signs of the season

Tonight I am all alone. Nick is with the guys from his work at the Mariner's game, enjoying their "diamond club" seats. Must be nice to have an employer who treats you to these kinds of things! I work for a non-profit and therefore don't have any employee perks, except maybe for my wonderful boss - love that lady!

So tonight I decided to pick our apple tree before it got too dark. I did a lot of trimming on the tree this past spring, so the apples were able to get more sunlight. They are the biggest we've ever had! It probably helped that we had a very warm and dry summer as well. One thing I have noticed, though, is that this year we have had a big worm/bug problem. I'd say about a third of the apples I cut into were gross and chewed up on the inside. We have never used pesticide but have never had this problem. 40# of Gravenstein (?) apples picked from our tree

Oh well! I went through and picked the tree nearly clean, throwing aside the apples that looked compromised. Now I'm waiting for a neighbor from down the road to come pick them up. She has gotten into canning this year and has a house full of kids to help eat it. I've already made about 15 quarts of applesauce for ourselves this year. Hopefully our son likes applesauce when he gets here, otherwise I'll never get rid of it! One of my not-so-helpful helpers