Our 'compound' is starting to look very pretty with these fall colors ..

I don't have much to show for this week, but here are a few more pictures of the vineyards around us.
They're just so photo genetic, especially now in the Fall ..

                                

I'll throw in a few more of those awesome trees. That's an Oregon Ash on the left and off course a Red maple on the right ..

  
  

                

I picked some branches of both (and some oak for good measure) and brought them inside:

                                                    

                                                Doesn't that look cozy?

In between some heavy rain-showers we still managed to get our weekly 9-hole golf round in on Wednesday, and afterwards we ended up at the Chehelam Brewery Co. for our weekly dinner out.                                               

Tucked away in the back of a parking lot is this tiny pub. It’s typical of the contemporary brew pub genre - concrete floors and “industrial” ambience, but it has a few nice tables outside as well.
It is a small venue with a relaxed atmosphere. There's a (glass) garage door at the front that goes up weather permitting.

 
The special happened to be 'Wing Wednesday', so we tried a few. They were pretty good!
We also split and excellent portobello mushroom burger with beer battered fries, and to wash all that down we tried a 4 flight beer!

          

                                                                 

Everything was really delicious and the portions were generous, so despite us splitting everything, we were pretty much stuffed when we left!

Other than that, I've finally started to 'earn my keep' in this household, as they say!
Since they were rather backed up this week, I've been tutored by James to assist him in preparing the appraiser-files to the point that he can make an appointment and 'take them on the road' ..


It's really very basic stuff, filling out forms, looking things up in various on-line programs, a lot of copying and pasting and putting together a physical real paper envelop with all the necessary papers ..
Nevertheless, after a couple of hours my head was spinning, and although I've been doing a couple of mornings and even a whole day this week to help them out, the plan is to do only about 2 hours a day, a couple of mornings a week.
More than enough, me thinks!

We had a rather rainy and cold week and the skies looked rather dark and gloomy early in the evening like in the picture above, but it's finally looking a little better for the next couple of days.
Hopefully we can get some golf in for the weekend!

Oh, a quick update on Merlin: he's very happy to be done with the pro-and antibiotics (and so am I!) and is doing a lot better.
He's still not eating a lot though, and is moving very slowly. I suspect his legs are bothering him a lot and I'm afraid he's in quite some pain. If he doesn't improve this week I might ask the vet for some pain-killers .. poor boy, getting old is not for wimps!