Carpe Diem: Fall Festivities

Fall has officially hit the Vinson's, complete with a trip to upstate NY for Deerfoot's fall work weekend and a trip to the orchard and pumpkin patch at a local farm. At Styer Orchards we got to take a ride on a hay wagon out to the orchard to pick a few (not quite a bushel) of our own choice apples for some pie later on. From there we walked up to the pumpkin patch, which was pretty well picked over by the time we got there, so we ended up choosing pumpkins from back at the barn. Cathy found a great one, sticking to the rule that she had to carry it back to the car. I bought a few butternut squash and made some killer butternut squash and apple bisque soup, with a few extra jars worth.

That was this past weekend; the weekend prior to that, Columbus Day weekend, Lauren and I and Seth drove up to Deerfoot for an extened weekend of work in the great outdoors. Cathy couldn't make it because of work, and we had a great time without her there. Oops, I mean in spite of the fact that she wasn't there. We had gorgeous fall weather; it frosted overnight, but during the day it got up to 60 or so with bright sunshine. We definately had our work cut out for us, Seth and I were overseeing the construction of a log framed storage shed about 25' x 35', and all we had when we got there was a concrete slab to build it on. We wasted no time. Seth took off into the woods with another guy and they felled about 10 or 15 trees and had a crew of guys with a truck hauling them back to the site. Meanwhile, Lauren and I worked on a layout and drilled some holes for post anchors. We sketched some "blueprints" on the concrete slab so we would have something to go off of once the logs were ready. After the logs started coming in, we had a crew of people start peeling the bark off of the trees; we do that so that it doesn't trap moisture against the wood or allow bugs a place to set up house.