Indian Summer

This was a lovely, summery weekend, despite the fact that it's late October. We took the dogs hiking yesterday in the forest for the first time. Stitch was hesitant at the beginning, and very apprehensive regarding trailing blackberry vines, but Lilo absolutely loved leaping through the underbrush. She seems to be equally crazy about the beach and forest, so I guess we'll have to go more often.

It was a beautiful drive up the river; the fall colors are beautiful, even if they aren't as amazing as those in the NE, mostly golds and oranges, with the few red splashes of vine maple thrown in. It is certainly striking to see bright pumpkin slashes in the deep green of the hillsides. This time of the year smells wonderful as well, the evergreen duff underfoot sweet and fragrant, woodsmoke on the breeze, and the occasional spicy whiff of myrtle leaves.

The evergreen huckleberry bushes were still chock full of berries, so we picked a bunch and had this for breakfast, which was excellent. Highly recommended!

I am getting antsy with my knitting now, NaSweKniMo starts in a week, so I can't do any big projects. I finished the wave-patterned hat for one of my nephew's for Christmas (I had to rip out & re-knit the top-- it was waaay too short), along with a stuffed snowman (decoration) and a hackey sack for R. Now I guess I should pick up my hibernating projects until I can start on my new sweater. I post pics of all my projects up on Ravelry, but any non-ravelers can see them here. And by the way, if you knit or crochet (or want to), you should join Ravelry, it's a great site!