Loving The Hard Work Of Things

Whoops! Its tomorrow. I truly didn't mean to stay up quite that late.

When A is gone time becomes strangely plastic for me. I am astounded, even embarrassed by how much his existence keeps me on a schedule. Somehow, knowing that he is coming home at a certain time or that he is trying to get to the gym in the morning or that he will want to eat at such and such an hour is a major motivator for me. I'm glad that I care about him and notice what he wants and needs, I'm a little concerned (hence the embarrassment) that as much as I thrive on a schedule and feel that I own my own use of routine and timing....its rather quick to fall away and become a mangled mess as soon as A is out of the house. I am finding it terribly hard to do most any of the usual things with my former vigor: getting up on time, having proper meals, making sure the kids clear the table, getting the animals fed bright and early, etc. Someone tell me this does not equate to a complete lack of moral fiber and starch on my part. Anyone?

We did manage to get the chicken coop totally finished! I forgot to take a nice shot of the finished coop....I'll have to add one later in the week. Its incredibly nice, almost absurdly nice, really. The six hens seem to have settled right in and made themselves at home. They are laying without interruption and no longer having riots at the fence and trying to all moshpit themselves out the door everytime I open the pen. I'm glad to see them so occupied and happy. They're now stationed right next to the compost pile which is giving them lots of good material to scratch about in and for a chicken....life couldn't be sweeter than living in a redwood mansion over a pile of kitchen waste. Good times abound.

The boys are doing all kinds of little handicraft projects lately. Ru has been dabbling in woodcarving after one of our recent readalouds featured a Swiss woodcarver, Dee has discovered detailed paper cutting and paper chains and Nib is really into coloring books and has started some of his first clearly representational art lately. Even Pom has begun drawing his own little crayon scribble storms on paper....and only once in Sharpie on a dining room chair which I think is a pretty good score. I would love to get all of them to do a little bit of some kind of art to use for Christmas presents this year. Have to mull over how to work it all in. So many wonderful things to make and do in the world.

Off to bed now before the gremlins get me! I've got a full day tomorrow and brand new towels that I bought myself for a treat which require a hot shower during some mama alone-time early in the morning. Somebody remind me to let go of my insane need to procrastinate and actually stay on track with my schedule tomorrow. My guitar teacher wisely quipped this past week....."one of the great keys to life is to learn to find real motivation and personal pleasure in the practice and work of life because that is most of life." I feel the need. Have to figure out how that works and what you do to switch your inner switch.

Winter Minutia

There is something very crisp and healing about a winter hike. Even here, in the land of very little snowfall the winter woods feel cleaner and peaceful. All the inhabitants of stream and leaf are sleeping deeply or gone away all together and everything from bud to burl is snugly folded for the resting season.

The palette is a simple: khaki, bone and taupe, so that every little snip of color shows up like a blinking sign in the even landscape. Its good to be outdoors and to feel pure solace, no chance of meeting other hikers on the trail, and hear only the hoot of your own voice or the echo of a raven's call in the distance.

Its time for little things to have a small moment to shine: the dark maroon purple of a wineberry leaf, the chartreuse carpet of moss under rusty oak leaves, the glint of mica in a trailside boulder. There were no bird's nests this hike but I always like to look for them once the leaves are down and all the occupants have flown off to other habitats.

 Away from highways and crowds and busy activities you can finally hear the drip of water off the spruce tips and the scuffle of a squirrel over the next rise and the rattle of the dead beech leaves in the wind. Small beauties, little things...but good to remember. All these small things are there, under the momentous importance of our busy lives if only we will take the time to bend down and see them.

Freeze The Good Stuff

 The nights are getting pretty chilly now, we're breaking out the footie pajamas on a regular basis. Ru asks every single morning now, "And Mommy, is it going to be cold today?" because he is hopeful that we will have a warm day which means that he can wear short sleeves and sandals, and that there will be snow, which is his fondest dream at the moment. I kinda think this cold weather business is here to stay for a while.

And we have a new family dessert, ice cream is passe, cocoa is in. A has been pioneering a new family tradition of after dinner homemade cocoa...and we're drinking them topped with whipped cream and sprinkles, in little espresso mugs. So much fun! I am hoping the trend continues long enough to extend beyond the classic rendition to: warm eggnoggy white cocoa, minty cocoa, nutmeg dusted mugs, and maybe a white chocolate variation? Its a great way to get a little, warm shot of dairy in at the end of the day. What flavor dreams am I missing?

 The boys are enjoying the leaf fall and the fact that at the moment there are giant piles to jump in, on every single curb. There are detours to be made between the car and any door....wander this direction to kick leaves....wander that direction to jump in a heap....wander over there to throw some in the air like confetti....  Such fun. Strange to see the naked trees reaching up over the horizon now though...

 Been having lots of fun in the kitchen lately. Made the first batch of Christmas cookies and packed them away in the frozen zone. I baked up some simple, no fuss chocolate spice cookies, Midnight Cracklers from Dorie Greenspan's classic baking tome. Pretty dead easy and dark, rich, chocolatey flavor...mmm...I'm not even that wild a fan of the whole chocolate chocolate chocolate thing but, yeah...these are good. They remind me of Mexican hot chocolate with the rich chocolate, hint of spice business. We're off to a good start.

 Oh...and warning. The dough is almost better than the finished cookies. So delicious. Like moist grown-up brownies in a chewy, wad-able, hold-a-chunk-in-your-hand form. Dangerous stuff folks. I bagged those suckers up for the freezer at lightening speed!

 I also baked up this pound cake a while ago and remembered, (per the recipe's instruction) that I'd frozen one for later and we broke one out to celebrate an autumn picnic in our yard after church on Sunday. This pound cake rocks and it freezes astoundingly. Its almost better out of the freezer...I'm not sure how that's possible, but there it is.

 See, aren't the colors an amazing whirl of light? Most of these leaves are down already. That's why we're glad we are lucky enough to own a camera. Nice to freeze more than just cake and cookies for later.

Happy last moments of Autumn everyone!

Poetry Friday: Leaf Verse

We are to that time of year that is hard for me to enjoy. We're past the glowing throes of autumn when the world is a blazing whirl of color and crisp days...we've had our first frost and snow and jackets are now mandatory. Now its on to hearth-fires and handicraft marathons, days when we snuggle under blankets and read stacks of storybooks and when we can't so I curse the windshield while I try to unearth it from its layers of ice with that little scratchy tool buried in the trunk of the van.

I want to be so cozy about it, I'm trying to will myself into that space by trying to enjoy even the annual destruction of the foliage.

Late Autumn Theatrical

There is a host of seasonal Post-it notes,

Flittering in our street corner maple-top.

They are pale, wasted ghosts of leaves,

Performing some great arboreal Hamlet,

Thinner than themselves, inscribed “November”

On every shuddering vein and tip.

We are at the climax now, the part where

There is a great stage-death, en masse

One million staggering, fainting falls then

Performing on the chill, even lawn

They twitch at the heels, gag and roll

Crisp into rigor mortis and compost dramatically.

Such an impressive show will doubtless

Inspire an encore and we will have the whole

Thing over again beginning with the bit about the

Hope of sap rising and the miraculous green buds

Whirling open their newborn chartreuse feathers.

Check out lots of other Poetry Friday participants and their selections here.

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. 

Autumn Magic

We went off to pick some pumpkins....

And we found....

....just the perfect collection.

There were hay rides and...

...blue skies and gold leaves everywhere we looked.

I picked some Sweet Annie for drying in a bundle in the kitchen. Smell so good!

Nib just looked up the entire time. So much pretty foliage overhead!

There were a few leaf fights.

  

Curiously the leaves on our own trees in our yard have yet to really turn or start dropping in earnest. It was kind of fun to drive out to this farm and enjoy a preview of fall leaf play. 

Some very, very happy sheep.

I love this boy.

There was a gorgeous blushing sky on the way home.

 We put the pumpkins on the front and back steps, the back door ones are for the more timid family members who are afraid of pumpkin smashers and the front step clan are the folks who are so unabashed about their celebratory fall spirit that they really believe the neighborhood and yea, the world will be good to them. The glass is half full and half empty at our house.

And this morning we baked another apple cake

I love the things they make out of Tinker Toys. So glad I picked them up at that yard sale.

Can you believe he's about to cut through is first two teeth? Such a sweet soul.

Testing the cake (which is already half gone)

 It is nice and moist. Plenty of apples, lovely sweet and shattery crust on top, but still, I dunno...I think I want it to be more spiced and a darker color. Maybe I need brown sugar in it or some whole wheat flour or something. Still searching, but feeling closer than ever.....

And my trash table is done! Well....sort of done.

 I ran out of paint before I could get the wooden edge along the top painted and the leg paint is a bit weak, but I was so anxious to use it that I think I'm just going to let it ride for a while. Its living in the sunroom, giving a boost to several houseplants who couldn't reach the light well. I love the silvery metallic top and have to admit that I stole the idea of painting it a metallic silver from my sister Foxy. What can I say? She has good taste! I am considering getting some kind of decorative wooden feet at Home Depot to screw in and raise it up. Its a bit low, too high to be coffee table material, but too low for pulling a chair up.