What a Gorgeous Fall Day

We had temps in the mid-70's today, so we took a walk on one of our local trails to see if there was any autumn leaf color. 

 We saw very little color, but the September scenery was gorgeous!

This path is just a short distance from one of the main roads in our town.  The bridge in the distance is the road. You would never know that this beauty existed just a few feet away as you traveled through our town.

 Did you see the reflection of the trees & the clouds in the water?

A lone swan...

More swans.......

swans through the pine tree...

 Tree about to fall into the river...

Our town has miles of  walking/bike trails.  We walked only about a half mile into this trail.  I plan to go again in a week or two when the fall color explodes....I  doubt it can be any more lovely than it was today.

We Had FROST Last Night!

September 13 and FROST!  Unbelievable, even for northern lower Michigan.

I stayed inside all day.  I spent about 4 hours making chicken pot pies for the freezer.  Here they are before I topped them with homemade pie crust...this cold weather seems to have given me some energy for cooking. :)

These three individual serving pies just went in the oven for tonight's dinner (J thinks one is not enough, so I put two in the oven for him)

I also worked on changing my dining room for autumn. I finished sewing six witch dining room chair backs that I pieced last year.  I went down to the basement and I found some wonderful items that I purchased after Halloween last year.  Love that spider web table runner ... I don't even remember buying it!

I will finish the rest of the table later in the week.  What I used to do in half day, now takes me a full week! :)  I am planning to have a dinner party or two this year in early October.

Cattails in the Coleus

I had planned to do a lot of fall decorating inside this past weekend.  As it turned out, the weather was great for working in the garden, so I did just a small bit of outside fall decorating.

A couple of weeks ago, we stopped by the side of the road and J cut down some cattails for me so I could use them for autumn decorating.

Sunday I stuck a few of them in this coleus planter on the side of the garage. I also added a small scarecrow.

Then I plunked a pumpkin in this old floor lamp container on the deck. I added three more cattails:

That's a far I got on the autumn deck décor.  It was such a beautiful weekend, that I spent all my time moving plants and cutting down those that were finished for the year.

I just watched our local weather forecast for the next few days..........OMG.....down in the 30's for night time lows!  I am so glad I enjoyed my weekend outside in the last few days of summer rather than doing autumn décor inside!

In it's Former Life it Was....

A drinking fountain!

Corina guessed it correctly in the post below. :)

 

 

Can You Guess What this Tall Focal Point Container Began Life As?

Look way down the center path to the end.  Do you see the tall planter in the center of the Sedum Autumn Joy?

From another side:

From behind:

 Close up from the side:

 Frontal close up...

Any idea what this container began its life as in 1978?

Fall Colors & Good Eats

Loved this salad I made last night with fresh tomatoes, cukes and mozerella cheese.

I have a lot of gold/orange in the garden this week. Lots of black-eyed Susans. They go nicely with J's marigolds.

Golden orange cosmos and orange dahlias on the deck:

And soon there will be a big orange flower on top of the blue container. Yes, the Tropicanna Gold has started to throw up some bid buds.

Hope you are all enjoying your own fall garden colors!