A view from the...back deck

Who the heck is going to rake these leaves?

It's officially the best time of the year.

Okay, I may be a little biased because I get to break out my Halloween decorations at the stroke of midnight on September 30th but it's only because I've been waiting for 11 months to have pumpkins and ghosties around my house and not have people look at me oddly.

Today we took Vyolette to her first pumpkin patch complete with apple-picking and hayrides. We passed up the mega-pumpkin-superville places for an actual farm (and no pumpkin-eating dinosaur) to chat with a fella on horseback about the difference in apples grown in the lovely Shenandoah Valley.