As fall magnifies its presence in our little neck of the mountains, my husband and I have been exploring the beauty and bounty of the season.

<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apples.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5220" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apples.jpg?w=300" alt="???????????????????????????????" width="300" height="224" /></a>We recently visited an organic farm apple orchard to pick apples for applesauce and spiced apples.

Of course, we could have simply harvested from the crab apple tree in our front yard, which is loaded with tiny crab apples.<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/crab-apple.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-5222" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/crab-apple.jpg?w=225" alt="crab apple" width="225" height="300" /></a>

We didn’t for lots of reasons.
<ol>
	<li>The fruit is quite tart.</li>
	<li>Coring the tiny apples would have been nearly impossible.</li>
	<li>The mule deer love to eat the tiny apples.</li>
</ol>
And, besides, plucking the apples from the plentiful harvest at the organic farm was a great adventure.<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/picking-apples.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5225" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/picking-apples.jpg?w=300" alt="???????????????????????????????" width="300" height="224" /></a>

I came away with a bag full of juicy Honey Crisp apples.

When we weighed-in to pay, we had half a bushel.

<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/orchard-me.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-5224" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/orchard-me.jpg?w=300" alt="???????????????????????????????" width="300" height="172" /></a>Confident we had enough for applesauce and spiced apples, we headed home to make our applesauce.

I have to tell you resisting the luscious apples was hard. So hard in fact that when we finally began to peel and prepare fruit for applesauce. The pot was hardly full.<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apples-in-pot.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-5221" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/apples-in-pot.jpg?w=225" alt="apples in pot" width="225" height="300" /></a>

We ended up with only four pints.<a href="https://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/applesauce2.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5259" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/applesauce2.jpg?w=224" alt="??????????????????????" width="224" height="300" /></a>

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You won't hear me complaining because the stewed apples I made for breakfast and the apple and peanut butter we enjoyed for lunches were soooo good.

And, I’m not discouraged about so few jars of applesauce, but I am rationing.

How about you? Are you enjoying fall’s harvest?