Life With The Crew

Cool Weather Pesto

My basil plants bit the dust about two months ago, but we have still been eating fresh pesto.  Just today, after two decent frosts, I came in from the garden with a colander of green goodness.  

Carrots, sage, and even two little stray onions - Fall onions instead of Spring onions.  Even when the carrots themselves look like this...

all is not lost.  Just chop off those little babies and toss them to the chickens.  Throw the tops, sage leaves, and green onion tops into the food processor with a big glug of olive oil, a couple shakes of salt and pepper, several chunks of parm or pecorino and if you have them, a handful of walnuts.  Puree until smooth and put it on whatever your heart desires.  Pasta, grits, scrambled eggs, pizza - we've done it all.  Instead of the onion tops, I normally throw in a tablespoon of minced garlic.  As the little babe was eating her carrot top pesto pasta, she told me that she thought it was made with basil.  Awesome!  A simple way to get my toddler to eat more veggies.

 

 

Thankful Tuesday - Autumn Morning at the Marsh

I loved the red color of these stems.

The cattails were rustling in the brisk wind.

Pops of color.

Wandering through the thicket.

Teasel, which we learned is an invasive species, but I love the structure of it.

 Does anybody know what this is?  It was growing like a squash vine through the underbrush.

Nature finds were collected, fox scat was spotted, birds were identified (both Hairy and Red-bellied woodpeckers being the exciting ones) - I'm thankful for a great morning outside with the little babe.

 

Busy With The Bright and Cheery Cottage

I'm not a fan of random photo dumps, but despite the fact that I've been absent from this space for a week, I haven't had time for taking many photos.  My husband and I have been working on our first Airbnb rental and we had a deadline to meet.  It has been several stressful months of hard work for my husband, completing remodeling the entire house.  I contributed ideas, painting, cleaning, and decorating, things that can be done with one eye and ear on the little babe.  We are in the process of completing the second bedroom and doing a bit more decorating to fill it in a bit, but it is ready to rent!  We had our first guests on Saturday night and everything went well, so now we're ready for more.  If you're interested, here is the link to The Bright and Cheery Cottage.  I am jealous of the kitchen - it is much nicer than my own!  And now for my random photos.

Plenty of Pennsylvania Longneck Squash - this is only half of the harvest.  Muffins, cakes, fritters, cookies, soup, smoothies - we're not orange yet!

Fresh ginger - not quite as much as I'd like, but oh well, it was a first year "let's see if it actually grows."  It grew a little.  Enough for one quart of fresh gingerade and then I added the strained ginger pieces to applesauce - very yummy.

Pretty afternoon light and natural Autumn decorations.  Leaves have been dipped in beeswax and strung into a garland, acorns are gathered on every walk, and I've been told our grapevine wreath is too bare, so we're on the lookout for some vines with berries.

Make it a happy week!

 

 

A Natural Birthday Gift

The little babe turned four this week and I made her a birthday present that made both of us happy.  A long fringed scarf made with worsted wool from Lana Plantae, naturally dyed with cochineal, which are insects.  Yes, bugs died for the dyeing of this wool, but it is much better than using chemical dyes.  Lana Plantae is based in Maine and I bought this skein at the Common Ground Fair.  I had checked out their yarn last year, but couldn't justify the expense at the time.  However, as soon as I saw this bright cotton candy pink yarn this year, I knew that it was perfect for the little babe.  My first thought was mittens, but then after imagining those little hands picking up all kinds of nature finds in this beautiful wool, and then having to wash that wool, I decided that a scarf would be much more practical.  I'll make her mittens out of old sweaters that are already felted.  I knit the scarf extra long so that it would wrap around her neck twice and I thought that a little girl definitely needed some fringe.  (I'm on a fringe kick lately and am itching to make a big wooly fringed shawl for myself.)  She opened her present in the morning and since we have not started up the woodstove yet, was promptly able to put it on in the house without being too warm.  It was a perfect Autumn day and we headed to the park for a long bike ride and some playground time.  

She cruised around on her bike and as I watched my beautiful awesome little babe, we both had matching smiles on our faces.

The Squirrels Have Warned Us

For the past two weeks we have been under aerial assault.  We were sitting at the kitchen table when we first heard the loud "bang, bang".  We are used to a few evergreen cones falling on the skylights, but after the first couple of drops, the barrage continued for the next half hour and then resumed at various periods over the coming days.  Once, when I stepped outside to see if I could catch the perpetrator, I saw a squirrel up in the tippy top of the Norway spruce.  We have both red and gray squirrels and I could not tell which it was.  The yard under the trees was scattered with the long cylindrical cones - perfect ankle turners!  We have several trees that line the road, so that had been covered in cones also.  In the front of our house, along the road, we have several large cherry logs and smaller miscellaneous logs waiting until my husband has the time to deal with them.  When I looked out the front window on Monday afternoon, I saw a large pile of cones in the middle of the logs and the road was clear.  My first thought was that my husband had piled them up as a trick for the little babe.  When he said that it wasn't him, I then thought that one of the neighbors had got tired of driving over the crunching obstacle course and had tossed them back into our yard.  My husband thought that was unlikely, pointing out the fact that there were cones shoved in several smaller holes within the pile, and so he turned to Google to do some investigative research.  Apparently, the stash piling culprit is a squirrel, and according to this article, probably a red squirrel.

I noticed that the oak trees in our neighborhood have produced an extremely large amount of nuts also - they are backed up in one person's sloped driveway like downed logs in a stream.  So maybe we should pay attention to the signs and get our supplies stocked up for winter.  Darn, does that mean more knitting?

"Squirrels gathering nuts in a flurry/Will cause snow to gather in a hurry."

 

A Golden Morning

We haven't had a family woods walk in ages, so this past Sunday morning, after the dreary gloom of the previous week was pushed away by a crisp breeze, we headed to the local woods.  We made the mistake of taking three of the dogs with us - the one that was off lead promptly rolled in a disgusting pile of sh*$ within the first five minutes.  We then spent the rest of the walk trying to avoid her as she ran past our legs, reveling in her new odor and stopping every now and then to roll in the leaves and make sure it was firmly affixed to her neck.  Other than that episode, we had a fantastic walk.  The woods were a sea of yellow - maple leaves, birch leaves, fading fern fronds, even yellow mushrooms and a caterpillar.

Toward the end of our walk, I spied something wriggling in the leaves.  My first thought was some sort of large worm, then I realized that I had just seen the tail of a salamander.  We were walking right near the pond where we discovered these salamander eggs in Spring and I soon spotted several more of these little guys.  Imagine how many of them must be hiding on the forest floor!  I walked a bit slower then and watched my step.

Important notes:  Don't touch the American Dagger Moth caterpillar or eat the Fly Amanita or Fly Agaric mushroom.  And don't step on the Red-spotted Salamander!

And One for the Little Ladies Too

A couple of weeks ago, when there was just the slightest feeling of Fall in the air, I draped my Petal shawl over the little babe before I went out for my morning run.  Later, she declared that she needed a big shawl/capelet also, one that would cover her feet when she was sitting with her knees tucked up under her chin.  Well, I didn't make exactly what she requested, but a Momma does try to make her daughter happy.  This is her version.

I looked in my yarn bin to see what I had - a skein of pink worsted O-Wool and a light gray from O-Wool also, which I think is DK.  I didn't think it really mattered that they were not the same weights; I wasn't going for perfection.  I wanted to complete it before we went to the Common Ground Fair in Maine because I thought it would be a perfect layering piece - warm, portable, and it would keep her arms free.  I forget already which size needles I used, but I know it was a bit too big for the DK, which gave it a little bit looser stitch and it drapes nicely.  I started at the top, hoping that I had the size correct so that it fit around her neck!  I knitted it on straight needles, then sewed the two sides together.  I wanted it to roll at the neck and then be simple, with just the stripes for interest.  When I ran out of pink, I found some leftover pink Puffin and used that at the bottom.  Not the best choice because the bulky yarn rolls up rather stiffly, but the little babe doesn't notice.  

After I completed her capelet, she then declared that Misty needed one too.  So again I obliged.  Two hours of knitting in the car on the way to the fair, and Misty was good to go.

She posed very nicely for her photo shoot.

 

Thankful Tuesday - 10.4.16

Today I am thankful for...

~a successful harvest.  Earlier in the season, when the groundhogs were climbing the cattle panels, the rabbits were eating the emerging leaves on the ground, and the chipmunks were stealing the 2nd and 3rd round replacement seeds, I was hoping that we would get just one squash or pumpkin.  Luckily, we got more than one!  We have a little pie pumpkin on the top of every fence post surrounding the garden, ten butternut squash, three red kuri squash, several little mystery green squash, and about ten longneck squash which we have not harvested yet. 

~yummy seasonal food.  Applesauce Honey cake made in my new bundt pan, purchased in an antique store in Maine.  I don't know if it is a true antique, but I think it is beautiful anyway and it made a perfect cake!  The applesauce was made from four different types of apples, foraged from roadside trees in Maine.  

~the pretty colors still found in the garden.  The calendula and marigolds are still going strong and now there are randomly placed red and yellow leaves that land among the flowers.

What are you thankful for today?

Maine Seaside

Almost all of the photos were taken at my favorite beach, Crescent Beach, in Cape Elizabeth.  Quiet early morning, bright midday, and pastel hued sunsets - I love it all.