Finally, a whole bowl of apples -  smelling so fresh and sweet. I thought there might be enough for a pie, even though most of them were close to the size of golf balls. My cute little tree did pretty good this year. 

Figured it was going to be a bit of work, but I got into it, chop - slice - dice.  Stir in the cinnamon & sugar and you know why you did this work, there is pure joy in that sweet/spicie aroma! 

It was such a beautiful day, August in NorCal can be near perfect usually. We've had so many fires this year that a day with clear blue sky is totally exciting, I know how lucky we are to live here. As we traveled up to Portland last month the scenery was awesome but frightening because of the smoke in the air. I thought how horrible it would be if we polluted the air so much that it always looked like this. That's what they're doing in China I hear, and some of that makes it's way to us!! Somehow it's got to stop!