You know its fall when...

1. your produce drawer is filled with apples (again)and you find yourself making vats of applesauce. You look up apples in your cookbook index trying to find ways to use up the apples other than apple pies... I can tolerate about 1 pie a year. I am not a pie person.
2. You head to Costco only to find out that everyone else is there buying Christmas decorations and life santas and frosties that sing. The line is so long it stretches past the snowpants. I took a photo but for some reason Blogger is refusing to allow me to post it.
3. The Laity pumpkin patch opens and you start contemplating various pumpkin recipes.
4. You have a desire to knead bread and find yourself making hearty whole grain breads from scratch.
5. It is dark out when the kids do their homework at night.
6. You pull your crock pot out and start looking at various roasts in the meat department. Pot roast actually sounds good... sort of. You opt for bbq pulled beef instead.
7. There are signs at the meat market about ordering fresh turkeys and when you inquire you find out you actually missed the deadline!
8. It is chilly in the morning and at night and you actually want to snuggle under warm clothes or take a hot bath.
9. Corduroy makes a comeback.
10. White wine loses its appeal and you start drinking red wine again.

I'll know its winter when I open a bottle of Cab Franc or start coveting my bottles of Port.

This is the first year in a long time that I had to buy pounds of apples for my annual apple baking. We eat a lot of apples at our house. Gorilla eats one a day. I tend to eat one a day too. I am not a fan of cooked fruit but cooked apples I like. I like crumble, I like apples with chicken, I like apples. The last time I had to buy apples was when we first moved into the last house and our recently planted apple trees were not yet productive. I bought the apples off the Farmer's wife and happily peeled, canned, sauced and made juice from a million and one apples. True to form, I did not make pies. I enjoy apple pie, once. In theory it sounds good to me, but if I make and freeze pie filling, it ends up in a crumble. Pre-made pies grow beards and become senior citizens in my freezer.

After that our apple trees took off and became ridiculoulsy productive...To the point that I had to give them away. I gave apples to various food banks, the homeless, Velvet Queen to give to the horses and various single mothers whom I am friends with. They weren't the world's best apples but they were good for cooking and hey, they were free.

But lack of fruit trees aside, I am loving my new house. I am starting to think about decorating hence the poppy and the peed on couch reference on the links. Decorating is an initially slow process for me... I can't walk in and make a choice, I need to feel the space. When we moved in I had to pick paint colors in one day and I almost threw up from the stress of it!!! I need to see how the sun hits the walls, and how I feel in a room before I can make a choice like paint. But I'm feeling it now and ideas are coming to me so it must be fall, time to curl up under a blanket, do a little nesting and get cozy.