First Snow

Almost forgot to post the picture of our first snow of the season. Our official first snow (or snowflakes) came on the 11th. We woke up to 1-2 inches of wet snow next morning, which melted completely the same day. This is our avarage. The first snow just before my birthday is what I expect every year.

Joe took me out to our favorite Cajun restaurant on my birthday to celebrate, with a fruity drink, Gulf shrimp and oyster, Voodoo wings, and bread pudding for dessert. It was a nice short escape/vacation from the chilly wet storm outside, which destroyed our local lakeshore with monster waves.

Fall Colors

It's hard to believe November is just around the corner.... Not ready. But the autumn up here has been spectacular... We've been enjoying fall colors for almost 2 months, in stages. The long lasting fall color show made us lose track of time. 
We took some drives and hikes not far from home, but a bit out of way from our daily commute routes, time to time to enjoy the season from different perspectives.
Last week when we had a tire appointment for our Subaru in town, we strolled around the neighborhood for an hour. We ended up at Park Cemetery where our wedding pictures were taken. Even that was enjoyable.

Last Sunday we took a day trip eastward along the lakeshore to Grand Marais, MI. The summer tourist season is over, so we enjoyed the quiet drive on rural roads. The highlight was rock picking on different beaches. As we walked on the beach with the setting sun after dinner, the fog line moved in like stage curtains. A cool dramatic effect... except no chance of observing the meteor showers predicted for that night.

Grape Jelly!

On Monday evening Joe picked our first batch of grapes. In an hour he selectively picked only fully ripe bunches to fill a grocery bag full. Almost 15 pounds. Then he spent 2 more hours taking the stems off. All the hard work was done. So today, my day off, I had my first jelly making session of the season. Our goal is to stock up on enough grape jelly to last for a year of PBJ sandwich lunch for the two of us. Surely we have enough grapes this year. We will be sharing our jelly with everyone. 

End of Trout Season

We both took the last weekend of trout season off from work, including Monday. Joe got to start his weekend on Friday afternoon. He fished Apple Creek in rain and came home with 2 salmon, about 22". We fully intended to fish the rest of weekend, so I watched a YouTube video to fillet the fish, which took a fraction of space in the freezer.
The weekend forecast didn't look the best. Saturday being the nicest day, we took a small road trip. Of course, we had to fish a little on the road. We didn't catch a big one, but the fall color was beautiful.

Lake of the Clouds... it had been a while. We did some rock picking on the beach, but mostly watched our changing skies with dramatic clouds. We were really hoping for the sky to clear at night to be able to see northern lights. We ended up staying up past midnight at the lakeshore close to home, just as the thin cloud cover moved in. Oh well.

Sunday we went back to Apple Creek. It was rather quiet in the woods. Fish were not very active, though we saw a few underwater. The only good size fish we caught was my brown trout, which probably came upstream to spawn. I let it go after the picture was taken. You can tell the fish is still alive!

On our way home after fishing, we stopped to try a new BBQ smoke house. Everything was very tasty.... we'll have to introduce it to our friends. After this treat though, we worked hard at home, finishing painting the rest of house, at least as high as we could reach. Only because it didn't rain as predicted. Phew.

Monday, the last day of trout season, was stormy all day. Thunder and heavy rain on and off. We needed a pick-me-up, so I made an oven-baked pancake with wild apples for breakfast. We kept checking the hourly weather forecast, hoping to go out fishing one last time later in the day. We did drive to check out the river at 5pm, but the water level was too high to fish or even access at some areas. So ended another season. We must say it was a pretty good season.