This walk on a day in late November, showcases perfectly the beauty of the season. Gray-ish sky turning blue by spells, the gold/wheat/tan/browns of the grasses, the turned leaves that are nonetheless spectacular, especially against the water and the sky.
The dark branches of the trees.
As a special treat, how about that great blue heron just standing there posing for me. Things like this stop me in my tracks and cause me to exclaim to no one at all (and anyone who might be in hearing distance) “will you just look at that?!”
These are things to be thankful for. Also that the Thanksgiving gathering turned out well, the food was delectable (Sean made some amazing cider-glazed Brussels sprouts with apples and bacon – link below to the recipe), there were no catastrophes, it was nice to see everyone, and of course for the house that has been put back in order and the leftovers doled out so we don’t end up with too many.
All imagined fracases and disasters averted. Isn’t that the way of it so often?
On the day before the day before Thanksgiving, this post goes out in honor of one of the things I am very thankful for. The Lawrence Farmers market… and all the wonderful people that make it happen.
On duty for the last farmers market of the regular season, these 2 brought their very best smiles. The number of vendors has dwindled greatly but I still managed to get what I needed, along with some parting shots of all the great people who contribute to making our farmers market what it is.
When I was getting a shot of the squash, the Westside Bagel guy told me not to turn the camera on him or the lens would crack. I of course had to prove him, and his great supporting cast wrong.
There was no chance of this sweetie cracking a lens. All snuggled up with tigger and waiting in line with mom and grandma for a breakfast treat, there is nothing but anticipation of something good happening on that face.
Thuy was having a great conversation with a regular about getting juice and protein balls in the off season.
I ran into my favorite big sister/little brother combo while they were waiting for juice too. She told me I did not have to be scared of her brother because it was “just an alligator hat”.
The variety of sweet potatoes is vast and plentiful and Mellowfields farm has you covered for Thanksgiving side dishes.
You gotta love this group of hipsters at the Wild Alive fermenters booth. They have your gut microbiome taken care of and then some.
Oh how I will miss my weekly supply of locally grown greens, but everything in it’s season. In the meantime I am eating the heck out of them. There is truly nothing better.
I love coming home, washing them, letting them dry out a bit, and I am good to go for the week. You don’t truly appreciate the taste of really good greens, until you don’t have them.
With some trepidation (that was carefully stuffed into my left shoe before leaving for the airport), I set out on a recent visit to sister. Short visits are always better for me, but that means more regular visits, and I hadn’t been there since June. Plus, Iris and Otto need to see me more often if they are to understand how I fit into the family, and that it is imperative for them to start to “cozy up” to me.
Can I just say that Southwest was really great? Yes, I was shocked by such excellent communication about the status of my flight several days before the trip out and back. Reassurance that my flights were not being affected by the whole government hullabaloo, was most appreciated. I am not sure what it says about the airline industry that I was so overwhelmed by being treated with common courtesy and respect… but there you have it, and a big thanks to Southwest as well as the really nice TSA folks I encountered.
The gardens at the Huntington were all spiffed up and looking their best. What a luxury to visit a place so beautiful. Next year I will visit in early December instead of mid-November and maybe the ginkgo’s will be at their peak then. No matter though, I love them when they are not peaking too. There are benches under them where one can lay on your back with your knees drawn up and stare at the blue sky and feel your entire body relax. If you are so inclined… and why wouldn’t you be?
Below is a Feijoia – Sharron had them in her farmers market box on the front porch and invited us to try them at the ranch. Get a load of the cute little spoons you use to scoop out the inside then pop in your mouth. Google says they are also known as a pineapple guava. I don’t think I am going to find them anytime soon at a store near me in Kansas.
Sister took me on some of her favorite walks, we went to the beach, had a moon bowl at the Lucky Llama, sampled the tacos at Homestead, went for tea at the Huntington’s Rose Garden Tea Room, and did some cat petting. By the way, the class at the Rose Bowl Aquatic center was FANTASTIC! How wonderful to be in a pool that is not too cold, moving your body around in ways that feel good, while trying not to bump into the other participants. Did I mention it was in the deep water, and that we got in the hot tub afterwards.? Pure bliss.
Before you know it I was back in the air and headed home to Kansas.
P.S. I NEVER tire of staring out of the window on a plane. One day they may invent a window that will tell you exactly what you are looking at when you touch it. On second thought, never mind, sometimes it’s best to ponder the unknown.
The Names, by Florence Knapp, is my latest “listen” from the library on Libby. I finished it in the airport and on the plane while traveling to see Sister recently. This novel, set in England and Ireland, explores the idea of how a life might turn out differently based on the names we are given. It follows Cora, her daughter Maia, and husband Gordon as their lives unfold in 3 different ways depending on the name given to the new baby boy they have just welcomed into the family. Cora, Gordon, and Maia each have their own thoughts on what would be a good name for the baby. They are unconventional; Gordon says they are continuing the tradition and naming the baby Gordon, just as he is named after his father Gordon.
The story is told in 7 year increments, and as life proceeds and the things unfold we are introduced to other characters that also inhabit the lives of the different iterations of the son. It is not just the son whose life is different based on his name, but all the others characters as they are are shaped by their interactions with the son. The author did not resort to making one path of the son “bad”, one “good”, and one “middle of the road”. Each path was filled with the highs and lows of life, making the reader feel the sadness and joy in each name he was assigned.
This is a hard story at times. Gordon the father is abusive to Cora and everyone lives in the shadow of that. My friends Peggy and Annette also read or listened to this and we finished within a week or so of each other, making it very nice to be able to discuss it, while it is still fresh and very much on our minds. This is a book you WANT to talk about with someone else.
Very highly recommended. Extremely well written and such a different concept for a story. If you can listen, the narrator, Dervla Kirwan is really quite exceptional.
P.S. do you know why you were given the name you have? I never thought to ask Angie until after she was gone why she named me Carol. Just another one of those things you don’t think about asking until it’s too late.
Season #3 of the Block Studies Collective with Tara Faughnan has begun. Above is the palette for October. Don’t you just want to dive into it and roll around in all the color? Then maybe run your hands over the fabric to see which shades tell you they want to play together?
We started with cutting a bunch of strips and then the placing/sorting began.
For my first block (the one on the right), I didn’t plan at all, just pulled colors so I could see how they would look next to each other. I have yet to sew the completed sections together – there may be more sections added. The one on the left was a more deliberate attempt to try combinations. I hated it at first. Now I love it. Especially since I added that cinnamon border around it.
This bundle of mini-skeins of yarn came up in an e-mail from “Dances with Wool” – a yarn store in Richmond that I make it a point to visit when I go see brother. The pattern for the hat was a suggestion for a way to use it. Don’t I want to make a hat like that? YES, yes I do. I started working in some of the ends as I go. Best not to save all that for the end. A very enjoyable project.
What is it about making stuff? Such an absolute joy to see something, or think about something, or get inspired by what someone else has done… and then tell yourself you can do it, you should do it, you will do it. We are moving into the height of sitting in front of the fire season, the cozy/warm time of candles, and of course creating. Do tell what you are discovering, trying, diving into, this fall. One of us may NEED to try it too.
It’s time to slap a bunch of stickers on a new planner for the year. I try to keep appointments in my phone, but I am a paper planner person from way, way, way, back. They are a record, along with my journals of lots of stuff I may want to look back on.
While sitting on the back patio at Moss Cottage last week, it was essential to try my hand at some drawing. Hats are hard. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But that is no reason not to try them. Heck everything seems hard when you don’t do it that often. Hard does not take the fun out of it for me.
The November palette for block studies is below. Again, a wonderful collection of shades, tones, colors. One of the things I love about the format of this class with Tara Faughnan, is that you have a whole month to do things with no timeline, deadline, or due date. Work at your own pace.
Creativity in the kitchen is calling me too. I have a serious hankering for pumpkin bread. Can you imagine how good that will smell baking while I sit at the table and knit? Yes, me too.
Finally, because I have been meaning to do this for days, how about a fall mini flower arrangement comprised solely of the succulents and other plants out back that are showing off their fall colors? This falls into the category of “easy does not take the fun out of it for me”.
This morning, when I sat down to do a read through of this post to check for typos etc I got a a message from Nancy with a link to a podcast. https://thetelepathytapes.com/podcast/the-telepathy-tapes-s2e03 With a title like The Consciousness of Creativity: Are ideas alive and do they choose us?, how could I not immediately listen. I am adding it here because it was intriguing, reinforcing, and informative. Plus, it is perfect to go with a blog post about “making”. This was one of my takeaways: Creativity is our birthright, we can all make art and become the best version of ourselves doing it. Powerful stuff. Let me know what you think if you listen.
I was very pleased to see the pumpkin succulent designer at the market this morning. I NEED some for my thanksgiving tablescape. While we were chatting he told me he was glad to see the season of succulent pumpkins coming to an end because they are pretty time consuming to make. I am so glad he takes the time, and also know exactly what he means about being glad when it is time to get on to something else.
Above and below I present 2 carrot crops. The farmer who grew the ones below told me that she tries every year to grow carrots and “they just grow where they want to” – in every direction with multiple limbs. She said she thought they just didn’t like her soil. I love her sign that says “Kansas Carrots with character”
A cute mother-daughter duo with dog thrown in as added bonus.
Fresh herbs available for holiday cooking.
I was happy to get a couple of zucchini for the steak/chicken/pepper/onion kabobs Chris is making for supper tonight.
They walked in as I was leaving. Loved the moccasins.
Here is what came home with me today. That butternut squash is going to get roasted or it may get turned into a bisque. Leaving my options open for now.
The market season is drawing to a close and I am soaking it up while it lasts. Storing up all the good food and feelings I get on my weekly visits… to carry me through the winter. If you are in the area, the holiday market is on December 13th and it’s always a good time.
Howdy from Lawrence, where the trees have suddenly decided to do their thing. Amazing what a little sunshine will do to sharpen up the fall color. .
I took these photos while on a drive through old west Lawrence earlier in the week. It was one of those drive, pull over, jump out, snap snap snap, get back in the car drive, look, repeat.
I am taking my mental health in my own hands this weekend and flying to California to see sister. Yes, when I have been fully informed that flights will be cancelled. I will be channeling my inner Dottie, who always travels with the attitude of “it will be what it will be“. It is my way of revolting against the current state of affairs.
I will bring projects to entertain myself when I begin to get annoyed.
I have always wanted to visit the ginkgo trees at the Huntington in the fall. So here I go, come hell or high water. Sister has talked me into going with her to a swim class at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center. She has warned me about laughing in class and being a buffoon.
She has been assured I will be on my best behavior. Besides, she is the one who usually gets us into trouble, not me.
The Huff + 1 lunch club met at Grunauer in KC for German food last week. It’s Autumn and time for soup, schnitzel, and strudel… you get the idea. Nothing beats a warming lunch on a brisk and overcast day. If you go, I HIGHLY recommend the Frittatensuppe – a Viennese beef consommé with julienne vegetables and savory crepes that are cut into strips like noodles. OMG! I wanted to pick up the bowl and slurp but I restrained myself. Marti always classes things up when she is around and therefore I was on my best behavior. While we were partaking, there was a poetry recital to honor the season:
“come, little leaves,” said the wind one day, “come o’er the meadows with me and play; put on your dresses of red and gold, for summer is gone and the days grow cold.”
Marti is turning 102 next month. She manages the internal frustrations of the limitations of increasing age with a grace that we all we wished we possessed. When she mentioned being “a shadow of my former self” we reminded her that since her former self was head and shoulders above the everyday run-of-the-mill human, she still had a ways to go until she became a mere mortal like the rest of us. She remains an unparalleled lunch companion who never fails to lift the spirits of everyone in the room. We have not yet settled on a spot for the birthday lunch, but we will plan to bring you all along for a glimpse of the festivities.
It was a chilly 34 degrees (or right around there) on Saturday morning at the market. The smile from the seller of sunflowers warmed things up a bit. We discussed the discomfort of cold hands.
There were less vendors than normal, such is the nature of things when the weather gets cold. We humans find it hard to get out of a warm bed when it’s cold and a bit darker in the morning. Less shoppers = less vendors. It’s a chicken and egg situation.
Would you look at these beautiful green beans?! The farmer told me that “fall beans are the best”. I told him I always thought of green beans as an earlier in the year crop. He told me you could grow then anytime, “plant them and 64 days later they are ready”. Well let me just say that these were absolute tender perfection. Served alongside the chicken and noodles that Chris made they were divine. There was a biscuit too.
If you want to “eat the rainbow” which is what we are all supposed to be doing for the health of our gut microbiome, this is the time of year to do it. Peppers are plentiful. With hummus or pimento cheese they are very snackable.
How about this falls bouquet of flowers? The mixture of colors and textures is so lovely.
Same for the collection of radishes below.
This grouping below reminded me I want to get in one more batch of bitter greens, sweet onions, and sour cherries for the year.
I could not resist one more shot of fall provisions.
Here is what came home with me this week. That Rustic Rye bread toasted, with mashed avocado and a poached egg on top was perfect for breakfast. The woman who makes it said her husband loved it with peanut butter on top. I am in the camp of Rye bread toasted with anything on top of it is good stuff.
With exactly 90 minutes before the trick or treaters are due to arrive I have finally hung up the banner that goes over the fireplace. Not that any tricksters in costume will be coming IN to the house, it’s just (as mom would say) the principle of the thing. Halloween is today. The banner should be up.
I am an unabashed kid when it comes to the “feeling” of halloween. I am not one of those people that costumes up to hand out the candy, but I do like to spread a little orange and black around the house and think about where the pieces came from.
Every year at Halloween I tell myself to make another hooked pumpkin. I have exactly 2 and it’s high time I did a third. As Mary Ann said today about something completely different I have to “buckle down and do it“. I like imagining all the ones I will make… next year, for sure. That’s the thing about making, the idea of it is almost as satisfying as the actual doing.
Well let me get to the business of being ready to exclaim over the wee hobgoblins that may be arriving any second. Happy Halloween to all.
Tall Tales from Kansas 