Gray Day with hiccups.

 DH and are apparently SO busy (not) that we can't keep our calendar straight.  We drove 25 miles to a doctor's appointment that wasn't scheduled until tomorrow.  Besides that, we had a tiff because I wasn't terribly concerned about leaving at the exact minute DH wanted to leave. Because we weren't sure if he should eat or not before the appointment, we were extra cranky. 
Never fight when one of you is hungry!

At least now, we know that it really does take about 50 minutes to get there. And that if I am a few minutes behind schedule, we still make it on time.

The good news was that a consoling visit to Barnes and Noble was only a hop, skip and jump from the medical clinic.  We had a bite to eat, a browse, I did the crossword puzzle, and then we headed home.  (See below for the pictures I took on the road through Amesbury past Lake Attitash.

Before reaching the house we made a side trip to the Newton Greenhouse for Fall flower decor.
Mums are the thing around here!  (I never liked buying them in Texas because they tended to boil/fry/die there.  Seems that up here, they do okay in the snow and the summer and with adequate mulching and a little fertilizer they even bloom the following year.   I got magenta ones for near the mail box.  (And a pot of ornamental kale).  And two white pumpkins.  I have no idea what those would taste like, but they were better colors with the magenta than orange.

I also got an orange mum and a white one for one of the sets of steps you see when you drive up to the house.  Along with some cute round orange ones that are slightly smaller than soccer balls.  I wonder if deer, racoons, turkeys or bears want to eat them. After whatever rattled the bird feeder, I hope not.

 

We were being tailgated on a windy road and turned of onto a cul de sac.  Lucky me.  This particular house had the best bright trees around! Even on a gray day they were breathtaking.

    

 

We still can't get over how MANY trees there are, and how wonderful it is to drive through a tree tunnel!

 

This enormous pile of stacked wood seemed to me like more than enough.  But probably not if a wood stove is your only source of heat.  I'm kind of glad to know that a service man from the liquified gas company is going to help us keep a tiger in our tank, and our feet from freezing. 

 

I've taken some photoshop liberties with these shots... taken from the moving car.  I think I could work them into interesting tangled abstracts.Click on the image to embiggen!

 

Another reference shot with interesting shapes to do either as a VERY abstract piece, or as one more realistic where it is obvious what is reflected where. I really need to get some gesso, medium and set up my easel.

  The view coming up our driveway.

Oh, and I used some of the Cortland apples from Mack's Farm to make the first apple pie I've made in years.  Yum.