Apples and Bones

Our kitchen table is piled high with buckets of apples and the house is filled with their aroma. I spent most of yesterday afternoon watering and weeding the pumpkin patch.
Is there any better time of year than fall?
Cold mornings and 80-degree afternoons and leaves everywhere you look. This is when I remember why I was so desperate to move to the Northwest.
Of course at our house, the fall means the machinery of School creaks and roars back to life for the four of us. This morning, Teenage Son starts his first day of his Junior year in H.S., I start my first day with 5th and 6th graders both at school, and TH marches off to a substitute job in town with--get this!--bilingual first-graders. (Good thing he has has had plenty of multicultural experiences at home.)
Meanwhile, Delicate Flower is saying goodbye to friends and putting the last touches on packing she has worked on all week. She moves into her apartment in University City next Monday, but she'll actually come back home for two weeks before school starts.
It sounds pretty idyllic, but as I try to write this, Teenage Son is vying for water rights with Delicate Flower, (she wants to wash clothes, he needs to take a shower--can't do both at the same time around here.) Earlier this morning, I spent time hammering away at the garden gate after Rosco somehow managed to weasel his way into my compost pile. Rosco is currently chasing Darryl around the house in circles, as Darryl swipes at him every so often with a fistful of claws.
It's my hope that Rosco will settle down in his crate with the giant bone that our neighbors gave him as a treat, just as Daniel and I leave for school.
And that would be a perfect morning.