First Frost

It happened.  First frost.  The ending of another garden season.  I am always happy to welcome the first frost because I know that with it, the garden chores will be coming to an end.  Trust me, by October, I am ready for them to be coming to an end!  But a garden doesn't go out with a slow fizzle but with a mad dash.  In preparation for the first frost, we had to get everything we could out of the garden and off of the trees.  And that meant a very busy week indeed.

Lots of green tomatoes to line all the windowsills and too many too small peppers (if only they had a bit more time!).  Vases of cosmos and zinnias, lemon verbena and basil, squashes both summer and winter.  Digging up the sweet potatoes.  Renegade beets.  Too many apples to pick- many still hang frozen on their branches.  All week we've been digging up and bringing in.

Saturday was applesauce making day. 37 quarts of applesauce made- and only half the apples we had picked used up.  I had hoped to make at least 52 quarts (for once a week applesauce eating) but a girl can only do so much in a day even with many small, helpful hands in the kitchen working alongside her.

The children gathered 'round and dove right in to the apple chores when I first began.  Adele' said "Mama, I wanna be just like you when I grow up.  It's so fun to can."  As time went on, one by one they eventually peetered out and scooted off to do other things, but every now and again I would find myself with some more helpers before they again scooted off.  By 6:30 pm, as I was finishing off the last of the canning dishes, Adele' had come again to help with apples and was filling up the last of the jars with applesauce.  Says she: "Canning is fun in the beginning but when you work at it all day, it can make you pretty tired."  smile.  How right you are.

I had hoped to fill up many more buckets of apples before frost so that when we host a church picnic in a few weeks, we could have a cider-making party at the same time.  The rest of the apples we never sauced will go for the cider but the yield won't be nearly as substantial as I had hoped.  I was hoping to can some cider for drinking later.  The frozen apples taunt me.  

I can never seem to get everything done that I would like and, even though this is a fact of life for every single person on this planet, it has been a constant struggle for me to accept in my own life- and probably always will be.  

I don't know why I am a glass-half-full sort of girl in every aspect of life except in regard to my own personal achievements/limitations but I don't like that about myself.  I tend to see the frozen apples on the tree, wasting away, instead of the jars on the counter.  Maybe it is a healthy way to stay humble and prevents a person from becoming stagnant in life...maybe it is a good thing.  I just wish it didn't feel so much like failing.  Is this a woman thing?  Is it a me thing?  Is it the outworking of humbleness or ingratitude?  Is it a good thing or a bad thing?  

I wonder...

10 ::

Last Sunday marked the last 10 weeks of this pregnancy and right about now (in my mind, at least) is when the countdown really begins.  When the numbers go down into the single digits- well, things get real.

There is so much I would like to do in preparation and celebration of widdle Tiddle and what with Halloween costume making, wedding clothes sewing, Thanksgiving, Adele's birthday and Christmas preparations all sandwiched in those weeks, I know they will just fly by.  If I am not intentional about it, these last few weeks may pass overhead right alongside the geese making their southern trek.

So I decided to do a wee bit of a countdown on the blog.  Once a week from now until *the big day*, I'll be posting a Tiddle countdown.  Photos highlighting the anticipation we are all filled to bursting with and hopefully, a Tiddle project each week.   I have a whole list of them, surely I can accomplish ten.

This week :: Many moons ago someone who knew I was knitting passed along a bag with a freshly started knitted sweater in it.  Just the sleeve had been started and the project seemed too daunting for me to ever actually finish but I couldn't bear to scrap the already beautifully knitted sleeve piece- it was so pretty!  So I kept it in the mending drawer for the moment inspiration struck and I figured out what could be done with it.  I brought it out this week, pulled out some stitches to make it hat sized, seamed up the back and crocheted a quick drawstring.   Couldn't have been easier- and one less thing lingering about as a UFO!

Sugar and Spice

 

*photo by Corynn*

I had big plans for this weekend.  Apple cider making, applesauce canning, apple slice drying...and apple cider donut making (as requested by Matt).

But then my allergies hit and I was a mess instead.  I couldn't forgo the donuts because, really, I get so few actual requests from Matt that I want to jump on them when they come.  And, of course, the kids knew of the plan and would have been tremendously let down.  Not so, of course, for the canning of applesauce.  ;-)  And because....DONUTS.

 So we made donuts.  Delicious, spicy, apple cider donuts.  

Matt had seen the recipe in this book which I borrowed from the library and absolutely love.  (There is nothing that irks me more than a cookbook that includes ridiculously expensive and foreign ingredients and then calls themselves a simple meal.  Give me the normal ingredients please and make me drool.  That is all I ask.)   

Matt's dad was coming to help with a new papa project that day and when he heard it would be donut day, well, Linda decided to come too.  The recipe said the yield was a 'bakers dozen' and I thought- "Well, considering that there would be 8 bodies- and people would likely want more than one..." I convinced myself I ought to make a batch of yeast donuts too.  

We ended up with trays and trays of apple cider cake and yeast donuts!  Topped with apple cider vinegar glaze (from the book), regular glaze and cinnamon sugar.  Oh.my.word.  So many donuts. I managed to get them all fried up in the lard I rendered myself (thankyouverymuch) and as I fried (and sneezed and sniffled), everyone ate.  Afterward I sent the children with plates of fresh donuts to all the neighbors...five plates full and Corynn met the mailman at the box with a tray for him to pick from and we STILL had enough leftover for two donuts for all at breakfast the next day!

We never made it to a real fair this summer and I was sad for lots of reasons- but one big reason for my disappointment was that I would be missing the funnel cake.  So I decided to buy the cheapest  fryer ($19.00) at Walmart so we could EACH have a funnel cake instead of all sharing a single one as we do at the fair.  This was a great (and not-so-great!) idea.  We had our funnel cake this summer.  We made mozzerella sticks (pretty much my favorite thing ever).  And now we've made donuts.  This fryer is a dangerous, dangerous thing.

The rest of the weekend was beautiful, though I was feeling so crummy... I pushed ahead any other apple plans and decided instead to just lay in the sunshine of the flower circle.  There are so few days left to do that.  And it was glorious.  Even surrounded by the dead seedheads and stalks of flowers past instead of the vibrant glory of flowers in their prime, the flower circle holds a sort of magic for me.  

We've been soaking up these glorious fall days as much as we can, knowing that they can't be here forever.  Indeed, first frost seems to be looming ahead this very week!  We've got some serious harvesting to do before then.  And still, garlic to plant.  And the next few days look chilly, gray and rainy.  Perfect for canning apples.  It all works itself out in the end.

I have been trying to use up some of my yarn stash this year (you remember the don't buy a skein in 2015?) and I didn't make as big a dent as I had hoped but I have been chugging along alright.  It has been particularly tempting to go out and buy yarn for projects for Tiddle but I have stayed strong in my resolve!  It has been exciting, overall, to be reintroduced to my stash and to be forced to find creative ways to accomplish what I want to do using what I have.  Occasionally it is annoying, but for the most part, I have found yarn to use that works perfectly for what I need it for.  (See how perfect the orange color of the above photographed fox hat matched the little outfit I bought for a friends' baby?  I didn't even remember HAVING an orange and I had two different shades...one the perfect fit!  Fox hat pattern.)  

I had hoped to use up a lot more stash yarn than I have but, while some women can turn out impressive yarn projects almost weekly...it is pretty clear I am not one of them.  Even still,   I figure if I get a few smallish projects done now that the weather is practically demanding it (cool weather = yarny crafts.  It just does.) I will be satisfied.  I made the turquoise hat (in the woods pictures) last week using this pattern and think I may have done something wrong because it doesn't have the same brow lines as hers.  Visitors had stopped by and were chatting with us at the time when I was finishing up the hat so I'll say I got distracted and missed the last few lines of instructions.  ;-)  The kids' like the hat though and can't seem to decide who it shall belong to.  

That's good enough for me. 

Deep Purple

Though I had hoped to have a bunch of to-do's checked off my list before school began, they weren't getting checked off quite fast enough and I realized that if I put things off until everything is 'just so', things will be put off indefinitely. 

And so, we've begun school with no garlic planted, the granary downsize only 60% done, no applesauce or cider made, garden beds not yet cleared and a very messy, unorganized school room.  Little by little, children are being educated and things are getting checked off- though the latter more slowly than ever before.  My motivations are waning and I find myself, once again, struggling to force myself to do tackle those lingering, heavy things weighing on my mind instead of ignoring them.  I did get my pickled beets canned up- one of my favorite things to put up.  The smell of the beets and cinnamon and cloves and mustard seed all simmering, the gorgeous burgundy stains on everything...oh, canning pickled beets is just such a delicious time. And they taste so good.

Do you like our Beverly Hillbillie-esque Doodlebug up there?   Quite the vehicle.  Matt took it down the hill to a local car show and I am sure he could have won an award for most unusual (embarassing?) vehicle had there been one.  But we love it anyway.

Much to the childrens' delight, another one of our renegade chickens succeeded in hiding eggs long enough to hatch some babies.  Two more chickies surprised us in the garden-but I wonder how it will go for them since the weather is now turning so chilly.  It certainly is a nice way to turn over a young flock of chickens, this whole surprise baby thing.

My niece turned one a few weeks ago and I made her a little peasant dress using this pattern/tutorial and then made a matching dress for a little doll.  As always happens when I finally haul out the sewing machine, I got to work and immediately thought "This is so fun!  Why don't I do this more often?!"  I should.  I immediately thought that I could make a few for Adele' and hey- they are so easy, I could whip up a few for a potential baby girl too, without too much trouble.  If Tiddle turns out being a boy, it won't be too devastating to hand them off to someone else as gifts,

I am having the hardest time trying to figure out some projects I could make for Tiddle in these last 10 weeks or so...  I know when Tiddle arrives I will be entirely incapable of producing anything at all so now is time.  I am more capable at crochet and knitting than I ever have been before (though very much lacking in confidence with the latter) but I still finish projects so sloooowwwly that I know I will not be able to churn things out for boys AND girls.  What does one choose when one does not know?!  I am not generally a girl who prefers unisex things.  I prefer my girls to look like girls and boys to look like boys.  I find myself spending too long perusing free projects on Ravelry trying to find something 'perfect' but only succeeding at wasting the time I could be using to actually make something.  That's the pickle, I suppose. 

For this weekend: apples.  

We finished our last jar of applesauce a few weeks ago and I am desperate for some cider too.  So far it seems like apples are an every other year phenomenon around here (last years' harvest was nilch as was two years' ago) so I want to be sure to stock up while the gettings good.