All day apple butter on a beautiful Fall day

My first attempt at Apple butter. It is currently simmering. I'll have to lend an update after it's done. It should be finished sometime around midnight tonight. I have to say, the house smells absolutely amazing. This beats any potpourri or scented candle. Just apples, sugar, cinnamon and cloves.

D was doing her Johnny Appleseed impersonation.

Hubby was spending the day outside doing some landscaping so the girls and I joined him to play. Miranda loved looking through the old brush piles for traces of mice and other little critters.

Patch found an old ice cream bucket and played with that. I forgot how much he loved ice cream buckets. You'll also see some really big grapevines behind Patch. These are a few of the grapevines that had grown wild and killed a few trees on the property before we bought it. Hubby has been fighting these grapevines for over a year now that he's done building the house. I decided to help today and try to rip some down myself. Let me tell you, those things are tough. They climb up all the way to the tops of the trees and reach over and ensnare the trees nearby their host. I pulled and pulled but once I had freed all but the top of the tree, my own weight wasn't enough to bring down the vine. Hubby had to step in and rip it down for me.

Bean found a purple ball which had rolled into the overgrowth that Hubby was clearing away.

The girls loved all the fun things to explore like rotting wood, bug trails, dried grass seed, big and little leaves, branches that were brittle and breakable, etc.

D and Patch really do love each other.

I have to leave you with one last story. I wasn't done trying to help out a little bit with limb and vine removal. I had brought down a few broken branches and some more vines when I went over to the willow tree (here in the background). There was a felled branch that was quite big; just behind the pile of brush that hubby was clearing out. I thought I'd drag that out of the way. I grabbed a big limb and gave it a heave. It snapped right off and I did the classical comedy fall-flat-on-your-butt. Seriously, I don't think one of the Stooges could have done it better. Nothing was wounded, but I put down the branches and picked up the camera. Photography is much safer.