Apple Alert, Pumpkin Panic, Veggie Victuals.

Hi, everybody. It’s almost time to panic! But don’t trust us kids, listen to Mother Nature. She’s right like 93% of the time. That’s an A minus for Mom.

Take apples, for instance. How do we know when to pick the mutsus? When they outgrow their nests, of course!

Yeah this week we harvested 80 bushels of mutsus because they were starting to drop. Cold nights and blustery days. Hear them plopping?

We picked the high stuff and left low-hanging fruit for you. The trees might look empty from a distance, but you have to think like an intrepid apple scout.

Zoom in close, peak behind the leaves, and sure enough you’ll bag some beauties.

Rome Beauties and Red Deliciouses are ready, too. Find the trees with blue ribbons and pick with a passion. Or wait 12 long months til your next chance!

Yes, it’s true. The inexorable march of time is reflected in the colors of Old Faithful.

Even the tractors have taken on autumn’s burnt sienna.

And the giant sunflowers are sleepy. But check out that double-spiral seed pattern based on the optimal space-filling geometry of the Fibonacci sequence! (Extra credit for Mother Nature, biggest geek of all.)

We have myriad dead flowers for your goth parties. Spooky decorations and whatever. You can even make like a Rolling Stone and send dead flowers to somebody’s wedding. (Creep!)

But the amazing thing is, we still have bumblebeezillions of these pretty things.

And late-season hot peppers. Like tongues of flame, little Thai Dragons.

Day-glo sweet peppers of the pumpkin persuasion. Orange is the new green. We have buckets of peppers at the farm stand.

And, incredibly, eggplant in the field, plus eggplant at the stand. A freakish opportunity to pick summer veggies late in the year. Mother always said we was different.

Of course we’ve rolled out the fall classics. Butternut squash and stripey dumplings. Hard as rocks but supposedly you can cook them.

Concord grapes, growing right over your head as you walk into the farm stand, and the last of the fall raspberries. Mush them together.

Naturally we have pumpkins. Two weeks til Halloween. Don’t be THAT household — put a pumpkin on the porch. It’s your sociocultural obligation. Conform!

Otherwise we’ll be that OTHER family, with 300 pumpkins on the porch. Help!

And remember, in the game of life, it’s not whether you win or lose… it’s how many shiny baubles you can collect and hide from Wall Street.

On the subject of winning, here we spy Zorro in a rare trot. Even His Royal Highness The Duke of Marrowbones feels a little urgency this time of year.

Of course we might have yelled “Bacon!” to get him going.

Then we felt bad because Zorro’s look of disappointment melts a stone-cold heart.

Nonetheless he made one final check to see if there was bacon inside.

Speaking of which, you can find a box of Indian Creek apples at our friends’ awesome place – The Piggery! It’s a fantastic new farm-to-table deli and cafe. They have local products from their own farm and a dozen others every day. Trendsetters, they are. And kindfolk. And right here in Ithaca.