hello, november.

So, here we are, in November.  October was of course, as October tends to be, quite lovely.  What with all the misty mornings and startlingly blue afternoon skies, the crunch of leaves underfoot, the amassing of pumpkins and other gourds, and that amazing juxtaposition of primary-colored leaves against a contrasting primary-colored sky.  The sudden onset of slipper wearing and fire-stoking.  The marked increase in hot tea consumption....

The changing of the leaves came to us a bit late here in Western NC and we are only right now in the thick of it here in down.  Just past peak, I'd say.  The hickories have gone from bright mustard to golden brown, the sourwoods vary widely from one location to another.  The sugar maples (few and far between here as compared to up north) are wearing their brilliant glow-orange attire, their more common red maple cousins ranging from bright red to deep scarlet.  We have an abundance of oak trees around, especially white oaks.  They will don their rusty-brown and tannin-rich leaves for weeks and weeks to come, slowly dropping them down to cover this little part of the world quite thoroughly.

It's been a while since I've spent time in this place, hmm?  And I'd even made a 'commitment' of sorts to write more, to show up here more often and unspool the thoughts in my mind and sort through them with intention fairly regularly.  To do so with words.  Well, it's a real thing, it seems, that "Instagram ate my blog" bit.  As quiet as I've been here, I've been sharing daily on Instagram.  About parenting and gardening and looking for land.  About voting and tea drinking and my love of living in a train town.  About herbs and inspiration, and rather a lot about the glorious cosmos flowers in my garden this year. Something about the ease of sharing a photo and a few words from my phone (!) just makes me so much less likely to sit myself down in front of the computer for time enough to put together something more.  Having only recently joined the ranks of smartphone users and Instagram account holding,  I've been a bit swept up in the convenience and beauty of that world.  I've not put anything else on my phone- my email, Facebook..... none of it.  I call, I text, I peek at the beautiful worlds of the various farmers and homesteaders, friends, and national parks that I follow... I check the weather.  That's about it.  Podcasts will be the next step, I suspect (recommendations welcome). Baby steps.

Fall has been good to us.  We've gotten into our homeschool rhythm after the lazy days of summer, and third grade has been quite fun so far (more to come on that soon, I hope).  The garden is mostly quiet now, aside from a couple beds of greens and the flowers that won't give up even after a few light frosts.  That would be the cosmos, the marigolds, some texas sage, and a few holdout coneflowers, zinnias, and larkspurs.  The garlic is tucked in for the winter, I've cleared away a fair amount of the things that needed clearing out and away.  There is something about the fall gardening chores that feel so solid and comforting to me.  So tidy and hopeful.  We're giving thanks for all that was this season before, but also looking ahead to another season of growth and sustenance that we trust will come after a bit of a hibernation.  A hibernation that, as I age, I've come to really enjoy sinking into.

There's a fire in the wood stove now about as often as there isn't.  More snuggling with Ollie on the couch, more quilts on the beds.  Definitely more tea drinking.

Happy November, all.

around here :: fleeting summer days

A bit of juicing, a bit of elderberry medicine-making, a bit of silliness in the form of bathroom mirror selfies....  some art-making and bike-riding and kraut-making.  Asian pear butter, pickles, hot sauce, salsa.  Got the garlic trimmed and cleaned for storage.  Loads of veggies, and happy dolls finding a new perch in her bedroom window.  (I love that she still loves her dolls and I so hope that love lasts a good bit longer).

Much as I love autumn and her general crispness and startlingly blue skies, I find myself hanging on this year, just a bit, to these fleeting late summer days.  The crickets are so loud at night, practically screaming of summer's impending end, but the sunshine stills falls heavy and pleasant on my shoulders.  I am loving the cooler nights and mornings that often necessitate a sweater, and I see the light changing its game in a way that day-to-day seems to be sneaky and slight but when taken by the week is actually quite startling.  And so, I am both basking in the midday sun and enjoying the barefoot-ness of this time of year, and happily awaiting the increase in hot tea drinking and sweater-wearing.  It's a good time of year.  My favorite.

in the garden :: late summer

 It's a tangly mess out there right now.  Late summer flowers mixed up with the second planting of bush beans and greens, herbs going wild, and the very last of the blueberries being picked and mashed and turned into jam.  The onions have all been cured and brought inside (which reminds me I need to trim the garlic and do the same with it!), the winter squash picked, and loads of sad remains of once-happy plants pulled and tossed on the compost or brush piles.  Beets and okra and surplus tomatoes and hot peppers from the farm have been pickled and turned into tomato jam.  There's a batch of salsa being readied slowly (it's been too hot these last few days to get the canner going), and I keep meaning to look up tasty ideas for preserving asian pears (also from the farm).  I'd also like to preserve, somehow, some of my thai basil.  Even with the season really winding down, there's a feeling of abundance out there right now, for sure.

Thinking ahead to next summer, when we plan to be away for 6 weeks.......... wondering what shape my garden will take then?

in and around the garden :: mid summer splendor

(a full basket of herbs to dry for tea~  recently my six-months-from-now self gently nudged my right-now-self's shoulder and whispered a reminder that I rather like herbal tea, especially in Winter, and I ought to get picking and cutting and drying.  so I did.  tulsi and mint and anise hyssop and elder flower and catnip and feverfew and chamomile and caldendula and eucalyptus and lemon verbena and lavender and raspberry leave and california poppy- all in this harvest basket above.  whew!)

coming home from a week+ away in late July means lots of garden catch-up.  it is no exaggeration to say that the first thing I did (after petting my dear Ollie cat) was to take a walk through the garden and weed a little here, pick a little there.  even before stepping a foot inside.  and oh, the flowers!  flowers, flowers flowers.  so much golden and pink and purple what with all the rudbeckia and sunflowers and cosmos and coneflower and larkspur and zinnias.  it's like full on summer glory out there when it comes to flowers right now.

the basil is amazing and surely some pesto-making is in my near future.  I generally grow genovese and thai basil, and I have been cutting thai basil to top my dinner just about every night, so loving its bright and complex flavor.  I've also been cutting and drying lemon balm and mint and tulsi by the armloads to have plenty for my favorite tea blends this winter.

this mid summer garden of mine is a place of beans and squash, peppers and greens.  we've harvested the onions and the garlic~ always one of my favorite things.  we grow our entire year's supply of garlic and enough onions so that we don't have to purchase them for at least a couple months or so.  they take up a good amount of space for a good amount of time, but I am never ever sorry to have planted so much and if anything, usually wish I planted more.

we've got a couple tomato plants out there but mostly I just pick tomatoes when I'm at work at the farm.  they take up a lot of space and we seem to have some sort of fungal wilt in our soil that always, always gets them, so.......  it's kind of sad to watch them grow up all hearty and happy and then one day be totally wilted.  now I plant a few each year and pretend to ignore them and not really care (all the while totally caring) and we get by like that, the tomatoes and I.  and speaking of garden hardships, when we came home from our recent trip I had to pull out several (most!) of our winter and summer squash plants due to damage from squash vine borers.  ah!  what beasts!  these plants that looked SO happy and vibrant and that were covered in baby squashes were just all sad and wilted.  squash vine borers are kind of new to us, and I've decided that they pretty much suck.  if any of you have tried and true tips on dealing with them, please send them my way.  I've always thought of the squashes as being pretty tough until they eventually succumb to powdery mildew late in the season, but this is no joke.

the rhubarb that was transplanted almost two years ago from my grandpa's land in the Adirondacks has now really found its footing and seems really happy.  so sweet to have a little piece of my grandparents with me in this way.

the raspberries gave out weeks ago and we are on to blackberries and blueberries and grapes.  and the grapes are so, so good!  having them almost takes the sting away for the fact that the squirrels ate all but one or two (out of over a hundred!) of our apples on our young trees.  and the photo up there with the pear?  that is our pear harvest.  as in, that ONE pear.  a late (well, totally appropriately timed actually, when not accounting for whacky climate change) frost got just about all of the flowers on the pear tree, but later on it put out just a few flowers and this wee pear is the one that made it through all of that.  it will be our first pear from the backyard.  it is weighing down a wee little branch and there is something altogether kind of ridiculously cute about it all.


the garden is my happy place, no doubt.  I look forward to spending some time out there every morning and throughout the day.  when I participated in Amanda Soule's 'Garden Tour' guest posts over on SouleMama last summer, I very much enjoyed answering her very thoughtfully put together questions for the interview portion of it.  one of her questions was "what is/are your favorite thing(s) to grow?"  it seems so obvious a question to think about and plan according to, but I realized that year after year I would of course plant these things, but then also plant 'just a bit' of so many other things, too.  well, after thinking about it and answering that and other questions, I decided I was done growing the things I don't really, really love and/or enjoy growing myself, for one reason or another.  so now I am growing loads of greens and herbs and flowers and alliums and I also grow a fair amount of snap peas in the spring and beans and squash (well, I try anyway) in the summer.  a smattering of nightshades and root crops.  I've left behind the broccoli and cabbage and brussels sprouts, the carrots  and turnips, (they just never seem sweet when we grow them no matter what season or variety!) and larger tomato and pepper plantings (relying on the farm for those instead), and it feels good, this dedication to my favorites.  I feel like at first glance it almost looks like it is all tulsi and flowers and kale out there now.  it isn't really, but........ well, they feature heavily.

if you have a garden, I'm curious- what are your favorite things to grow?