A Walk In The Woods With Whimsy

I took a walk in our woods with my dog Whimsy .

I have a pack for her to wear and she carries our water bottles. For this hike I also tucked 2 bags of cut up pumpkins and squashes from our garden into the pack. I scatter the cut up fall produce for the wild turkeys and deer that live in our woods, they LOVE squash and pumpkin.

Isn't it beautiful in the woods in the fall ?

This is the view of the back of our home from our woods. Just look at the fall splendor in front of our home. 2 weeks ago there was snow covering those hills .

Whimsy with her now empty pack. She always enjoys our walks and I love having her along.

The Grand Show

"The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere ; the dew is never dried all at once ; a shower is forever falling ; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise , eternal dawn and gloaming , on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls." ~ John Muir

This is a picture I took of sunrise at our place from the living room window on the first day of autumn , my favorite season.

Pumpkin Time !

 " October is the jewel set in the hand of time."  Gladys Taber

 October finally brought in real autumn weather here in north-eastern Washington , here at our new home, in our fields, our forest, our gardens. I remember anew why autumn is my favorite season.

 Look at all the pumpkins and squashes we've harvested ! The pumpkins and squashes in the pictures are just a few of the pumpkins we harvested from our own vegetable garden.

 Here is the garden this month. The cornstalks are dry and ready for us to cut and use to decorate porch posts but before they dried up they produced a great amount of very sweet corn . The corn was truly the very best sweet corn I've ever eaten. Maybe it is true sweet corn fresh-picked from the garden and cooked right away IS the best .

You can see our fields and woods in the background. What you cannot see are the wild turkeys, pheasants, and deer we see in the fields every day from our windows. We have a hard time tearing ourselves away from the windows in the mornings as we sip our coffee while watching the wild life. We can also watch our sheep and chickens from the windows. And we watch the seasons change ...

 ...now turning green fields gold and brown, coloring the leaves bright orange , red, yellow, and brown before they're blown away making way for November's dark wet freezing ways. The pumpkins are frosted every morning and just a few days ago we had snow on the hills across our gravel road.

 I picked all our pumpkins and squashes last week to save them for our own use. We grew all our pumpkins and squashes from seed of the pumpkins and squashes we bought last year. I am particularly fond of the blue 'Meat Eater' squashes. They last for many months if stored in a cooler dry place and are quite tasty. ( I store them in the loft in my wool-working shed.)

 I decorated our front porch with a few pumpkins and squashes. During the afternoon hours our front porch is the warmest place around our home and our Viszla Hawk chooses to nap here. In the summer this porch is the perfect place for my husband and I to sip our morning coffee while watching my sheep and gazing at the hills and low mountains across the gravel road. ( The hills that had snow a few days ago.)

 " Pumpkins were a staple food for early Americans , who inherited the vegetable from the Indians, and learned many ways to cook it from the Indians , too. In those days pumpkin was cut in small pieces, strung on a cords and hung in front of the fireplace to dry, then stored for year-round use. Everything was made of pumpkin, from beverages to soup , from pie to bread, from custard to cake, and even a kind of flour. The pioneers tired of their diet of pumpkin, but they were saved from starvation in many a lean, cold winter."  from 'The New England Butt'ry Shelf Almanac by Mary Mason Campbell

My husband and I are especially thankful for our abundant pumpkin and squash harvest because not only do we love good baked squash smothered in butter and brown sugar, our chickens and sheep love the pumpkins and squashes cut up and raw. This helps us immensely with the feed bill and also provides them good nutrition to carry them through the cold winter months.

We are loving our new home and the very distinct seasons here and right now it is PUMPKIN TIME! 

" He causes the grass to grow for the cattle , and vegetation for the labor of man, so that He may bring forth from the earth , and wine which makes man's heart glad..." Psalm 104: 14,15

Last Of Autumn Splendor ~ Thursday in the Garden

Another update on the gardens , pond, and woods around Cedar Pond. Hawk, our Vizsla prefers napping in the sunshine on the porch. He's getting old and craves warmth to ease his old bones.

Mushroom growing out of the trunk of a dying alder at our pond's edge.

The day after I took this picture we had a 3 day down pouring of rain ( almost 3 inches ) that washed the bright leaves right out of this Japanese maple tree. This tree is showing the last days of autumn splendor. Soon we might see the bare branches adorned with the icy crystals of late fall and winter.

A baby fennel plant has sprung up at the edge of one of the paths in my herb garden.

Rose hips on our Rugosa bushes in the herb garden are so bright and cheerful.

Mallow plants that escaped my weeding are blooming in the front garden under an ornamental grass. I have two kinds of Mallow growing here and they are hardy survivors , seeding themselves far and wide around Cedar Pond. The honeybees love them.

Our burning bush ( don't recall its real name ) has scant leaves but is full of berries the birds are plucking quickly.

One of my granddaughters snapped this photo of me as I was burning almost 5 months worth of storm debris down by our pond. After the big rains we can safely burn , and I had a very big burn pile going for 2 days.

My huge burn pile is now a cozy fire near our special spot at pond's side. The wood neatly stacked behind the fire is ready for future outdoor fires by the pond. ( All that wood is from trees the storms brought down around and into the pond.)

Sometimes our fall and winters bestow upon us a rare sunny day. On many such days we wrap ourselves in warm clothing ,build a fire in the fire pit by the pond and sip hot coffee or cocoa as we take in the beauty of the season. ~ " Instead of the call of the meadowlark, we hear the sharp call of the busy nuthatch as he probes tree trunks for juicy beetle-steak hidden in the cracks of bark. The November wind scurries fitfully and the cold rain falls in a leaden sheet across the brown fields."  ~ 'The New England Butt'ry Shelf Almanac' by Mary Mason Campbell

Our Pacific Northwest autumn splendor is giving way to November's late fall palette, preparing us for winter damp and dark, a beauty all its own.

I am thankful for my faithful dogs, my entertaining cats , our pond, and ever-changing weather .

Autumn Leaf Buntings

 These are just a few of the beautiful autumn leaves 2 of our grandchildren and I collected last week .

 Our daughter's two youngest children spent a few days & nights with us last week ( thank-you daughter ! ) and we had a special project to do together with autumn leaves.

 We gathered colorful fallen leaves and arranged them as desired on wax paper. Each grandchild was free to arrange the leaves any way they wished. Granddaughter chose her leaves ...



...then ironed the leaves between 2 sheets of wax paper.

Tah-dah ! Lovely, don't you think ?

 Grandson chose his leaves and did the same.

 Tah-dah !

 Both grandchildren arranged and crafted their bunting / banners by cutting the wax paper, arranging the leaves, and ironing the design by themselves.

 Beautiful autumn decorations hung by clothespins on twine. They took their autumn buntings home with the sugar cookies they baked . I must say, their handmade buntings look even better in the windows of their home and their mommy loves them ! ( the buntings and her children )

These two grandchildren also helped me with yard work and spent a lot of time helping their Grandpa with a very challenging jig-saw puzzle. Any day spent with these grandchildren is a very good day and we are so blessed. God is so good to us !

Thursday In My Garden ~ Living Ornaments

 This is what I saw today when I stepped out my front door onto the porch. My geese Ella & Fella resting under one of our Japanese Maple trees.

I never take the simple beauty around me for granted. My silly, frilly geese ~ the living ornaments of my glorious Autumn gardens.

Happy And Cozy in Autumn

The cooler rainy weather I love has returned. Not as cool or rainy as a typical western Washington fall , but I'll take any cooler weather than we've experienced for a few months . Now I have a bit of respite from our demanding gardens. The grapes are canned (56 quarts !) and I finally got round to making many pints of yellow plum jam from our Shiro plum trees ; plums I picked , washed, chopped up, and froze earlier this summer. The squashes, carrots, and beans are all harvested .Now I can get down to weaving and spinning the wool of my Jacob sheep.

Happy and cozy days ahead. Have I mentioned I love this season ? Autumn ~ I love you !

 

( Picture is of my loom in our upstairs landing where I can see my sheep out of the window as I weave.)

Thursday in the Gardens ~ Autumn Is Here !

 It doesn't look like Autumn around Cedar Pond yet.Our grapes are still producing fruit.

 The grape vines and rugosa have grown so large and strong they're bending the arbor and fence as they weave in and out of the lattice and pickets. It was hard picking the grapes that grew in the tangles and the birds are enjoying the fruit in the shady hiding places the vines provide.

 Rugosa blossoms are so sweetly fragrant and the rose hips are orangey ripe on many of the rugosa bushes. I have to remember to take a picture of them soon, they're beautiful this time of the year and quite large considering the small flowers they come from.

 My husband's veggie garden is about ready to be put to bed. We picked the last of the beans and ate them for dinner last night. The cucumbers are done , the lettuces are in their last days and bolting. We are getting a lot of yellow squashes and some zucchini, carrots and a few stray strawberries too. The onions and garlic are already harvested and we have a few months supply for fall and winter cooking.

 My husband has been painting our house . It's taking some time but one advantage to a hot and dry summer is there have been plenty of good days to paint.

It's breeding season in the sheep pens and my new ram Jonas is a happy boy. He and the ewes are so much fun to watch as they spy the large cottonwood leaves falling from the trees and race each other to get to the leaves first. There's no need to rake leaves anywhere the sheep can get to them. I am looking forward to some lovely lambs this coming spring.

The leaves have only now begun to change color, but many of the trees that are usually mostly red and yellow this time of the year have not changed color . Our Japanese Maples haven't changed color yet either. It is only the first week of Autumn though, and I am excited my favorite season has begun. Still pretty warm during the day but we're having crisp evenings and mornings perfect for sipping hot mugs of coffee on the porch . Happy , happy, autumn !

Simply Autumn

 Simply autumn . Pictures from the front of our home where the Japanese maples are dropping their leaves on the evergreen shrubs underneath.

 The shady and secret spots of our property hold little pockets of moss and mushrooms.

One of our ducks napping in the fallen maple leaves of autumn, simply autumn... my favorite season.