Before Frost

The weather prediction for my town said 32 degrees for Wednesday night. We have been having a pleasantly warm autumn, and this would be our first frost.
I have been letting my herbs and peppers soak up the last bits of sunshine and rain, and now it’s time to bring them indoors. Usually we let the peppers die off over the winter, but the habaneros are just now beginning to flourish and have so many lovely little green peppers hanging from their branches that I couldn’t bear to see a frost hit them. I went out with pots and a shovel Tuesday evening after Greta was asleep and dug up my beautiful thyme and oregano and sage plants to add to my kitchen greenery. They’ve grown so beautifully since I got them! Greta and I rescued three of the best-looking habanero plants before dinner and put them into pots. The rest of the beets had to be pulled, and the tomato plants checked for any last ripe ones. There were a couple of tomatoes with a blush of red, so I picked them. Hopefully they’ll ripen a bit more on a windowsill. If I were Ma Ingalls I would pick all the green ones too and make something delicious out of them, but I’m not and perhaps that can wait for another year! Now there is sage hanging in bunches from a line in the downstairs bedroom to dry, and the dehydrator is full of more cayenne peppers to dry. The house smells sweet and spicy because of the drying peppers. It’s a lovely feeling, being snug in the house with a fire in the stove, chill winds outside, and cheerful green reminders of summer in the corners. (Ha. I even stuck a pail of sage and thyme in my bathroom. Now my bathroom is not what you could consider roomy, but it improves the whole teeth-brushing experience a great deal to be tripping over some happy herbs. In my opinion at any rate. My Handsome Dude is probably rolling his eyes.)

Early Morning Snuggles

Yummy. Yummy. Yummy. How in the world am I supposed to get anything done around here when there is face like that to look at and kiss and little warm squishiness to snuggle?

I had a nestingish sort of Monday. There was a good deal of dust to be gotten rid of and tired corners to be rearranged. I moved my plants so that they could sit in the one place where they can get all the good light they need and that I see often enough to notice when they get dry. :) That same window in my kitchen got a spot of color, too, from these butterflies that I taped up. I love the beauty of stained glass, and someday would love to have some bits hanging in my windows, but for now these Dover coloring book pages will work very nicely. I do like a bit of coloring with crayons! There is more housework to be done (as always!) but these corners are giving me the energy to do the rest. :)

Greta was waiting for Mommie and Daddy to take her for a ride in her wagon. :)

My Kitchen Helper

Visiting Mimi & Pa

The bluffs by our river are at the height of their fall beauty this week. Sumac is brilliant red. A red you can’t even describe. Red with such depth and light that you can’t make up your mind whether there’s more orange in it or pink. The maples are at that point where finally the whole tree has turned color and stands there ablaze in bright orange with a firey red blush; in a few more days the leaves will fall in showers and leave the trees bare. Other trees send down golden rain. A few remain green. It takes your breath away to drive through. Up and over the hill, winding down through a canopy of color, then across the river valley in gold, up the other side, brilliant sumac, then it’s gone. You drive on through rustling fields of ripening corn and dry brown fields of soybeans to harvest, but you don’t forget the exhilaration of that color.
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I got to drive through that beauty on Monday on my way to my parents’ farm. My man had to leave town for a few days for a business trip, so, instead of staying by ourselves, Greta and I packed up some of our things and went to visit Mimi and Pa. It was a wonderful week to go. Their cottage in the hollow was the most warm and cozy place to be on the best of autumn weeks. We listened to new-found jazz favorites while cooking, making applesauce, doing projects. I drank in the warm autumn abundance of vines and herbs, maturing plants bringing forth their treasure of seedpods and fruit, marigolds and runner beans, bright helichrysum drying on their stems and gaillardia’s last blossoming. My siblings and I went on a search in the grove to find mosses and small plants to make a terrarium for Mama. They led me to places where the Virginia Creeper grew most abundantly so that we could pull some down and create bramble-beauty for the house with it. Dinnertime saw us starting a new book together, Leave it to Psmith, with us taking turns reading it aloud. There was a good deal of laughter reading that. Greta always had plenty of someones to rescue her when she got stuck in a corner or to snuggle her after a nap. A blessing the week was to be sure.
I did miss my man though, and am very glad to have him home. I believe we will be winterizing around our own cozy space this weekend. It will be getting cold soon.
Ah, I think I hear someone waking up from her nap now. I’m going to go smooch her…

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I just finished listening to a most Wonderful panel discussion from last weekend's Desiring God conference. The discussion was with John Piper, Paul David Tripp, Bob Kauflin and Dan Taylor.

Watch the Panel Discussion - Piper, Tripp, Kauflin, and Taylor

I highly recommend taking the time to really listen to the whole thing. They packed so much wonderful truth into a short time. The topics covered included:

:: Saving Grace

:: Worship

:: Self-forgetfulness

:: Imagination

:: Artistry

:: How to Encourage

no nappy-time today

It is the perfect afternoon for a nap. It has been raining off and on today, but there is still some rustle to the leaves when the wind blows, and the temperature is cool. After the fellowship meal at church this afternoon we came home, and I was definitely hoping for a little snuggle and snooze time with Greta before doing a few evening things in anticipation of Monday beginning.

Does it look like she's snuggling and sleeping here? I guess maybe it's exploring time now. Or something. Alrighty then...

camo & lace

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Applesauce

'"Say, Betsy, I think that applesauce is ready to be sweetened. You do it, will you? I've got my hands in the biscuit dough. The sugar's in the lefthand drawer in the kitchen cabinet."

"Oh, my!" cried Betsy, dismayed. "I don't know how to cook!"

Aunt Abigail laughed and put back a strand of curly white hair with the back of her floury hand. "You know how to stir sugar into your cup of cocoa, don't you?"

"But how much shall I put in?" asked Elizabeth Ann, clamoring for exact instruction so she wouldn't need to do any thinking for herself.

"'Til it tastes right,' said Aunt Abigail, carelessly. "Fix it to suit yourself, and I guess the rest of us will like it. Take that big spoon to stir it with."

Elizabeth Ann took off the lid and began stirring in sugar, a teaspoonful at at time, but she soon saw that that made no impression. She poured in a cupful, stirred it vigorously, and tasted it. Better, but not quite enough. She put in a tablespoonful more and tasted it, staring off into space as she concentrated her attention on the taste. It was quite a responsibility to prepare the applesauce for a family. It was ever so good, too. But maybe a little more sugar. She put in a teaspoonful and decided it was just exactly right!

"Done?" asked Aunt Abigail. "Take it off, then, and pour it out into that big yellow bowl, and put it on the table in front of your place. You've made it; you ought to serve it."

"It isn't done, is it?" asked Betsy. "That isn't all you do to make applesauce!"

"What else could you do?" asked Aunt Abigail.

"Well...!" said Elizabeth Ann, very much surprised. "I didn't know it was so easy to cook!"

"Easiest thing in the world," said Aunt Abigail gravely, with the merry wrinkles around her merry old eyes all creased up with silent fun."'

~from Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher~

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Wash ~ Quarter ~ Seed ~ Cook down with a bit of water ~ Push through food mill ~ Sugar & Cinnamon to taste ~ Enjoy!

habanero

Our first-ever ripe habanero pepper ...and his buddy the jalapeno.

Salsa-time is coming, la-dee-da-dee, salsa-time is coming, la-dee-da!

(Noise by Me)

Apple Picking

A friend of Caleb's from work has a couple of big apple trees on his farm place, which he very kindly invited us to pick from, so this evening as soon as my man came home from work the three of us went to pick apples. It was a most lovely evening.

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... ~ :: ~ ...

Greta Rose seemed to enjoy the experience from the Ergo on her Daddy's back. Toward the end she wanted out, though, because she wanted to pick too. We got a great lot of apples. I want to make applesauce and, if time allows, apple butter. (My mama and I have had fun making apple butter in past autumns; there is nothing quite so good as apple butter for a toasted piece of Mama's homemade whole wheat bread ...oh, the ecstasies.) I have a feeling that the amount of apples I have won't make applesauce to last all year, but at this point I don't know that I can process more than a couple of 5-gal. pails and laundry baskets full. I'll know better in future years I suppose. :)

Monday Favorites

sweetie head

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There was a seriously handsome dude cleaning out an engine in my garage last night. :)

Crunching Leaves

This afternoon my little friend and I went out to a spot in our yard full of lovely golden leaves and enjoyed our first time crunching leaves together. It was wonderfully fun to watch her discover these elements of autumn for the first time!

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sleep, little one, sleep

I saw little blueish lines of first teeth cutting through yesterday!

Evening Sky