apples in august

It may still be August, but there're definitely signs of autumn about. Yesterday morning, having donned both a sweater and coat, I shuffled my way through nascent piles of leaves and chestnuts on my way to the shops:

We even have apples ready for harvesting:

While we used to gather loads from the old (Victorian) orchard tucked away in our development,

we now have some serious competition. This year, a keen bean beat us to it, picking the lower branches clean and hoovering up the windfalls in one fell swoop. We did manage to gather a few,

but only enough for two small batches of applesauce.

So good thing we know Rachel, who has an apple tree so big she actually owns professional picking equipment! After a visit to Rachel today, we have enough apples to make a whole freezer-full of applesauce. Now we're ready for autumn and winter!