The best time of year

I love September. It's still warm, but the days are getting shorter and the sun has a kind of lazy quality. I love to sit on the deck in the morning sun and watch birds fly around the garden and listen to their songs. There's a feeling in the air of things starting to wind down.

This September was a busy month. I had planted my tomatoes late in the season, so by September they were coming on strong. I usually roast and then freeze part of the crop and puree and preserve the rest. Mixed together later on, they are a perfect consistency and flavour for pizza or pasta sauce. 

This year, I decided to get tricky and pressure-can the roasted tomatoes to save on freezer space. Which worked quite well, except for the one jar that didn't seal and when I lifted it out of the pressure cooker it exploded all over the front of me. A perfectly round piece of skin, about the size of a dime, came right off the tip of my nose, and there were a few other smaller burned spots on my face. And some of the scalding bits of tomato went inside my robe and burned me in unmentionable places.

Here they sit, seemingly innocuous but actually rather deadly.

It was to be a few weeks of clumsiness and accidents on my part. I fell off my bike and sprained my wrist, broke the blender jar out at Vista House, sliced my finger badly while making a food cup for Shirley, burned a potful of boiled eggs, mistakenly left a pan of tomatoes roasting in the oven overnight not once but TWICE (!), and had several other bad spills and burns and accidents that I can't recall right this moment. I finally decided that I needed to start thinking proactively every time I embark on a task instead of plunging into it, and the strategy seems to be working.

TWENTY-THREE DAYS ACCIDENT-FREE, PEOPLE!

Jazzed I am!

Anyhoo. 

In the midst of my clumsy period, my dear friends from New Zealand came to visit for a couple of days. The weather was perfect and they went to see the Spruce Goose and the Portland Temple and one evening I showed them some of the local city sights.

I love friendly visits. I can't get enough of them. We used to get lots of friendly visits when we lived ten minutes from Disneyland. Living in the wilds of Oregon really helps you to identify your TRUE friends, because only true friends will travel this far out of their way to see you.

On another perfect late-summer evening, Jeff and I went to see Home Free. 

Jeff said I was smiling funny, but it's because I had gum in my mouth.

Sorry.

If you're one of the five people in the civilized world who haven't heard of this group (who are immensely easy on the eyes as well as the ears) check this out. 

And, during the concert, I self-diagnosed myself with age-induced crotchetiness.
Tell me, in all seriousness, why certain loud-mouthed women will always insist on calling out lewd comments to band members, both during and between the songs? It quite ruins a concert for me. I go to hear the music, not women who have too high an opinion of their own delightfulness.

Anyhoo.
Mid-month, I was lucky enough to have the Mitchell kids overnight while Mom and Dad had a well-deserved break. On Saturday morning we needed to get out of the house, so we went to a local park, thinking that it was Oktoberfest.

Well, it wasn't.

But we had fun anyway.

And then we stopped at Lori's Little Free Library to nab some books.

And then the little darlings cajoled me into visiting the frozen yogurt shop.

Daniel is such a softie for his wee sister.

And we were all very excited, because later that day we were expecting some very important visitors.