Autumn Harvest

I love this season! Fall has always been my favorite time of year - cooler temperatures, changing leaves, birthdays of so many special friends and family, Auburn football, gardening: we always add new snapdragons and pansies to our flower beds, and they are some of my favorite flowers. These last 2 weeks have included some new fall opportunities. One was when we had a fun "field trip" to the Birmingham Zoo last week, and spontaneously started gathering leaves we saw. I never noticed the huge variety there are on the zoo's grounds. We even found some unusual seed pods. The kids really enjoyed finding a large collection of different sizes, colors, and shapes of leaves. When we got home, we pressed them for a few days, and then identified most of them. Together, we designed a wreath, so we could enjoy seeing our finds daily. We're so pleased with the results!
Then, today was the first day of our participation in a produce co-op. I didn't know exactly what to expect, having never done this before, and man, was a I pleasantly surprised! The laundry basket above shows how many fruits and vegetables we received. So many good things: broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, onions, celery, bananas, pears, apples, oranges, grapes - and everything so far has been tasty and fresh. We even had enough to share with a couple of friends. My hope is that we'll eat better, having a good quantity of fruits and veggies around, and I'm excited to get this much quality food, for such a good price!