Fall has arrived!

This past weekend, Lo Gung and I took the kids out for a little grocery shopping at one of our favorite places - Stew Leonard's. It was a perfect day - a little overcast, a little breezy, a little sunny. No humidity. The pumpkins are out at Stew's, and so are the local apples. The cows, sheep, turkeys, ducks, goats and chickens are still roaming around in their little barnyard out front. I told Lo Gung that if Connecticut could have weather like this -all- the time, I'd be a pretty happy camper!

He looked me in the eye and said, "Honey. This is Seattle weather."

Oh. Ok. Guess this girl still prefers her days a little overcast and dry, with a side of Autumn!

In light of the gorgeous weather this week, the kids and I went out to play in the yard, camera in tow.
(I'll admit right now that we don't spend a ton of time out in the backyard. Actually, hardly any at all. There's the lake to worry about, plus the BUGS. Nobody ever told me about the bugs out here. If it's not ants, it's spiders. If it's not spiders, it's mosquitoes. If it's not mosquitoes, it's ticks. Ever heard of Lyme disease? Yeah - it's named after LYME, Connecticut. Heh. Then there were these crazy flying bugs...they're the size of large mosquitoes, but they're green...and look just like little fairies, floating around the yard. Anyone know what they are?)
So, I thought I'd give y'all a quick tour of the back yard. It really is beautiful, and one of the reasons we took this house when we moved out here!

This is a little "well." It's kitschy, yes, but...well, it's got water in it. Eww, right? Our house actually draws water from a well. For some reason, beyond my limited understanding, there is an area of the yard that is a swamp. (It has skunk cabbage and everything!) This little well serves as a reminder not to go over there - it's wet!

This is our stump. It's not much, but it's ours. The termites call it home. It's a good home...and a good 100 yards from the house. Nice and far!

This is the crown jewel of the yard - the riding lawnmower. Well...it would be a riding lawnmower, if anybody rode it. You can't see from these pictures, but the house is waaaay above us, at the top of a steep hill. Our landlord lived here with his family for 10 years before moving and renting it out. He loved this house.
Anyhow, Mr. Landlord set out to mow the lawn one day, on his new riding lawnmower. (It's a big lawn!) He mowed down one side...and there he stopped.

He couldn't get the lawnmower back up the hill.

Oops.

So, there the lawnmower has sat.

For 11 years.

Poor sad lawnmower.

(See all that wood stacked behind it? Those are the remains of the tree that snapped in the ice storm last year. The entire tree fell towards the lake, missing our swingset by about a foot. The tree hit the frozen lake and the branches shattered. There is still a little stick sticking up out of the lake - one of the branches that broke off and sank when the ice melted in the spring.)

Here are the highlights of our afternoon!
(clockwise, left to right: The tractor, our copious lily pads, Siu Jeun with the lake in the background, our "wishing well", the view across the lake - a small park, leaves that have yet to change, BBJ swinging with Siu Jeun stranded on his blanket - he didn't think much of crawling on the grass, and Siu Jeun eating a (walnut?) shell that he managed to reach from his blanket-y prison. His lips were orange for hours!)