autumn happenings

Oh, fall, how I do love thee!  Birthday, anniversary, new season, colors, crisp air, crunchy leaves . . . so so much to love.  A few photos of things that have happened thus far this season.

Happy birthday to me! Celebrations included dinner out at the Pearl (YUM):

and a lovely birthday shindig, of which I only got photos of the hanging candles above the picnic table (but it was a fabulous evening with wonderful people!):

There were also some gorgeous autumn sunsets:

and some warm evenings spent in the harvest-time profusion of our back yard: 

Then, delightfully, we got an unexpected visit from Michelle!  We drove over to Philipsburg to explore the town and try out the new brewery.  And take a few photos, of course.

We drove back over Skalkaho Pass, and the scenery was decidedly worth it.

photo by Michelle Lanzoni

photo by Michelle Lanzoni

Then, the kitties were cute.  It happens.  A lot.

I got to spend two days at Camp Paxson on Seeley Lake with a great group of teachers participating in A Forest For Every Classroom teacher workshop. Between unloading all the food into the ample kitchen and the teachers arriving later that afternoon, I spent a long, lovely hour basking in the sunshine on the dock.  Ahhhhhh.

The next morning, some of us took a sunrise canoe ride through the mists on Seeley Lake.

We also had some fun hikes with good friends--exploring Sawmill Gulch with Ann and Nathan (who, fortunately, are as normal as we are) . . .

 . . . and our yearly autumn pilgrimage to Glen Lakes to see the alpine larches changing color.  We enjoyed a gorgeous sunny day with Kara and Mark and Christopher and Lisa.

There was a goodly amount of snow up there--spectacular!  (And thank goodness for sunglasses.)

I will never, ever, get tired of this view.

Of course, we've also spent time doing lots of harvesty things, and Greg has been working hard to put the garden to bed for the year--cleaning out the chicken coop and digging all that rich compost into our garden beds . . .

. . . digging under beans and squash, and planting the garlic . . .

. . . and harvesting our sweet potato crop (always one of our favorite things)!

We also scrumped a bunch of apples from Bill and Becky's trees, and a volunteer at MNHC gave us a huge box of pears, so we spent an evening making apple-pear sauce:

YUM.

And then, of course, there are all the fall colors to enjoy, from oak trees to western larch:

Reflections on autumn colors.

And last night--pumpkin-carving party!  Tis the season!

Today Greg bought a bunch of native (and other) plants from Marchie's Nursery, and we are excited to fill in more of the gaps in our landscaping, and at the prospect of even more flowers next year.  One can never have too many tulips. Or daffodils. Or irises. Or blanketflowers. Or kinnikinnick plants. Or Oregon grapes. Or thimbleberries.

We've also spent a fair bit of time shelling our dry beans, which we had much more of this year than usual, since in addition to our fairly extensive backyard garden, we also had a community garden plot--in which we planted nothing but beans. We have black beans and garbanzo beans and kidney beans and white beans and pink-spotted beans and lima beans. But mostly black beans. And just this week Greg made his first batch of black bean hummus, which is exactly like regular hummus except that you use black beans instead of garbanzo beans. And let me tell you, is it GOOD. And it's particularly tasty with tortilla chips. Yum.

There is something so satisfying about eating hummus (or anything, really) made from ingredients you've grown yourself. I know this, but I am always reminded of it again during harvest time, when all those vegetables and herbs we've grown are piling up in the root cellar and fridge and kitchen counter. For the first time, we've dried herbs from our garden, and have jars full of fragrant crushed basil and marjoram and thyme (and catnip). For the first time, we grew more than just three and a half squash, and have made baked squash and squash soup and are looking forward to experimenting with even more squash recipes.  For the first time, we may have grown enough black beans to keep us through the year--!

Life is good. And I am grateful.

tomatoes and larches and autumn, oh my!

Tis autumn, which is, at the moment, my favorite season.  I find that my favorite season tends to change depending on which season it is:  my favorite season is whichever season I am currently experiencing.  But autumn holds a special place in my heart.  My birthday is in September; Greg's and my anniversary is in October; I grew up in a family of educators, so autumn was always a time of new things, of starting over.  Now I am married to an educator and I work for an organization that provides educational programs, so the autumn feeling of renewal is part of my life once again. 

Autumn means harvest.

Autumn means change.

Autumn means food preservation.

For the past five weekends, some combination of Greg, Beth, Britta, and I (plus various other friends) has bought and canned tomatoes.  The first weekend we bought 20 pounds of tomatoes and canned 7 quarts.  The second weekend we bought 40 pounds of tomatoes and canned 14 quarts.  The past three weekends we've bought 60 pounds of tomatoes and canned dozens of quarts of crushed tomatoes, numerous pints of salsa, as well as roasting and freezing perhaps two dozen medium-sized freezer bags of tomato sauce.   While canning tomatoes has been our tradition for the past three years, I don't think we've ever canned quite this enthusiastically before.  The first year we canned tomatoes, we were reluctant to use them--"What? Use our beautifully preserved tomatoes for some random dinner?  We can't do THAT!"  Fortunately, we've done enough canning by now that we eagerly use the food we've preserved--which is, after all, the point.  Our goal this fall is to can enough tomatoes to last us for the year, and we may be close.

We have so many cans of tomatoes this year, in fact, that we need more space for them.  I have mentioned in another post that we happen to live in a small house.  We are fortunate enough to have a large, if unfinished, basement, but it's nice to have our canned food a little more handy than that.  A few weeks ago I was headed to our upstairs Hobbit Room when a dazzling notion struck me.  Behind the door to the upstairs, at the end of our little hallway, is a blank wall with about four inches of space between the wall and the door hinges:

My dazzling notion?  To build shelves along that whole back wall to serve as storage space for our canned goods, tea, and other non-perishable food items.  I went to Ace and bought the lumber, and then, while Beth, Britta and I canned in the kitchen, my brilliantly handy husband built these (but very kindly allowed me to fill them):

TA-DA!

Oh, the delightful satisfaction that comes from making effective use of our spaces, even (or especially) those that seem too small to be useful.

This past weekend we also took our annual pilgrimage to see the alpine larches (Larix lyallii) changing color.  We hiked up to Glen Lake, a place we've visited many times before; even so, its beauty felt new and startling.  Perhaps it was the blueness of the sky after several days of rain:

Or the brightness of the changing huckleberry leaves:

Or the ethereal wisps of fireweed fluff, swirling away on the mountain breezes:

Or the striking juxtaposition of burned forest and lush regrowth:

Or the vivid yellow flame of changing larch needles:

Or the purity of the dazzling-white snow, and the way deep greens and bright yellows and greys and browns stood out against it:

Or the sky-deep reflection in the calm waters of the lake:

Or it may have been the combination of all these things.