Today dawned grey and cool. Autumn is definitely here. I find myself wearing a woolen jumper and a beanie. The weather forecast is for rain and as I write this in the evening, it has come. Sou’westerly across our front deck. I’m glad to have the fire lit and a pot of soup cooking over the stove.

As I walked the dogs this morning I decided to take a bit of a detour over an old overgrown track. It was a bit of a bush-bash through regenerating undergrowth, some of it taller than me! The foliage was still moist with the morning dew and so dense that I couldn’t see where I was placing my feet. The odd gorse bush gave me a prickly scrape as I edged past them. I envied the dogs running along underneath the branches!

Although I was a bit scraped and had a struggle to move forward, it felt so good! The birds were singing; tui and bellbirds while fantails followed me fluttering in the trees. The cloud was lifting to reveal a light blue sky scattered with grey. Every now and then I’d stop and look through the bush to the forest floor. What fungi was to be found? Any interesting plants or other things to look at? It’s amazing what you see when you stop to really look. I was not disappointed.

After the animals were seen to and we had breakfast it was time to set Kayden to his school work for the day. I made up a Math task for him; he was given a list of shapes which he had to go outside and find examples of, photograph them, then put them into a labeled cell in a table on his computer. He enjoyed it and I was pretty happy with what he did. He then decided to play Math games on the computer. I set to and started the long overdue task of cleaning our pantry. Not the most glamorous of jobs, but very necessary.

By the time I stopped for lunch, the sun was out and I had cabin fever. I must admit to enjoying a reasonably tidy house but I’m not over excited about house work! I made a roll, poured a mug of tea, grabbed my book and headed out into the sun for a break!

This afternoon we wanted to strip the apple trees in the orchard. I love birds but the wax-eyes were creating havoc with our apples and if we wanted any they would need to come off the tree. It was the whole team down to help. Laurie and Kayden brought the ladder down and we picked every last apple off two trees.

No prizes for guessing what I’ll be doing tomorrow!!!