Autumn, Right Here.

I have in my mind this brilliant idea for an art project/home decoration/science creation. I want to make a large, watercolor wheel of seasons that will go on my wall....but instead of the traditional seasonal markers I will fill it all out with the wild things that make up the seasons here in Northern California. I have fallen in an Alice In Wonderland  world full of topsy turvy references which are vaguely familiar but all seem a bit jumbled, stirred with a hearty dose of unusual occurrences that I have never experienced. Its a new outdoors, a new science and a new sense of place. I am wildly curious and astonished and excited and aghast that I still hear, EVERYWHERE from cynical locals, "Bummer about not having seasons anymore now that you moved here, eh?" Seasons are everywhere. Traditional is only some places.

For instance, here are some of the things which will go in my Autumn slice of the wheel:

Autumn In NoCal Means.....

• Monarch butterflies drifting through traffic
• Blush of color on the sweet gum, pepper, ginko and crepe myrtle trees.
• Ripe persimmons in my garden
• Figs area ready to eat in every corner lot
• Wild mushroom hunting time in the hills!
• Twilight mating season walks for tarantulas
• Planting the winter veggie garden
• Monsoon season begins
• The prickly pear cactus fruits
• Crab fishing season! 
• Meteor shower time, head to the hills for spectacular shows
• Waterfalls re-appear...time for all the hikes along rivers.
• Napa is hung with astounding grapes of all varieties and colors
• Gold Rush Days in Sacramento (we'll make it next year!)
• Dia De Los Muertos celebrations throughout the area
• Olive harvest and oil pressing
• Elk mating season
• Bird migrations....some are spectacular (wild cranes for instance)

Did I miss any? Let me know your favorite things about Autumn in The Bay. I wanna notice all the stuff.

Space Sharing With Your Spouse

Feeling a little cramped in my own house today. A has been holed up in the office all week on important (must keep the kids quiet!!!) phone calls and dodging in and out of the house for meetings and gym runs. This morning he left while I was out with the boys and he locked up out of the house by accident. Its so hard to switch up your regular routine and toss a new person and new demands into it, right? It seems so cozy to spend extra time together but the reality is a little stickier.

I always thought I was extrovert until I realized that being an introvert is more about needing alone time than it is about hating people. Read this fabulous book all about introvertism and came away with a whole new perspective and an understanding about my need for space and recharging. Makes sense that having my little world invaded, even by my own spouse, would make me feel a little encroached upon now that I feel legit about my own wiring. Autumn feels like a season that pushes all the introvert buttons extra hard too, its all of the moment: stand at the sink peeling apples for hours and stock the larder with homemade apple sauce, read books alone in the dark by the light of a lantern, get up in the quiet and start a coffee cake before the children get up, walk home from work alone and take a shortcut through the woods to kick leaves....you get that right?

 

Sharing is good but admitting your own needs and boundaries is also good. Sometimes a little open-eyed clarity is the key to stopping the obsession and high-stepping past your own little stumbling blocks. I think one of the problems is that I also skipped my mama-night out alone this week. So, now I'm off to the library to look for a good book that I can take off and read alone after dinner just to get myself out of the house and breathing in a little solo space.

My Autumn Food List

A few years ago I brainstormed the idea of a seasonal food list for the side of the fridge. The idea is to "keep in mind" visually all the cozy, traditional foods that we keep dreaming of when we long for Autumn. I also really love the fact that it does a tiny bit of keeping me on track with local/seasonal eating. No better way to check off "apple dumplings"  than to turn it into a trip to the Farmer's Market or the local orchard! Compiling the list is also a fun exercise in self-examination. What speaks Autumn to me personally? What traditional Fall foods are not compelling for me but seem culturally obligatory? Ha! Mental purging! Sometimes I have a particular food that I crave and love but I don't know what time of year it "fits" in so researching its seasonality (mussels in white wine sauce was one for me) ends up being a bite-sized education. I now know that mussels are in season in Autumn. 

The first year I drew up my lists it took up a little bit of my time....but now I just have all the lists saved on my computer and I just review the appropriate list, add or remove whatever seems right and hit PRINT. The list lives on the side of the fridge and I use it when planning menus for the week or dreaming up special dishes for company. Then I keep a pen handy for scratching things off as they show up on our table. So fun! Here's my Autumnal version....

Autumnal Food

Pear Tart

Apple Pie

Pumpkin Pie

Stuffed Figs

Cinnamon Pork Chops

Cheese with Apples

Mussels and Crusty French Bread

Oyster Mushrooms Fried with Bacon

Sausages w/ Caramelized Onions

Slow Roasted Ribs

Roast Quail

Apple Dumplings

Fresh Plums

Plum Tart

Apple Turnovers

Raspberry Jam

Mulled Cider

Roast Beets

Venison Tenderloin

Braised Rabbit

Black Bean Soup

Roasted Garlic

Cranberry Bar Cookies

Buckwheat Pancakes

Scrambled Eggs W/Mushrooms

Apple Galette

Fresh Apple Cider @ The Mill

Spicy Muffins

Carrot Cake

Swedish Meatballs

Chili w/Cornbread

Pumpkin Bread

Honeybaked Ham

Chai Tea

Apple Cider Donuts

Baked Sweet Potatoes

Pot Roast

Butternut Squash Soup

Braised Pork Belly

Pumpkin Waffles

Apple Crisp

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Acorn Squash w/ Cinnamon and Maple Syrup

 Bouf Bourguignon

Cranberry Coffee Cake

Concord Grapes

Goat Cheese Cheesecake

Pumpkin Fudge

What would make your list?

 

Together Work

This morning we went out and had an early family work bee in the yard. A has started "working out" two mornings a week in our own yard: moving wheelbarrow loads of garden goods, hoisting stones, digging holes for me, hacking bushes apart and other little homeownery, outdoor chores. It is so fun to have him chip in and the boys and I always try to put on our garden gloves and outdoor boots and join in. I am sure the neighbors must think we're crazy, all out there in the yard together at 7 AM but we're having fun, we're actually getting the outdoor work done and there's something so very seasonal about being out in the thick of it like that.

We've seen the first frost and the first leaf color firsthand, noticing all the tiny changes as they come because we're out there, saturated in it on those work mornings, breathing clouds of frosty steam and kicking through the first falling leaves. Another great bonus? When we finally come in, peeling off work gloves and stamping our feet, we bring our heartiest appetites to the breakfast table. Oatmeal never tasted so good!

Lately we've: dug the ephemeral summer bulbs and put them into the basement for storage, finished stacking the stone wall along the back property line, given the hedge one last trim for the year, and now the boys and A are busily stacking up a big pile of wintery kindling to heap into a cardboard box in the basement where it will dry out thoroughly waiting its turn by the fireside. I am thinking about tying them into little bundles with garden twine, would make transport easier and also look really cute.

This family-work is a new thing for us, we've historically been pretty thin on genuine group-efforts but somehow we've hit the right sort of activities and time-slot. It feels good to work together, not just play together...and it feels really right to be working as a group to manage and maintain our little plot of land....even if it is just a little farm in the city.

Leaf Garland Construction

So, I mentioned the other day that I was hoping to find wax in order to make a leaf garland with The Littles. Well, I finally located candle wax in the craft store and used that. Maybe nobody uses paraffin for canning anymore (I guess, I don't at all, come to think of it.) or maybe I am looking too late in the year, in any case I never did find any. Candle wax, however did work just fine.

My idea was that I wanted to sort of combine two ideas I'd seen and make them one project. My boys are forever collecting outdoor treasures which is why we have a Nature Shelf on the bottom level of one of my china corner cupboards. I wanted to take those leaves which come in with them in quantity and decorate more than just one shelf with them...somehow make the color stay and incorporate something to remind us of Thanksgiving.

Martha Stewart (who else? Brilliant, brilliant Martha) had great instructions for preserving fall leaves...and showed them hung in a window. And then here's a good example from another blogger of the thankfulness idea I ran into.So, that's what we did...we mixed the two. First we picked up leaves...then we melted our wax (in a cleaned out yogurt tub, using the microwave).

While the wax was melting we wrote (meaning I wrote) down all kinds of things we were thankful, one thing per leaf with Sharpie...right on the leaf itself.

After the wax was melted and the leaves were "inscribed" we held onto the stems and dipped them in until each leaf was fully immersed. Then the wet leaves were laid out on parchment paper to dry and harden.

Once they were hardened I took a needle and a very long thread and stitched my way through the stem end of each leaf, garlanding them all up into one long chain. We were more ambitious than we should have been and found that by the time we'd done 2/3rds of the leaves we were all too squirrely to continue any further so the chain wasn't quite as long as I thought it would be. That's okay. We like short garlands too.

The silky feeling of the finished, wax-coated leaves is a wonderful sensation between the fingers and the effect of the light shining through all your leaves-cum-post-it-notes is awfully pretty. We had a fun, giggly time together and now we have a window decoration that we made with our own six hands.