Yes, all of a sudden, after anticipating it for weeks, it's Fall once again! Yoohoo!!
I'm so happy!
Time to bring out the decorations and 'deck the halls' (I know, that usually indicates Christmas, but you know what I mean)!

                                              

I went out and bought a few pumpkins as well as a replacement for my little straw-man, who was so faded and battered that I finally had to retire him.
I even splurged on a pretty bunch of sunflowers, although my frugal dutch heart has a difficult time paying $5 for it ..

                                                   

To top it off, and really get in the spirit of it all, we visited the Mt. Angel Oktoberfest:

This oldest, largest oldest and best-loved Oktoberfest began in 1966 as a traditional harvest festival to celebrate the bounty of the earth and the goodness of creation.
It's a four-day festival featuring music, food, dress and beverages of Bavaria.



The Mt. Angel community was founded by German pioneers in 1867, and since the surrounding area resembles rural Bavaria, organizers thought the Oktoberfest would be a natural fit for the community.
Food, beer, wine and the many arts and craft booths are scattered throughout the town and many people are dressed in Bavarian garb.

The local Bavarian dance group performs a couple of times a day:

   

And off course there's a lot of beer, wine, and sausage to eat and authentic music to dance to in the three large dance-halls :

The town itself is mall but cute, and shows it's Germain heritage in the many elaborate signs and typical style of buildings..

                                                      

 

Every hour, on the hour, these moving figures 'perform' at the corner of the largest restaurant in town:

After strolling through the village for a while and watching the dancers perform, we had lunch at the Schnitzel Garden:

Underneath all the 'spaetzle und rotkohl' lies a huge schnitzel!

All in all, a fun festival and a perfect start of the Fall!

                                             

Even mother nature got into the spirit and gave us 2 days of rain. Well, sort of, off-and-on, and mostly over-night.

I read somewhere that it rained more in these 2 days than it did in the 8 months before!
Which is not so strange of course, considering it didn't rain at all over the summer!
Any-who, the morning after we even had fog!

      

                                     

Nothing says fall more than a foggy morning, don't you think? That lovely moist smell of the earth and the crispness of the air? 

And everywhere you look there are fields full of pumpkins!

Can't you tell I love Fall?

It also means that life moves inside a little bit more, and I'm proud to have finally managed to finish the Monet puzzle. Boy, oh, boy, was that a puzzle!
But, there you have it, all done and looking beautiful!

                                       

OK, that was it for this week. I'll end with one more picture of our silly boy:

 

And although this picture looks very cute, and like many cats, he loves to drink from the faucet, he's worrying me enough that I'm thinking of getting him to the vet next week.
He is drinking wayyyy to much at the moment, he's losing weight since he's not eating very well, and his blood sugars are all over the map.

I'm afraid his kidneys are starting to go, and if that's the case he will probably not be with us much longer ... sigh .. and so it goes .. we'll see.