Creepy Crawlies

This year we bought our usual season passes to Pinehaven Farm.




What's the verdict? Pinehaven. Pretty cool.


Fall not only brings a ridiculous number of ladybugs, bees, caterpillars and box elders, but last week we also saw a ton of these guys:
Salamanders...


Snakes (unfortunately there seems to be a ton of corn snakes out at the new house)...


and deer. Which are typical, even in town, but the fawns are still too young to be afraid and they get really close. This is nothing, he moved before I could take the photo. You can see him in the shadows just to the left of the tree trunk.


Lila and I took some photos in the pretty fall leaves while we waited for Elsa's bus.



Today we went to the pumpkin patch with our neighbor and her daycare kids. They really know how to pose!



Here are a couple of dance photos from tonight - I couldn't get a good one of both of them. They really enjoy the class, and Elsa is tells me that "Lila is actually a good listener!" lol.



Here's how awesome of a gardener I am, not to mention groundskeeper: it took nearly all summer for me to notice that we had a huge pile of pumpkin vines growing in our backyard. Once I finally did notice, it was only thanks to the yellow orbs that started to materialize. A couple weeks ago I finally went to check it out up close, and sure enough, we had over 25 pumpkins growing! Our old pumpkins had been tossed out last year, and then probably covered with some leaf clippings from the mower. It was quite the surprise crop.