Bellewood Acres

Normally by the time the first week of October rolls around, I’ve written a blog post about fall and how much I love it. And normally by the time the first week of October rolls around, we’ve had quite a fair bit of fall-like weather and activity.

This year is anything but normal.

August was the driest August EVER on record. September was the 2nd driest September EVER on record, being wetter than the #1 driest September by about 1/100th of an inch. I think it rained one night. A little. The ground wasn’t even wet in the morning.

So far October is having the same trend.

Now, that’s not to say we aren’t seeing some signs of fall…we are. The leaves are changing, the nights are cool, we’ve had foggy mornings and even a couple mornings with a tad bit of frost. But it’s really warm during the day – in the 70’s warm. This past Thursday we went to Bethany’s XC meet out at Birch Bay (quite possibly the coolest spot in western WA without going into the mountains because of the wind off the water) and Becca was playing in shorts and a tank top. And the fire danger…well…it’s dangerously high. Wildfires in Eastern WA are claiming a lot of land, and causing serious air quality problems. I’ve seen two small brush fires in the past week here in western WA and I’m pretty sure I’ve NEVER seen one before.

So, I still love fall, and I’m not going to complain about the sunshine. But we could sure use some rain. And a couple more days of frost ought to send those spiders in my shrubs “underground” so that I can do some trimming. And some cooler temperatures would make those brown sugar cinnamon mochas at my favorite coffee shop a lot more appealing. I’d love to wear some sweaters and jeans with boots and be comfortable in them all day, instead of sweltering in them for two hours in the afternoon. Is that complaining? No…just looking forward to what will inevitably come.

This past week the girls had off from school for teacher’s convention, so I convinced Ed to “work from home” on Friday so that we could have some family fun for a couple hours. We headed out to our favorite apple-picking-farm (30 cents/pound!) to pick some apples…but the lack of rain had been hard on the apples. Really dry. Small apples. Very little foliage. Brown spots. We managed to find a sackful of good ones, but had to walk 5 rows to get that many. Then we headed to a new farm locale, Bellewood Acres! We didn’t experience everything they have to offer, (I’d definitely like to go back with some of my girlfriends and enjoy some more leisurely but it was nice to be there during the week instead of on a weekend – not nearly as many people! We had some lunch…this heavenly Harvest Mac & Cheese was so rich and creamy…

I could have eaten the entire bowl. But I shared it with my family. We also shared a Grilled Cheese with aged white cheddar that was also incredibly rich and creamy. I love cheese.

The girls also shared a PB&J with Bellewood’s homemade peanut butter (which is absolutely the best peanut butter ever made in the world) and homemade raspberry jam on homemade bread. I don’t eat PB&J sandwiches, but if I was going to, that would be the one I would eat.

We walked around the store, bought some apples (which made an amazing apple crisp today for Sunday dessert), and let the girls pick out pumpkins.

Can you imagine a more beautiful setting for a pumpkin patch? What a gorgeous day it was!