We dove back into gardening the following morning, and while I was pruning and training the grapes I happened across a very special leaf!
It's a monarch butterfly chrysalis!
While Sarah was at work yesterday afternoon I ran some errands, and while at Price Chopper I saw that peaches were on sale. Which reminded me of our attempt to make brandied peaches last year...which were good, and lasted a long time, but we kept them in a crock. Eventually they got too soft and a little mold formed on top. We still finished them, but still. I thought if we kept them in mason jars they would stay cleaner and we would be more likely to eat them. Their color is amazing!
And the cool weather has felt like a taste of fall! Some leaves are already beginning to blush, and on the way back form Fort Drum there was a single limb on a single sugar maple that was a brilliant orange. It all inspired some canned tomato sauce (five pints) and some hard cider
The tomato sauce includes all of our tomatoes that have ripened (lots more on the way still!) along with some tomatoes and a green and yellow zucchini that I picked up from church that morning from a fellow gardener overwhelmed by his surplus. Some of our onions and dried oregano and Heidi's garlic (which has such a great smell!) added their flavor too.
My goodness, I did another batch the other day and they're even prettier! The juice was much pinker, and when I added the alcohol it layered...so it was bright pink in the bottom, then peaches, then a light amber liquid on top.
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