morning one at that. She got up the first morning and enjoyed a great walk at sunrise, with the beautiful Cascade mountains in view...

and along our canal. After she got back, she joined the sleepyheads, and we all went for a walk together.

 One night we had a bonfire in the back yard, complete with S'mores. 

 A really fun time together as a family,

and Aunt JoAnn joined us too. We really enjoyed their summer visit. More about that in the next post.