So Long to the Farm ~ Free Range Friday

Tomorrow morning I'll hop (or gracelessly climb) onto a bus bound for San Francisco to see an old friend for a few days. Then it's the train (hey, if I can't drive it, Amtrak can do it!), over the mountains and through the woods - and towns and cities - until I get to Penn Station in NYC. Then, I'm not sure yet, but I'm pretty sure Florida is on the menu before heading home. All of you I'd thought to visit via Turtle this year? Sending love isn't quite the same but it's what I've got to get there.

So today I took a little walkabout, seeing things I won't see until next time. Except for this squirrel. I think he'll be a lot of places.

He was chattering so loudly I thought it was a wild turkey.
But turkeys usually don't hang out way up in trees.
Unless it's Thanksgiving.

California passion fruit

The apples are ripening.

I got the yen for Apple Brown Betty and used some of these apples to make one. If you don't know what one is, it's that dessert they served at elementary school lunches. The ones I didn't get to buy. The ones I traded the cookies in my lunch bag for. Chunks of stale bread (or bread crumbs), brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, sliced apples - because I know these apples were never sprayed with anything but rain, I left the peels on most of the slices, butter for dotting each layer. 

I also threw in some crystalized ginger, because I could. Layer it up, put it into a 350 oven for an hour or so and enjoy. Use tart apples, it cuts the sweetness. This is one recipe, I just looked at a bunch of them and put it together as I wanted, it's not like making a soufflé. Give it a try for some old fashioned tasting.

I don't know what these are except weeds. Beautiful weeds.

Weed jewels.

There are, of course, lots of other things, but these every day sights make up this bit of my world here and it's a comfort when I come back and they are still here. Because life is good in the most simple ways. That's what I know for sure.

To the highway and byways! I know the season is changing for a lot of people in a lot of ways, kids back to school, tourist demographics on a turnaround, as well as personal changing seasons. If all we have to be concerned about are these things, we're incredibly fortunate. If we haven't been flooded out or Earl'd out, if we can come and go as we wish within whatever our boundaries are, raise a toast and be glad.

Have a fathomlessly fabulous Friday. Do something firmly.