The weather is just about perfect. Fall is giving us her best. The days are sunny, bright and warm, in the 60’s. It is still short sleeve weather. The nights are down to the 50’s, usually perfect for sleeping, but I have two dogs in bed with me who radiate a lot of heat. I keep my bedroom window open.

The leaves are changing. A few trees in my backyard have red leaves with tinges of orange. My neighbor’s bush is all red. The cranberries are being harvested. Some newly harvested cranberries are already in stores packaged in plastic bags. I’m thinking whole berry cranberry sauce. I’ll have to get some.

Nala tried to steal my sugar pumpkins. They were on the floor near the door. I found the bigger one in the hall. I checked. No fairy godmother had turned it into a wheeled carriage. The other sugar pumpkin had migrated to the dining room. Luckily, they were too heavy for her to carry too far. I moved both of them. I got them at the farm stand yesterday. I also bought a large pumpkin for the outside steps and a multi-colored mum, also for outside. They are the perfect dressing for my stairs.

When I was a kid, choosing the right pumpkin to make a Jack-o-lantern took effort. I had to turn the pumpkin to make sure both sides were rounded and had no marks. It needed a stem, a long curved stem. After picking up and turning several pumpkins, I‘d find my pumpkin, bright orange, perfectly round and stemmed. When it was time to carve my pumpkin, my mother would cover the table with newspapers and set out the tools, a knife sharp enough to cut the pumpkin but not so sharp as to cut hands or fingers and a big spoon though I liked to use my hands to pull out the guts as we called them. I remember the strands of pumpkin studded with seeds hanging from my hand and fingers. It was wonderfully gross.

I always think of fall as the season of pies. The apples are out, so many different varieties, so many shades of red and green. When I saw them piled in the store, I thought of apple pies and apple tarts. My mother made great apples pies. The crust was browned and flaky. The top crust shined from the egg wash and the sugar crystals. The pie was tall, high with apples. My father warmed his and ate it with cheddar cheese. I liked my pie plain though sometimes I did top it with vanilla ice cream. Pies never lasted long in our house.