Life With The Crew

A Little Bit of Sand

We took a short trip to the beach and came back with a little bit of sand in the car and two buckets full of wet, sandy, slightly stinky seashells.  The little babe could barely take a step without finding one that was "beautiful".  She had her own criteria and being cracked and imperfect did not remove a shell from the list.  

I am not a shell collector.  What do you do with them?  They just sit somewhere and collect dust.  I would rather they stay in the sea.  The strange looking black thing is a skate egg case, though I prefer the whimsical name of "mermaid's purse".  We found several of these, also horseshoe crab shells, a dead Sand Tiger shark, and a couple pieces of fulgurite.  

We are now home and are having strangely warm Autumn days.  The woodstove is still dark and silent, though I have made a request for it to be ready for the weekend.  It seems that hat and glove weather is coming soon.  My Dreyma sweater is almost done, just part of a sleeve to go!  Trick or treating will occur this week - I guess I will allow my child to go begging for candy from strangers.  She doesn't have to worry about cavities - those baby teeth will fall out anyway...

A Birthday Hike

An Autumn morning, cool, but not crisp.  The leaves were probably at their peak color and a lot of them were on the ground, having been brought down by overnight rain, so we walked upon a muted rainbow.  Bright red maple leaves, yellow birches, multi-colored oak leaves, and brown cherry leaves.  Canada geese were honking on the lake.  We saw two Great Blue herons.  The ferns were an amazing feast for the eyes - an array of textures and colors.  We had a goal to make it farther around the bog than we did last week and we did.  Not the whole way, but newly 7 year-old legs aren't quite ready for that distance yet.  We had the trail to ourselves, passing just one other group of college kids earning a credit while hiking in the woods.  I did things like that in college too.  Now I was hiking with my family, much happier than I was in college, with myself and with life as a whole.  The sun started to come out as we were on the homestretch.  We saw bizarre fungus and an intimidating neon spider, but he was just minding his own business.  I have seen one of these spiders twice before, both times on the forest floor in the Autumn.  I am thankful for my bright and curious now seven year old daughter who spotted it.  

October Beginnings

October is here!  We have been:

~picking dahlias, both deep purple and creamy pink.  Next year I will definitely plant more.  They are the easiest plant to grow!

~raking leaves.  Tis the season!

~eating the last of the cucumbers.  This was a great year for them in our garden and my husband made another batch of easy pickles.

~enjoying our mother/daughter riding lessons twice a week.  We had a great sunny ride on Tuesday.  She is learning how to canter and I am working on remembering forgotten jumping skills.  Frank really becomes a different horse and perks up when he jumps, so even though he is definitely senior citizen age (87 in people years), he still enjoys short bouts of excitement.  (Then he is ready for a leafy carrot and a nap.)

~looking for migrating birds at the local boggy state park.  We didn't see any, but it was a beautiful day just the same.  It is at a slightly higher elevation than our neighborhood and the trees were much more colorful.  

~knitting my Dreyma sweater.  I am loving the naturally colored gray and cream yarn that I chose.  

~feeling very proud and happy about my Jarrahdale Blue pumpkins.  One is picked, two more still on the vine, but almost ready.  This is a new variety for me and I am so excited, even though they are no harder to grow than orange pumpkins!

Happy Autumn!