Apples and bands and all such nonsense

Yeah.... I've been absent for a while again.  My bad.
But it's been super busy here.  Work has been stressful and hectic, the garden is beginning to wind down as the greenhouse winds up.  Fall tasks have been much to the forefront of my mind.
A few photos of the past two weeks to tide you over....

 Last weekend, we went to the Little Hawk Marching Invitational.  Our school hosted a band competition for schools from around the area.  Above is the daughter of a friend of ours from a neighboring school. Isn't she lovely?
Not to be outdone by I16.:

 I love a man in uniform- even if he is my own son.

 I must say, their uniforms are sharp.

 While we were watching, we noticed the bees were all over a lost Starburst.  They moved it several feet in the time we were there.

 And V, looking quite dapper.

Bur fast forward to this weekend.  K13 and I paid a visit to my parents today.  V didn't go because he has an article due on Monday that he needed to work on and I16 was still asleep when we left (he had state marching band competition all day yesterday).

 We picked apples today!  Where to start??

 The trees were absolutely loaded.   Not that we really need any more apples after picking all from our tree, but variety is good.. right?

 And I got to visit my favorite tree of all time- the huge cottonwood on the farm.

 My parents supervised while K13 and I were up the ladders.

That's a LOT of apples!

Mom gave me a juicer so now I can make some cider.  Evidently, my BIL, Dave got it and didn't like it- so he gave it to them.  They didn't like it either (at least not as much as their old one) so, Mom gave it to me since we don't have one.
So, I know how my evenings will be spent this week.  I've got apples to dehydrate, cider to press, applesauce to make and still, I need to find room for storage for apples.  
Oh, what a dilemma....

I hope you all have a productive week as well!