Pumpkins and Gourds and Dogs, oh my!

Magic

We hosted several friends for a "local" dinner on our patio this past Saturday. Everyone contributed to the meal by preparing dishes using locally-grown and raised foods (there were a few exceptions--notable among them was KB's smashing chocolate brownie! Heaven!)

The night was perfect. Our friends are perfect. Life is good.

The chickens were hoping to join us (and not as part of the main course)

Our children hosted an art gallery in our living room. They invited all the other children to bring along some of their artwork to display:

After the meal, we had a bonfire

and some dancing

A magical evening.

Seasons

I love fall. It's always been my favorite time of year. As a kid I think it had a lot to do with the new school year--all those new notebooks, pencils and folders held so much promise. As an adult, I've always appreciated the beauty of the changing foliage. When we lived in town we drove to Madison each Sunday to attend church and each week brought a new palette along the Baraboo bluffs. I love the richness of the earth tones. These are the colors that we have chosen to adorn the walls inside our home. They comfort me.

However, my alternate reason for loving this time of the year has to do with my garden. This may come as somewhat of a shock, but toward the end of summer I start to dislike ( I won't go so far as to say 'hate') my garden. There's always so much to do--harvesting, processing, freezing. And the weeds seem to know that your time needs to be spent on these other tasks. So they multiply. Exponentially. This year, weeds took over my garden.

And I admit it--I let them. By this time of year, I am full of mixed emotions--pride over all of the delicious food we grew, shame over the plants I inadvertently killed, joy at the sight of those plants that continue to nourish us and frustration that (once again) I wasn't able to keep up with everything. So (so, so so) many things that I intended to do were never done. Numerous vegetables that went unused. And weeds-everywhere weeds!

But as with all seasons, this one will end...

Taking with it, the bounty that fed us these past months...

And when winter arrives in full, I will be dreaming of springtime dirt...

Clutching a seed catalog in my hands.

autumn

With the first frosts we know autumn is officially here. I spent some time today picking the remaining ripe tomatoes. In the past we have also picked greenies to ripen in an out-of-the-way place. One memorable year I believe we began (unintentionally) making tomato wine in a box in our basement. Let's just say I wouldn't have used those tomatoes in anything I wanted to feed to my family.

So I harvested several tomatoes (only the ripe ones this year), some sage, marjoram, parsely, carrots and kale. Many of these would fare well through a light frost, but I was doing a bit of cooking today, so I took them. And one of the many things I made today was a batch of roasted tomato and vegetable sauce from a recipe sent to me by a friend. She found it on another blog titled An Oregon Cottage. It's a lovely sauce and sooo easy to make. I had to take this photo before I put it in the oven. Gorgeous.

Roasted it at 400 for about 45 minutes. Secret ingredient is balsamic vinegar. Things got a bit crazy in the kitchen after this, so I forgot to get an after photo--but it is all in my freezer waiting for a cold winter day to be consumed on some pasta with a delicious parmesan cheese. Yummy, yum, yum.

The first cold night also requires our masonry heater to be stoked. HE cleaned out the chimney today to get it ready for the season and then we fired it up tonight. It typically "sweats" a bit the first few times we use it--or at least it did the last 2 years, so it's a good idea to start with a few smaller fires initially. Whether it was the ambiance or the music, we had children dancing around the living room...

...coulda been that it was a sleep-over.....