Apple tarts and red cardinals

More deliciousness was created in my kitchen yesterday as I made and subsequently ate an apple tart with a cream cheese filling.

I did this in order to avoid folding the laundry in the living room, although one can argue (and I certainly did, to myself) that the apples needed to be used and that laundry...well laundry is always going to be there. In fact, it's still there. And I'm going to go and ride, so it will be there a while longer.

Ithaca is amazingly, eerily and strangely beautiful right now. All the leaves have come off of most of the trees, leaving roads and paths and electrical wires visible where once they were hidden away. The footpath that leads along our Fall Creek is now completely exposed and noticeable from the street (which some how makes it seem less magical) and has a thick carpet of bright yellow leaves (which somehow makes it feel more magical). Since all the insects have stopped their buzzing, chirping and rattling and because we've had a lot of rain, we can hear the waterfall at night. It's much fuller and more energetic, almost angrier than when we first arrived, which makes me think that the crippling humidity and unbearable heat had perhaps made the waterfall a little lazier as it had made me not want to leave the couch.

We have a red cardinal and his mate that have visited our back garden twice now. They're quite cheerful and spend there time either flitting across the garden with the sparrows or else sitting patiently in a big yellow bush.