HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Autumn Drab

It’s a dark, dreary, chilly Halloween. It will likely be a night not fit for goblins, ghouls, or ghosts.

Our Silas, the "Stay Puft" marshmallow

After a stressful week in town, I welcomed Mike’s suggestion that we spend the weekend on the farm. Well, I did say that if he had suggested it sooner, I might have been better organized, but no matter. We had leftovers from several meals, and I remembered to bring a lemon for Mike’s tea. We got by.

We arrived at the farmhouse just prior to lunch on Friday, Oct. 28. It was 56 outside and 52 in the house. Mike lit a fire in the fireplace insert and I baked an apple pie. The house was warm soon enough.

We pursued a number of winter prep activities. We explored for pinecones, which we use as fire starters, and Mike found some at the edge of the north field which he subsequently picked up and stored in the woodshed. We haven’t seen so many this year, but we still have a stockpile from last year.

Strawberry bed before thinning

Halloween and then November are upon us. Regardless of what the weather brings, it’s time to say goodbye to the gardens. I thinned the strawberry bed, tossing a cartload of plants. It hurts to throw them away, but it’s for the good of the bed. It makes a big difference in the quality and production of the berries.

I also dug out the carrots – Burpee’s kaleidoscope blend, a crop that was reasonably abundant. I made glazed carrots for supper, and the big purple carrot acted like purple dye, turning all his brothers and sisters his same purple. They were good, though!

We’ll have our traditional chili and pumpkin pie for supper. I plan to finish the spider web afghan (lap throw) in the next day or two, and then move on to Thanksgiving / Christmas planning and projects. KW

ONLINE BOMBARDMENT

We're enjoying a quiet weekend at the farm.

Sometimes I wonder how other sewists manage the constant barrage of retailer promotions for new projects, including challenges and sew-alongs.

·      “Join our block-of-the-month club,” says the quilt shop.

·      “Make this doll dress and post it on Pinterest before next Tuesday and win a $100 gift card,” says the purveyor of doll clothes patterns. (They make it sound like I will win for sure. It's not true!)

·      “Sew along with us over the next month and make this doll outfit (quilt, afghan, table runner, etc.)”

·      “Join us on live video tomorrow morning and learn to make this cuddly stuffed toy.”

·      “What new craft do you want to start today?”

Of course, for the retailer it’s all about encouraging the customer to buy their products. The plan is that you will buy the supplies to make a specific item and begin to work along with the online group to complete something fantastic. And some people do. But for some of us, it’s just one more mediocre item in the pile – or maybe just stuff for the storage shed.

I wonder how successful these promotions are. Of those who buy in, how many actually follow along and finish? I’d love to know some statistics on this.

I have my own agenda. I don’t need anyone to suggest something for me to do, though I love to see new ideas. And I’m especially good at starting projects that somehow don’t get finished. So, I try to close my mental door to these wonderful new things. How many wonderful things can can the average lifespan handle? 

It just seems like some people really thrive on it, or is that just what “they” want me to think? “If she feels left out, maybe we can get her to buy.” But I do belong to one Facebook sewing group, and several clever sewists post their creations frequently. How do they do it? I know I’m a slow worker, but I also don’t care about online “show and tell,” and I don’t like deadlines. The pressure to finish is a stress I try to keep out of my life, and maybe that’s another reason I don’t finish projects as well as I should.

But, you know – It’s not a lot of fun to constantly deprive myself of fabric, yarn, and a new project. I’m disappointed that I can’t seem to use what’s on hand so that I can have more. Doll outfits and little quilts dance in my head like sugar plums, but these days I’m careful about starting a new project.

Last week, though, I watched a tutorial on a zigzag tablerunner and felt the old familiar draw to try it. “No,” I said to myself, “you simply mustn’t.” But in the end, the desire to make that tablerunner won out. I had the necessary fabric on a Halloween theme, and the quilting guru said it was a quick, fun project. So, I did it – and here it is. Perfect it is not. Quick and fun it was. KW 

A NEW ROUTINE

 Now I must go and build the fire in Dad’s room and wash my late dinner dishes and do all the little things to make the evening comfortable. – Ina Dobson, 1936

Colder temps demand a return to the winter routine – warmer clothes, warmer bedding, making sure the electric blanket is turned on well before bedtime, fires in the little stove, a hot drink for morning break, jacket and gloves for walks. Like Ina, we do little things to make the evening comfortable.

I have apparently hidden our bedspread from myself, but in the process of looking for it in the shop loft, Mike DID FIND the computer monitor he has been searching for. And we found an eyelet bedspread I thought I had donated, so I put that on our bed. At least we’re warm enough now.

I shredded the lone zucchini and all the green tomatoes from my fall garden. I was right about the zucchini – four cups, or enough for two batches of bread. I have three cups of shredded green tomatoes. I haven’t decided whether to make bread or mincemeat.

Mike read in the local paper that the blue aphids lay their eggs on the bark of ash trees. Well, we have a purple ash on the back of our town lot. I hadn’t noticed the infestation of aphids in previous years, but we see them this year! Mike said that he saw them last year.

We have friends who came down with Covid a couple of weeks ago. They aren’t really well yet. As soon as Mike heard they were sick, he went for the latest booster update. Yesterday (Tuesday) I got my booster and also a flu shot. I began to feel strange about 5:00, but I fixed supper (a tasty pheasant tortellini skillet meal), took my shower, and then as Mike was complimenting the meal, I promptly passed out. Mike dashed around the table to catch me. Today I stayed quiet. KW

FINALLY COLD – WELL, CHILLY

You probably aren’t surprised that I can’t find the daffodils Mike and I trenched in at the town house in January. The plan was to dig them up this fall and transplant them to the farm, but I’ve only found a few. It's odd because we planted them in four straight trenches. Well, no harm done. They’ll just bloom again in the spring, and this time maybe I’ll be wise enough to mark where they are. Meanwhile, we naturalized the few bulbs I found in the orchard behind the farmhouse.

I called it quits on the raised beds. I tore out the worthless zucchini plant, and what do you know? Out came a medium-large zucchini, evidently hiding under the leaves. How do they do that anyway? I’m sure it will make two loaves of zucchini bread. And before we drove back to town yesterday (Oct. 21), I picked the green tomatoes and another cup of strawberries. I still see green berries and blooms, but surely they will cease to ripen soon.

Mike went for a bike ride after lunch on Wednesday, so I decided to walk down Stove Creek. I invited Bess along, but once we were at the pond, she decided to turn back. (Nellie she is not!) I continued my hike alone but didn’t walk far because it’s slow-going now that the ground has been worked. Later, I was upstairs sewing when I heard the kitchen door close and knew that Mike had returned. Immediately following, I heard “pawfalls” marching purposefully up the stairs and straight down the hall to the vintage sewing room where I was working. How did Bess know where to find me? “Mike is back,” she said, prancing around, “and it’s time for the afternoon walk. I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” Well, she missed her chance. She had to wait.

We’ve had such a warm October here. That is, the afternoons were in the 70s, or even 80 – until Thursday, when we watched as the skies became cloudy. By Friday afternoon, it was raining in earnest. It was 60 in the town house Friday morning and 51 outside. We set up our space heaters, and Mike cut kindling and started a fire in the stove. This morning I’m dressed in my fleecy winter uniform. KW

APPLESAUCE

Daughter Hallie recently received a windfall of 20 pounds of cosmic crisp apples, so she bought a food mill and made apple butter and sauce. Over the weekend, I also worked with cosmic crisp apples to make juice for jelly. Apple juice adds pectin and also moderates the strong flavor of the elderberries. And as I’ve said, I made the elderberry juice too thin this year, so I rightly surmised that apple juice would correct the jelly potion.

Anyway, Hallie and I discussed making applesauce. “Why do we think we have to peel the apples,” she asked, to which I responded: Yes, people cook apples with peels and cores, but my mother refused to do that. She said she could taste the peels. (She was sensitive to some flavors -- or maybe just stubbornly opinionated.) Her method was to peel and core the apples (she used yellow transparents) and chunk them into a pot. She added water, brought the pot to a boil, and then simmered it until the apples broke down, mashing it smooth as needed. At this point, she added the sugar – lots of sugar – and simmered the apples long enough for the sugar to melt. Mother’s applesauce was a sweet-tart confection. (Makes my jaw ache to think of it.)

I think Mother bought the yellow transparents from an orchard, and later she had her own tree. Besides the sauce, she made apple pies for the freezer. Yellow transparents are definitely cooking apples – one of the tartest varieties. I have never seen them in supermarkets. I haven't seen them in years -- period.

But with a food mill, we can certainly make quick work of applesauce. In fact, it's really impractical to peel small apples for sauce. However, my food mill is a food foley, and I have not been impressed with its efficiency. In fact, it seems to leave black oily-looking traces in the sauce. So, I’m thinking of buying a food mill. Do you have one? What kind is it?

Mother also bought a box of yellow delicious apples every year which she kept at the foot of the basement stairs. The aroma of ripening apples filled the back door entry, called the “service porch.”

We have far more apple varieties in the grocery stores today than we did “back in the day.” I remember red and yellow delicious apples, and that’s about it. I was working in Boston in 1972 when a friend showed up munching a Granny Smith. Neither my roommate nor I had seen one prior to that. And I remember watching a talk show on television in the 1990s where an apple expert explained new varieties coming onto the market. He said that within a few years, the delicious apple would be replaced. KW

[Confidential to Chuck: The wheat is sprouting.]

ANOTHER BATTLE IN THE GREAT WAR

Evening light

Now we’re in town so that we can rest up from two days of hard work at the farm.

Friday morning, we loaded the bed of the old pickup with some of our lifetime supply of firewood stored in the barn. Mike tossed and I stacked.

Load of firewood

Next, we cleaned the closet under the stairs again. Earlier in the morning, my nose detected mouse activity in that closet. It was just a partially-built nest, but it still required a thorough cleaning of the closet, which entailed removing paint cans and boxes, searching out and clogging any points of mouse egress, and putting everything back. The work is difficult because a person can’t stand up in that closet. Mike crawled in and handed stuff out to me, and then vacuumed. I handed everything back in. Every time we clean this closet, we throw out some old paint. And of course, the good news is that the closet is clean once again. (And the mousetraps reset.)

Old maple at farm slowly changing to fall colors

I also transplanted a lavender from the town garden to the bank behind the house. I’m sure my grandparents never thought of developing a “high country” drought-tolerant garden here. They tried to have a lawn and a regular garden with peonies, roses, lilacs, and vegetables. Grandma Ina was proud of her clematis on the south side of the front porch.

I devoted Saturday to making jelly – two batches. The first was a combination of weak elderberry juice and leftover haw juice combined with apple juice made from cooked apples. It turned out well – a nice soft set. While the canning equipment was in place, I decided to use up the rest of the apple and weak elderberry juice and make a batch of elderberry apple jelly, which also turned out well.

Blue aphids fill the air (hard to see)

It was 64 in the house when we arrived in town at 10:00 Sunday morning. That’s the coolest the house has been this season. The days warm slowly now, but it did reach 79 for a while in the afternoon. We opened the slider to allow some warmth into the house.

The “October bugs” (blue aphids) are now dense in the town neighborhood. They are bad this year, making an afternoon walk most uncomfortable. I saw our neighbors start off to walk their dog yesterday, only to turn around and go back home. KW

AND HERE WE ARE AGAIN – BACK AT THE FARM

These autumn days are lovely. Cool mornings gradually become warm afternoons. I wish I had made a fall planting of lettuce or spinach or something, but I talked myself out of it, and maybe it’s just as well.

We took our time packing the old pick-up for this stay at the farm. That’s really the best way. We’re much less apt to run off and forget something if we just don’t hurry. We didn’t leave town until 10:00.

The downside of this warm fall is the bugs. We have wasps and stinkbugs galore, and in town, we also have the annual infestation of “fall bugs,” or blue aphids, which make an afternoon walk unpleasant. I’ve seen a spider or two in the house this past week, and I always take that as a sign that cooler temps are on the way.

Okay, down to business. Some of you want to know if the fields were finally planted, and yes, they were. I wish I could have been here when they did it, but we weren’t, so that’s that. No more walking across the fields until next fall, though of course, we can walk the edges.

It hasn’t been a good jelly year. The haw jelly I made is too stiff, while the elderberry didn’t set up. I must be losing my touch. I was going to re-cook the elderberry jelly, but in reading recommendations, one blogger advised that I think about it before just snapping off the lids. Couldn’t I just use the syrup? So, I suggested to Mike that the syrup would add nice flavor to some sparkling water, and he was eager to try. He proceeded to mix a generous portion of syrup with some flavored sparkling water and pronounced it delicious – much better than his usual powdered drink, he says. I guess so! (The elderberry syrup will not last long.)

I had planned that we would pick some country plums this year. The first time Mike checked the trees, the plums weren’t ripe. The next time he looked, he saw no fruit. How does that happen. Do the deer climb into the trees? Do they shake the trees?

I picked enough strawberries for another shortcake, and I see more green berries and blossoms. Imagine! It’s mid-October and I’m picking strawberries! I tell myself that this can’t go on forever. I also picked two tomatoes. They have tough skins but otherwise, they are tasty. KW