A chill in the air

“Autumn has caught us in our summer wear” 

~ Philip Larkin

While not yet Autumn, Sunday I could not get warm.  The weather has definitely cooled down (like 10 degrees below normal) and the a/c units are out of the windows.  Along with Spring this is my favorite time of the year.

A walk along the barn road shows dead leaves starting to accumulate along its edge.  

 A look up into the woods and you notice the trees have lost their vibrant green.  They now wear coats of army green and drab olive.  Soon they will be vibrant again in hues of red, orange and yellow.  The wildflowers or weeds depending on who is talking are blooming.

The multi-flora rosehips are turning red.  

 The hops are past their prime.  

 The acorns are plentiful and the black walnuts 

are making walking across the yard without turning your ankle an impossible feat.

Autumn seems in a rush this year.  The bear is a regular visitor as he tries to put on his winter weight.  The puppy doesn’t like him!  He growls with his hackles up while walking from door to door.  Something took down one of the fawns in the field.  It took ½ one night and ½ the next.  We believe it is the coyotes which are getting to be nightly visitors on the mountain behind us….another thing the puppy doesn’t like!  A small buck was in the yard yesterday, the velvet is off his antlers and his neck looked like it had already started to swell.  And at the man’s worksite there were deep marks of hooves being shoved in the dirt where two bucks had been fighting. 

I have spent the last month canning, knitting and working on the genealogy. A friend knew my tomatoes were not producing what I needed and picked me up 125# from a farm near where he works.  I was kept busy enough that I missed the Endless Mt Fiber Fest. 

I did however enter into their completion and I won on both entries!!!!!  Cyndi from Riverrim was nice enough to take them up for me as she vends there with Grace Hatton.  This year’s project was a cowl.  I entered a crocheted version 

(Main Street byKrista Wolf) which won first place and a knit version 

(Beaded smoke Ring by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer with a few changes due to time restrictions) which won third place!  I know it’s not like entering into a huge competition such as MD Sheep & Wool or Rhinebeck but its fun.

But back to the gardening/canning….With the addition of the 125# of tomatoes, my  shelves are now stocked with all the BBQ sauce, chili sauce, salsa, bruschetta in a jar, rotel tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce and V8 that I need to get through the year.  The green beans which were late to start are still producing.  I slowed down picking so I can save seed for next year.  The summer squash were nothing to write about but the winter squash are doing fantastic.  I planted two spaghetti and one LI Cheese in the regular garden and I must have 10 spaghetti squash still out there and three cheese.  Up by the barn in a manure pile I also planted one LI cheese, 1 striped cushaw and some saved seed from a sugar pie pumpkin I got from Walmart last year.  I intended to keep moving the fence but the vines soon grew through the roll so I couldn’t move it without breaking the vines. 

However I have four cheese, three cushaw and some sugar pie’s.  The chickens have discovered the sugar pie and are pecking at them.  I had to wrap the others that are growing outside the fence in old feed bags so as not to lose them.

We went blueberry picking in August at Herrick Hill Huckleberry Farm and it was awesome. Toddler O kept eating and every time we asked him how many berries he picked and put in his bucket the answer was three.  His brother Baby B went from person to person, stomped his foot, grunted, put his hand out and waited for it to be filled. We brought home 30 pounds.  I froze some, and then canned blueberry/lime jam, blueberry syrup and blueberry pie filling. This past weekend we went apple picking at Roba’s.  You can quickly fill a ½ bushel as the trees are loaded 

so it wasn’t as much fun as berry picking for the adults or the grandkids.  Closer to Halloween we will go back pumpkin picking and after looking at their cut your own Christmas trees we might have to get our tree there this year. And did you know there are less than 100 days until Christmas?

And in genealogy…I got back into it after being contacted by a relative on my father’s side.  This past week I contacted someone about my grandmother’s sister (or daughter as has always been assumed) on my mom’s side and it ended up being her granddaughter.  Now maybe we can make some head way on our great grandparents.  

And that about wraps it up.  

Talking in my Sleep

"You think I am dead,"
The apple tree said,
"Because I have never a leaf to show -
Because I stoop,
And my branches droop,
And the dull gray mosses over me grow!

"But I'm still alive in trunk and shoot;
The buds of next May
I fold away -
But I pity the withered grass at my root."

"You think I am dead,"
The quick grass said,
"Because I have parted with stem and blade!
But under the ground,
I am safe and sound
With the snow's thick blanket over me laid.

"I'm all alive, and ready to shoot,
Should the spring of the year
Come dancing here -
But I pity the flower without branch or root."

"You think I am dead,"
A soft voice said,
"Because not a branch or root I own.
I never have died, but close I hide
In a plumy seed that the wind has sown.

"Patient I wait through the long winter hours;
You will see me again -
I shall laugh at you then,
Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers.

Edith Matilda Thomas (1854 - 1925)

The name of the poem is Talking in Their Sleep and like the apple tree, grass and flower I am waiting patiently through the winter hours.  The deer aren't as patient as they are having a hard time of it.  I finally caved and started putting some feed out.

Everything feels like these droplets of water…

suspended in time. The snow cover is the same, the temperatures are the same, the future forecast is the same. That being said, I am preparing for more cold weather yet also preparing for the inevitable thaw and return to gardening.

And I am knitting.  I finished the baby blanket.  #2 daughter had it all packed in a laundry basket of goodies and wouldn't let me take it out.  You can't see it in this picture but it is crib size and the way it is crocheted the blue is more dominant on one side and brown more on the other.

 I even had time to knit a pair of baby socks.  

I had to knit myself another pair of mittens as I left the last pair in Philly.   

I hope #1 daughter gets some use out of them.  I saw a pair of bed socks in Knitting Vintage Socks and liked the design so I knit them up and I am sending them down to #1 daughter. 

 I have another pair of socks on the needles for myself.  I saw a pin on Pinterest how to make stripes in ribbing without the bumps of the other color showing. 

I had to put stripes in this pair of socks just to check it out and it does work!  

 Why did I not know this before now?

I did clean up the greenhouse in preparation of the upcoming season.  I bought some peat pellet trays to start seeds and they are soaking/expanding now, later today they will be filled with tomato and pepper seeds...maybe.

And canning season has started.  While combining freezers I took out two small turkeys and cooked them.  I then made turkey stock and canned it…11 quarts and 3 pints.  There are several bags of rhubarb which might get turned into pie filling before the weekend is over.

So I guess things are moving along even if it is like molasses going uphill in February!

Seasonal shockings

"The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and there a yellow leaf
shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many."-   Oliver Wendell Holmes

Once school starts I automatically go into “fall” mode.  I start harvesting everything there is to harvest.  I look forward to the cooler temperatures and foggy mornings. 

Well Wednesday and Thursday, the weather took little notice of the leaves changing to yellow or red and collecting along the sides of the roads, the squirrels and chipmunks running around collecting the hickory nuts, 

the multitude of spider webs covered in dew 

 or the dwindling harvest as it rained down some totally unfall-like weather.  I love 60-75 but 90’s I feel like Frosty going into the hot house full of poinsettia’s.

Having already taken out the AC I was ill prepared for the heat and humidity which belonged back in July and August…not my September!  I gave up all thoughts of canning under such inhospitable  circumstances and sat miserably in the corner whining for more ice!  The only good part of the day was the evening thunder storms which brought some relief.

But today dawned cool and refreshing and all was well in my world.  I quickly got to work on the green beans, processing several pints and then came the tomatoes.  After getting them on the stove cooking I sat down for a break.

Along came a commercial which had me completely gobsmacked.  Now I realize I am rushing the autumn season by a couple of weeks by associating it with the start of school.  And I realize I like autumn  for the cooler temperatures but this commercial was for Christmas!!!!!...a whole lot colder than I want it for a little while longer.  Kmart is telling everyone not to wait until the last minute and use their lay away.  I am all for buying gifts early and if I see something for someone I may buy it in February and put it away, and as a knitter/crocheter I realize that one must start work on some gifts while the sweat is dripping from your brow….but advertising for it even before Halloween …preposterous!  (for some reason I feel that should be said with a British accent and by a man with a monocle!) We are not even to the 100 day count down and the fall tv shows haven’t even started! 

And now still shaking my head, I am going back to my tomatoes.  Sanity still reigns there.  But before I leave I have to show you my bag.  A local fiber fest had a contest.  This year it was a bag, knit, crocheted, felted or woven.  I thought about entering and while going through a folder with patterns I had printed out long ago and never got to (please tell me I am not the only one that has one of those) I found the pattern for the Cluck clutch.  I have a chicken themed kitchen and had thought of making this just to stuff and stick on a shelf but figured I would kill two birds with one stone.  So I got out a hook and crocheted the thing up and sent if off to the festival with Cyndy.  I never saw it at the festival and I don’t know how many entered but I won a ribbon….it is only a participation ribbon for best presentation because I stuffed her with tissue paper to look like a regular chicken.  

 It wasn’t a serious project so I didn’t even expect to win what I did, but it is my first time so I am happy.

And while my purchases at the festival were small I had a great time.   

two bumps of jacob roving  

moon and stars clay buttons

It's a dogs life

If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man.  All things are connected.  Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth.  ~Chief Seattle of the Suquamish Tribe, letter to President Franklin Pierce

As I mentioned in the last post we were waiting to find out if my dogs tumor that was removed on 1/27 was cancerous.  It turns out it was a lick granuloma which is a “skin disorder in dogs resulting from an urge to lick the lower portion of the leg”.  He never licked until he tore a toe nail in December and the vet said it would heal on its own.  Well Cooper started licking it all the time.  When the nail re-grew he started licking further up his leg and I thought it was a hot spot so was treating it as such until the lump formed.

So after several trips back to the vet because he ripped off bandages, chewed the “do not chew” bandage that supposedly tastes bad ….They put him on puppy Prozac . 

When he was able to bite off the zapping strip they put on top of the bandage, then ripped out 2 staples and then ripped out all the staples and he still continued to destroy cones and go back to licking the wound they put him on tranquilizers. 

The vet had planned to take out the staples on the 9^th  and it would have been done and over with, but since they were unable to pull the skin back  together after he ripped out the staples  and it swelled up we have to let it heal from the inside out and he will have a scar.  On the upside he has lost 7 pounds.

Myself, I should be on his Prozac, since every time I left the house or was busy he got into trouble.  I got to the point that I had to see him at all times as I don’t do blood and gaping wounds well.  I closed off all bedrooms, baths and stairways, leaving him only the kitchen, dining room and living room to roam.  As it is a very open space he tries to hide his head in a corner and lick through the cone.  He is making me as crazy as he is!

We have been back to the vet six times.  I think I bought him a new car.  They refer to Cooper as Meathead now.  We went through an inflatable collar and we are on our fifth cone.  This last one we picked up at Pet Smart and it lashes to his collar, the ones from the vet didn’t do that.  So far he has been unable to get this one off but not from lack of trying.  The others were a more brittle plastic and he would ram into the doorways, tables, chairs etc in an attempt to destroy it. We would try to fix them with duct tape but that only limited his vision more leading to more walks into walls and furniture. When he finally is able to go without the cone I will have to fix all the damage he has done to the moldings and paint on the walls.  I am more upset that he is self mutilating than the damage to the house.  We borrowed a shock collar to try to get him to stop.  We just picked it up last night so we will see how this will work.

Between runs to the vet, I have been canning.  I would like to turn off a freezer so I started pulling out last year’s fruit.  I have made two batches of strawberry/rhubarb and a batch of apple/rhubarb jam. 

I have also been crocheting and knitting.  February gave me several more knit squares from the one group I belong to.  I have one left to do from this round.  I also started a ripple afghan to use up open skeins of yarn.  It is single crochet so will be extra warm and take a while to finish!

Little Nephew has taken a liking to it and mentioned several times that the one my mom made him is too small now.  Of course he wants everything I make…years from now you will see this kid on Hoarders for sure! 

#1, Sir T and Baby O came for a three day weekend.  At 9 months he is 30 inches and 21 pounds, a long lean drooling machine.  And he is into everything making it abundantly clear that my house is not childproof!

And #1 son and A have set a wedding date.  So all in all I have been busy and since seed starting is right around the corner it looks like it will stay that way!