Looking in at the top of the garden...
... and looking back out.
Yes, I was too early last week. This week the colour really 'popped' down in the Japanese Garden. 
Remember the bright yellow flowers in the Italian Garden in the post below? Gone. A team of gardeners was busy planting bulbs.
A small tree by the entrance. 
A flower bed outside the Blue Poppy cafe.
Unknown (to me) pink & orange flowers in a pot near the entrance. 
The Italian Garden. The yellow flowers will probably turn to mush in the rain before long.
The dahlia border across the lawn is still looking good.
I still don't know the name of these intriguing little flowers with the blue and green 'pearl' pods.
Around this time of year the Japanese garden should be ablaze with colour.
Either I was too early or too late, or the fall foliage is not going to be as spectacular as 2 or 3 years ago.
This shows a difference in colour between the two cameras - our little old Canon Elph on the left and the Canon Vixia camcorder on the right. I prefer the Elph for fall foliage since it seems to handle oranges better.
This is a springtime-looking flower for October.
I see these tiny red & white flowers around a fair bit still don't know what they are.
This plant was taller than me and I have no idea what it is either.
Finally, something I know - a rose. It too looks quite fresh for this time of year.
I was puzzled by this tree with the strange-looking fruit. From a distance they resembled small pears, more for the colour than the shape, but this is a Medlar tree. I learned about something else called bletting which "refers to the fact that some fruit must be allowed to fully ripen and start the decaying process before they are ready to eat." All in all, this fruit doesn't look or sound very appealing.
She is shown here with her pet monkey Woo and dog Billie. I was surprised to see the sculpture just plopped on the ground rather than up on a pedestal.
But I suspect it was done that way so that people can go up and touch it. 
In this location a smaller or more refined-looking sculpture might have been better. However, I think the face is very well done.
In Glenn's watercolour classes he always talked about 'the three variables' - that being: the amount of water in the brush, the amount of paint in the brush, and the wetness of the paper. I was thinking about this while decorating sugar cookies this Thanksgiving weekend because the ratio of liquid to icing sugar is key. The surface of the cookie isn't a factor as it stays the same (dry), unless icing is being layered onto icing.
My favourite cookie was this maple leaf, while Glenn's was the moon. You can see that I wasn't very good at staying within the lines, but I'm just in cookie-decorating kindergarten. :-)
Little green chillies are too hot (euw - horrible!) for us so I used only a tiny amount. I left out the cilantro and garlic because we don't like them and the cardamom pods because the store didn't have any. Otherwise I followed the recipe. Into the frying pan went the onions, ginger, turmeric, cumin, coriander, coconut milk, etc. It looked like an omelette (inset photo).Ricotta Hotcakes
They just sound good. And what fortune - here is another chance to use peanut oil, which we'd bought for the last recipe. More than a cup of ricotta cheese to 3/4 of a cup of flour seems like a lot of ricotta but I guess that's normal. Even though the electric pan was on the highest setting, these took ages to cook and then they were doughy inside. Yuck.
Simple recipe using self-rising flour. The cupcakes were more dense than usual types. Perhaps they could have used a little less time in the oven. I know the mint leaves don't really go but jellied lemon halves were supposed to decorate the tops. If only I could have found some in a grocery store.
The texture and colours of these wet leaves make me think of a tapestry.
Roses are fading... but dahlias are still going strong. In the rose garden workers were trimming boxwood hedges and, as usual, they used only hand tools.
Lots of dew on these flowers. Chrysanthemums?
These small flowers (Penstemon?) are proving to be a challenge to photograph. I haven't yet been able to get a photo of them that I like. 
I don't know what this forlorn looking flower is.
Quite often I don't bother to look at the fountain at the back of the gardens because it usually looks the same, but on this day I was glad I did. The lighting and the drifting mist were unusual.
As Glenn dismantled his N scale model railway layout, he took a photo of part of it outside in natural light.
He made a diorama of the centre section and sold it at the train show. Here it is on the grass after we took it out of the car.
A favourite layout of mine at this show is this one I call 'the Arizona layout.' Lights twinkle in the Twilight Drive-in sign.
There is a cemetery up on the hill behind the motel.
Roofers at work.
The donut and coffee sign rotates.
You just never know what you'll find here.
Elsewhere was this scratch-built N scale trestle.
I don't know if there's a name for a bunch of them, but if there can be a murder of crows and a teapot of towhees, I think there should be something like a delight of dahlias.
They're pretty interesting close up too.
Other flowers are around, such as this Sedum (above).
Solidago - goldenrod. 
It still looks like summer in places.