Last Day of September

How can it be the end of September already?  But as I look outside, I definitely see signs of fall--leaves turning color, that blue, blue sky of late September, early October.   Such beautiful days we've been having! Perfect, as a matter of fact.  

Now that I've finished the peaches, I've taken a few "lazy days" and relaxed with some reading and knitting. I'm still working on the brown tweed socks of last spring and discovered that somehow I made the first one too short in the foot area.  Never mind.  I'll see if I can rip back and go again.  If not, I'll just reknit the whole thing.  Mindless, relaxing work.  Sounds good.

Here's a few picture of our house ready for the season. 

I love the fall additions to the hearth.

My favorite corner.

We took a big plunge last week and met with a contractor to do some much needed work on two of our bathrooms.  The lovely (not!) green tub, the last vestige of that awful color in the downstairs bath, will be replaced with a walk-in shower and the upstairs guest bathtub will get a beautiful new surround.  I'm so excited!  He said they would get to it in six to eight weeks, so all should be done by Christmas.  

Meanwhile, we are also toying with raising the sunken living room to the level of the rest of the main floor.  Our advancing years are making us ponder work that could enable us to stay here more years and that step down was a real headache for my parents.  Mom crashed twice when she forgot to step down. 

It's pumpkin season!!  Let the leaves fall and the wind blow and candy corn rule!  ♥ 

Everything Is Just Peachy

Literally!  A week or so ago an old buddy of Dan's called to ask if he would come look at his tamarack trees which he grows for seed.  Some of them seemed to be in distress.  So last Friday, a week ago, Dan headed down to check things out.  He mentioned that Rich said he'd send back some peaches for me.  Yes!  Years ago I got all my peaches from Rich and they were just the best. Each August for the last few years I've thought I would get down to his orchard and get some, but alas, it never seemed to happen.

When Dan got home, he asked me to come look in his truck.  He opened the back door and there sat four huge boxes of peaches!  Four!  And a gunny sack with twenty-two ears of corn!  Oh my goodness! I called Ann and asked if she'd like some of each and she was happy to say yes.  

Saturday morning right after breakfast I went to work on a peach pie.  It's my absolute favorite.  The peaches were gorgeous and huge.  I hopped into the shower and by the time I was out, Ann and Keaton had arrived to claim their bounty.  We worked it out and I was thrilled when she agreed to take two boxes and a bunch of the corn.   She went home to begin canning and I began to freeze some.  By the time Tuesday was over, we'd totalled up twenty-one quarts canned (Ann), twenty-two containers frozen (me), two peach pies (me), many eaten out of hand (both houses), and twenty jars of jam (me).   

Here are a couple of pictures of our bounty.

And the corn?  It was absolutely the best I've ever tasted.  We had it three nights in a row and Ann's family had it two nights.  So sweet and delicious.  Mmmm...  ♥

 

The Times . . .

. . . they are moving along . . . slowly.   Such a strange, strange year.  The virus, staying at home, people getting all het up over politics, and now smoke.  The west seems to be on fire although thankfully most of it isn't near us. My dad spent years and years in forest fire control and in all those years, never did he have fires that grew like they seem to now.  I don't know if it was because he was good at his job (he was) or because the forests were in better shape than they are now.  At any rate, we've been smoked in for almost a week and it's definitely added to the strangeness of 2020.  Actually, it's been eerie.  But somewhere up there the sun is shining!! 

I signed back up with Ancestry.com.  I think I left about the time my parents passed, so it's been three years or so and there's so much more information available.  I've had a great time finding information about my mom's side of the family.  Because Grandpa came from Norway, those records weren't available except for a high price, but thanks to a sale, I got an international pass included at the same price as the U.S. pass usually goes for.   So much information, much of it recently added I'm sure.  I was having a ball as I clicked and saved.  Most holes in Mom's family tree have now been filled in.  Wish she was still here so I could show her.  

Now I'm rationing my time on the computer and starting to put out our fall decorations.  I started with the front porch and am now working on the living room and dining room.  You wouldn't believe the dust I'm encountering as I move things.  All the harvest dust and particles in the smoke!  I recommend buying Swiffer stock!  Ha!  At any rate, it's fun to get out things that have been put away since last November.  I love the continuity of the changing seasons and decor year after year.  

Very little is happening in my sewing room.  I'm so linear that I seem to be able to only work on one thing at a time.  I did turn the collar on a favorite workshirt of Dan's and prepare the backing for the Peace on Earth quilt this week.  One of these days the mood will strike and I'll load it on the long arm and get it quilted.  

And that's what's happening at the Resort!  ♥

Vanilla

We made a Costco run yesterday and as long as we were there, we decided to throw anything we thought we might need in the near future into the cart.  I am a baker and vanilla goes into almost everything I make.  It made sense to grab another bottle, and as I did, I marveled over the price.  Marveled may not be the right word.  My reaction was along the lines of, "Whoa!"  Dan came up as I was putting the bottle in the cart and said, "Why don't you get two."  And I answered that spending fifty dollars on two bottles of vanilla seemed a little much. His eyebrows shot up! 

Last night as we finished putting things away, the subject of vanilla came up again so I decided to google why the price was so high.  It was interesting reading!  This article by Business Insider is two years old but it covers a number of the reasons as well as explaining the growth process of the vanilla bean. 

Who knew vanilla, at least at that time and probably still, was worth more by weight than silver?  

I feel fortunate that I can afford the real thing.  I know my mom was not a fan of imitation vanilla, and so far I've been able to avoid having to use it.  Maybe I need to branch out in my choice of extracts, though.  I do have almond, lemon, orange, butter, and peppermint in my cupboard.  Oh, and maple!  ♥ 

Little Things

Ever notice how sometimes it's the little things that give the biggest pleasure? Take my pantry for example. When we bought this house, two of the most important things I was looking for were a shower in the master bath (our previous house had only a half bath en suite) and a pantry in or near the kitchen.  

We scored!  Our master bath is small, but it does have its own shower and I have loved it for almost twenty-one years.  And we have a pantry, a good sized one, right in the kitchen. I don't think the space was built to be a pantry, however. I think it was meant to be a utility type closet for vacuum cleaners, brooms, a waste basket, etc.  The biggest clue besides its size?  It has a ceiling light in it.  The shelves are deep, almost too deep, and it had a bi-fold door on it.  The hinged side was on the right and when the door was open, it blocked at least six inches of the shelves, and that coupled with another five inches or so behind the adjacent front wall made for much difficulty accessing things stored on that side.    

I queried Dan some time ago about redoing that bi-fold door by removing the center hinge and attaching the resulting two doors with hinges on their outside edges so that they would open from the center and fold back giving me better access to the right side, not to mention making it easier to get around the pantry without the door sticking out into the hallway.  At first he didn't think it would work because of suspected structure issues relating to studs, sheetrock, and blah, blah (issues I didn't understand).  But then last Saturday he decided to give it a try.  And it worked!!!

Here's picture of it in process, doors split and left side up.  

We still need to buy another knob and do some painting, but here's how it looks now when open.  

Such a little thing, but it makes me so happy!  ♥

It's Zucchini Season!

Every summer since we've owned our own home, we've planted some type of garden.  In the early days, it really was for "survival" in that we certainly didn't have much money and a garden provided much needed food for us and our little ones.  And every garden included zucchini and yellow squash (which we called crookneck) even though as years went by, and locations changed,  it was more for the fun of it rather than cheap food.  

It seems that we always wait in great anticipation for the plants to finally produce something big enough to eat. Then, all of a sudden, there's too much!  And there's always a few zucchini that hide (how do they do that?) and turn into torpedos.  Ah, but they are perfect for zucchini bread and zucchini relish.  Until your freezer is full and so are your cupboards. This year Dan has tried to beat the system by picking the squash when it's very small, and for the most part, it's worked.  Mostly.

We've had Summer Squash Skillet; bread; steamed, blackened, and topped with cheese; PW's Simple Sesame noodles with chicken and squash added; and so on.  Last summer I discovered a spice cake that was extremely well received when we had company over a weekend.  I think one will be in the works later today.  

We've also grown green beans over the years, usually very successfully until this house.  The soil isn't very good, apparently, and Dan's often so busy with his consulting that the garden usually gets short shrift.  This year we were determined to get beans enough to can. Here's a photo of our crop.

Yes, that's it.  Seven jars.  The bunnies ate the rest. Sigh. Such is life here on the edge of town.  ♥

Only Four Months 'til Christmas Eve!!!

Yes people, I keep track of such things as how long until Christmas.  As I get, um, more mature, yes, that's it, more mature, time passes more quickly and those four months will be gone in a flash.  I need to start contemplating, especially as shipping seems to be taking longer and longer these days.  

Case in point:  On August 7th, I placed an order with the King Arthur Baking Company (formerly the King Arthur Flour Company) for six items.  It took a day or so for the order to go "live" and I then received notice that things were beginning to be shipped out.  According to shipping notifications, four items were being shipped together and the other two were being shipped singly.  Okay.  I got free shipping, so I was prepared to wait.  The first four items arrived in about ten days, and as I checked the other two items I noticed a strange happening with one.  

Let's see if I can follow this:  It left Virginia and went to Maryland, then to West Virginia, and Ohio.  From there it made it further west to Indiana, and then what??  It went to Pennsylvania, then back to Indiana and then to New York!  What, what, what??  Then to New Jersey where it stayed for four days.  At this point I called King Arthur.  Was I ever going to see my silicone rolling mat?  

I was impressed with KA when I got a real person to talk to immediately.  He was able to pull up the tracking record and was as amazed as I was.  He pondered a bit and then said he'd get another one off to me second-day air and if the first one ever showed up I could gift it to some helpful organization.  Two thumbs up to King Arthur Baking Company!!

Anyway, this digression is to point out that it's none too soon to be planning and if necessary, ordering, Christmas gifts so we don't have to print out tracking records to show that the present is on it's way--hopefully!!