Trick or Treat

We had a very doggy Halloween at our house this year.

We carved a scary dog face in our pumpkin

Pickles dressed up at a teenage mutin ninja turtle

But he didn't like wearing his ninja mask so we let him just be a regular turtle

Lily wore green to be supportive of Pickles turtle theme and the environment. 
She says "Happy HaaWooWeen" to her family.

It's already 7:30pm, and we've only had three Trick-or-Treaters, one of which was our neighbor; she was dressed as tinker bell and thought Pickles costume was super silly.

Apples

Despite the abundance of apple trees in Boulder, there is only one you-pick apple orchard this side of Grand Junction , and you have to make reservations to pick at that orchard.  For the past two years, we have been picking apples from some half wild trees along the bike path near our house.  They're small apples, and many have rotten cores, but if you slicer peeler corer them, there really aren't that many bad spots left to cut out.  They are a wonderful variety, something similar to my favorite Empire Apple: sour and crunchy. With no other options, we decided to return to our bike path you-pick trees.  

Pickles got to come this time, but I'm not sure if he'll get invited back next time.  First we have to jump over the creek and then climb up a 3ft vertical rock wall to get to a little ledge between fence and creek that has the trees on it.  It took an acrobatic hand-off to get Pickles up onto the ledge without either of us falling into the creek.  Once there we tied him up and climbed the tree to pick.  Apparently, he never learned that it's okay for people to climb trees because he started his pitiful don't abandon me crying.  Something like when he was 2 months old and left alone in his crate.  We were only 10ft away from him and usually he is fine being tied up if we are within sight.  Maybe he was just looking out for our well-being afraid one of us would fall out of the tree.

Despite his less than perfect behavior, we picked a ton of apples in less than 20 minutes and took them home to process.  We ended up with about 9 pints of apple pie filling, 3 quarts of apple sauce, and 3 quarts of sliced apples.  All free.

Mark is peeling and coring the apples while Pickles hides under the table tasting the peels.

Fall Aspen

Lily and Daisy were both visiting this past weekend so we had 3 dogs.  We took them down into Lost Creek Wilderness on the Ben Tyler trail to see the aspen and run wild.  The trees were amazing, the weather was great, and the dogs were pretty well behaved.  

Weekend With Roscoe

Lauren and Kirk went to California a week past, so we got to watch Roscoe.  Pickles was overjoyed.   We spent a lot of time at the playground down the street where there boys wore their matching harnesses and played on the playground. 

 

Here they are playing on the soccer field next to the playground while Mark flies his kite.  Pickles has gotten quite vicious with his playing.  We hope he doesn't scare all his friends off.

 

And here is Pickles showing off.