It’s fall! Now it’s finally time for all those fall things.  Like pumpkin oats!  I made a big batch Monday for the last breakfast before our company left and had leftovers this week.  

I know some people don’t like leftovers or batch cooking, but it truly is so nice when you have been super busy and you don’t have to think about what to eat! Work has been back to really busy again and it was nice to have something to pull out of the freezer and heat up.  I am also laughing at all the fingerprints on John’s phone   

This is that funny time of year where the overnights get really cold and the temps are nice during the day.  Our breakfast ride on Wednesday was so cold! It was about 45 when we left the house.  I was layered up like crazy:

My eyes were watering a little bit, too.  Even though I wear eye protection, the cold makes them water.  It’s going to be too cold for morning rides soon.  40 is close to the cut off for riding comfort. I’ll walk in those temps, but riding is not very comfortable when it is that cold.  John and I both decided we are going to try to ride a little longer into the cold season if we can with thermal stuff.

John got me a window birdfeeder for my birthday this year. I wasn’t actually sure how many birds would come that close to the house.  Turns out quite a few! Mostly chickadees and a few sparrows.  The tufted titmouse is now feeding heavily at feeders at this time of year to store seed and they love this feeder. Or they love the safflower seed, I guess.

Stealing seed and ready to leave!

This feeder has been great, I have to say!

It’s fall – so it’s time!

 

Yes indeed.  This makes great ride fuel, too.  It’s a nice change from dried fruit 😀  

 

What better way to spend a fall day than wandering through corn?  I had gotten a Groupon for a corn maze, so we made an early day of it.  First, we headed out for breakfast at Uncommon Grounds.  I had an Apple Crunch bagel with honey walnut cream cheese.

The coffee roaster is in the background.

Really the best bagels and coffee around.  Too bad this is so far from home! Actually, maybe that is a good thing…

After relaxing, it was time to hit the Corn Maze!

The farm has lots of things to do for the whole family, and you could spend a good portion of a day here.

We warmed up with the ‘right turn only’ maze.

You can only make right turns.  Looks simple enough, right?

Wrong!  It was kind of hard LOL!

Then it was time for the real deal maze.  You can see the overhead view of this maze here.

This is the maze this year.  It is a tractor, as you can see below:

We got a flag (in case you need help) and then instructions on how the maze worked and what to do if you need help.  There were 12 mailbox stations in the maze, each with a piece of the map.  The more pieces you found, the more of the map you could see.

Our fearless leader.

Clock for the start.

Average time to finish the maze was 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Wonder how close we will come to that?

Which way to go?

Look at all that corn!

I actually wondered if it would feel really claustrophobic, but it didn’t because the paths were quite wide.  It was really easy to lose your bearings, though.

Think I will go this way:

We were going around really well, but then kind of ended back up where we started.

Kept going and thank you jeebus, we found this!

They think of everything in the maze!  Now no hurry to find the exit. 

We kept running into the same family and neither of us were getting anywhere!

We were filling out our map.

John says “Can we please get out of the corn maze?

So much corn!!!

Then finally, we found the last puzzle piece we needed and found the exit!

Victory is ours!

This is the bridge out of the maze.  See all those flags?  Those are other poor lost souls trying to find their way out.

I think I might dream about corn tonight.

It took us an hour and 15 minutes, so we were average!

We walked around a little more on the farm and found some goats!  I fed them some feed.

Lots of games to play as well.

We then purchased a cider donut on the way out.  Tasty!

Thanks Ellms Farm!

That was quite fun, I have to say.  I have never done a corn maze before.

And just in case you think we didn’t bike this weekend, we did 😀

Just a short 11.5 mile ride, but had to sneak one in.

 

Pink item of the day?  A candle I bought at the craft show on Friday, along with Mr. Niblet.

 

Another beautiful fall day.  I actually debated about switching up my rest day to today as I couldn’t really decided what I wanted to do.  John said it was unusually flexible of me to change like that.  Hmmmm…..  I always plan my workouts, but I guess I always thought of myself as flexible if need be.  Isn’t it funny how you can be perceived differently than what is in your head?

Anyway, I soaked some steel cut oats overnight, so they were ready to cook up with some pumpkin.

Yes – I topped these oats with some ginger bits and cream cheese frosting left over from what we brought to dinner on Sunday.  And it was so good!  Candy corn bowl makes me want to put candy corn on my oats.  It may well happen some time.

A couple questions came up in the comments.  Suzi asked about if I had anything to eat before going out in the mornings.  I do.  Normally I have a protein drink before going to the gym.  I just stopped taking a picture of it because it is pretty much the same every day.  If I am doing a longer workout, I will have more carbs like toast and jam or an energy bar.

Joanne asked more about the duathlon.  Here is the link to it.  The entry fee benefits the Towpath, so that is always good.  It is a 2.2 mile run/16 mile bike/2.2 mile run.  Not superly long, but quite hilly.

Lunch time!  Egg sammie today!

I had gotten a coupon through FoodBuzz for a free loaf of Nature’s Pride bread, so that is why you have seen all of these sandwiches lately (not to mention what we have baked).

These clementines are so tiny!  And they have a thicker peel, so they are even smaller once you get the skin off.  They are in place of strawberries this week, as the strawberries just didn’t look totally fresh.

I was my own barista today and forgot to take a picture of my latte.  I did, however, remember to take a picture of the candied pecan cupcake with maple icing!  We saved 2 of these out and took the rest on Sunday.

This really was tasty.  Maple butter cream rocks!  Wish there was some of that left to put on pumpkin oatmeal…  Fall is so awesome 😀

My neighbors put up their big inflatable lawn ornaments today:

John says no inflatable lawn ornaments for us.  Good thing he said that because I would get a big Tigger to put out.

So, I basically threw my taper plan out the window after 2 days. LOL.  Today I was going to do a small brick, but I realized that I didn’t feel like running today and there is not much more I can do this week that will make any difference on Sunday.  The other reason is that I wanted to bike to dinner, which would have been too long of a workout with a run in there.  I am supposed to be relaxing this week, after all.  We took advantage of the weather to bike to my football dinner.  Yes – I won the picks again (I am the swammee).

East End Eatery with the bikes (locked up, of course)

That building across the street is for rent.  That could be some cool coffee shop or a place to sell said candied pecan maple frosted cupcakes…. Just sayin’

Salad starter:

Then John and I split a cheese calzone.  I can eat about 3/4 of one of these on my own, so it is actually nice to share and just have half so I don’t get stuffed.

Put your hands in the air for gooey cheese!

Lovely sunset shot on the bike path going home.  That’s John riding away from me there, too.

I had to haul ass to catch up to him.  Good practice for the duathlon   I ended up biking 12 miles today.

Pink item of the day – my magic gloves!  Those little tiny ones that stretch over your hands.  I wear these under my bike gloves on cold days.

Question:  Do you decorate for Halloween?