Nuts and Leaves

Cheri and I have been busy lately gleaning any apples we can find along with pears, black walnuts, and chestnuts. We've made two huge batches of apple butter in the past week. I have many pears from two different trees that I will attempt to turn into pear butter when more have ripened. Hopefully there will be enough in the next few days so I can take some pear butter with me when I visit my mother and sister in upstate NY next weekend. We shall see! Even though I grew up in a rural area, I don't remember any chestnut trees so was amused to see their bristly pods (I think they look like mini hedgehogs!):

I have been chronicling the changing of the leaves on our property here. This will be the first full year living here so it's rather interesting. On a breezy day you can hear the MANY acorns (we have 3 types of oak trees) dropping through the branches and bouncing off the ground. It's surprising that we have hardly any squirrels eating these nuts since there are so many. I guess it's easier to eat from the neighbors' bird feeders! Just a few of the trees: