Are You Crabby?

 I am crabby over here! That's right, crabby! 

It's because I'm a member of P.L.A.N.T. It's a super-secret organization. Oh, you've heard of it? People Looking Around Nature - Trespassers.

As a member of P.L.A.N.T., I have trained long and hard to be able to sneak into off-limits nature garden areas. I carry specialized equipment: An old towel, a baggie, and a baseball cap. My weapon of choice: A rosary.

The old towel is to lay atop walls, so that I can avoid the bird poopie that is always on them. The baggie is for pretty things I find on the ground, and the cap is a practical disguise. The rosary speaks for its beautiful self.  

These "walls" I speak of -- just so you know: They are two or so feet high. Sadly, my knees are shot, and I can't just step over a wall, or even onto it. No, I have to sit on it, then ow-ow-ow pick my legs up and place them on the other side, while sniveling and swiveling. I told my husband that I travel like a turtle travels: Very slowly, and along curbs until there is a low place. I can't even step up onto a normal curb. It's very irritating. I think it may be time for a cane. "GROWING OLD AIN'T FER SISSIES."

I just had to go see the progress of the crab apples in the still-closed-due-to-COVID park here. Yes, the college and all of its public parts are still closed, because goodness knows fresh air outdoors in the desert with the wind blowing across hundreds of miles of unoccupied land is very, very likely to cause illness. SARCASM!

My mind is on those crabapples. My mind has been on crabapples since I first saw them at four years old. I love them, and I love pumpkins and dried gourds and dried corn. Too bad there's not a way to track how much time I have spent with visions of them in my head. I have a magpie mind, and glad of it!

I can't recall who it was, Dickens or Hawthorne?, but they wrote of a wonderful Christmas hot punch, with "brown crabs" [crabapples] bobbing in it. I am determined to get a few ripe ones and have them in a hot cider this year!

I feel so badly for those whose minds can't find happiness in nature, in wholesome activities, and in simple things. I was so very blessed to never have a wish for drugs or bad things. 

Evidently, though, I have a wish to trespass into public gardens. I can justify it up and down, but it's possibly still naughty. So, I just had to sneak in and see the progress of the crabapples. Did any "take," after the beautiful blooms? If so, were they beginning to turn red? 

They are indeed many crabapples on the trees!

Two crabapples side by side

They are beautiful!

It was so fun to be beneath the canopy looking at them!

I got a few from the ground, but I am seriously contemplating going back when they are ripe, and getting a jar of the windfalls.

So many little crabapples ripening!

I think I might make a crabapple cordial. I am typically a teetotaler. I did make blackberry cordial in years past, for gifts and also to keep (as a prepper) as a medicinal (Like in Anne of Green Gables). When we moved off Whidbey Island, I gave that last bottle away, though. So, I have no cordials in the house at this time. 

Early windfall crab apples

On August 1st, I "jump" the season and start decorating for autumn! I start with apples and apple decor and buffalo checks and so on, and then September 1st the pumpkins start muscling in! By October 1st it is FHM. Full Hallowe'en Mode. 

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Do any of you make cordials or wines? And when do you start with your autumn decor?