Fall colours, the loss of the same, and run up to Xmas

 Ahhhh Blogger, you've updated several times recently and things are now harder to use and my original settings have been changed, hidden or apparently are no longer applicable. Something to keep me on my toes I guess.

We went for a walk on a local trail.   It's one with a nice boardwalk beside the river.   I suggested we take this one because soon our weather will change.  The cold, wet and snow will make the boardwalk slippery and difficult to traverse.   We no longer take this trail in the winter because it's just not fun.  Winter walks on the trails can be a little bit harder, but not so much fun when you're also dealing with ice patches or long lengths of snow covered rutted ice, which is what that boardwalk becomes.

However, in the nice weather, this trail is interesting.  All the Ash trees have been cut and left lying around, so that it looks in places like something out of a bad Sci-Fi movie.   The trail runs right beside a train track and an industrial area, so there is sometimes a non-nature like soundtrack to accompany the walk.   Today though, it was the light creating interesting reflections on the river which caught my attention.   They were very clear, as the water was oddly still.

The trail was pretty despite the many downed logs.  I noticed that there were some new ones which weren't Ash trees, and there were some still standing which should be cut down as they were obviously going to be a falling risk soon.   Mostly the woods have young trees.   There isn't a lot of undergrowth in places, so the visuals of looking through the forest is interesting.  The undergrowth usually obscures this.  

It was lovely tromping through the fallen leaves.   This was just before the windstorm which meant the landscape went from lovely fall colours, to stark, empty trees in one afternoon.  Waking up the next morning to virtually no leaves left on the trees was interesting.  It was like we had an autumn colour season which went from green, to full colour, to bare trees in just over a week.   I didn't even get a lot of photos of the fall foliage just because the timing was so quick.

There is always an exception though.   This maple always colours last, and always holds its leaves.  It's just starting to drop its leaves and the colour is still turning.   It's really lovely this year as it's changed from the usually all yellow leaves, to yellow, orange and red.    I have a loom looking out the window at it, and it's always lovely to weave in the autumn with that view in sight.

I've been working on this year's Xmas cards. I've found if I don't start by the beginning of November, they become a bit rushed and stressed.  I'd trialed several ideas.  I watched a bunch of online tutorials for new techniques and ended up just painting something simple.  I like them well enough, although my brain tells me that they still need something.   I'm not sure it does though.   Only had 2 mishaps, one where the tape stuck and ripped a bit of the painting and the other when I was mucking around with the sky ideas and I ended up with one which was too dark for my liking. 

  I tried the remove background feature and it did, relatively well, although it did dump some black spots on the one card, which aren't there in real life.  Also, I haven't figured out how to not have the original save as the edit.  On my old computer, I could just save the edited photo as a different name, but this one applies everything to the original.  This works really well for when I'm writing things up as but I'll still need to figure out the photograph part of things.   

I did figure it out but I like the photo with the messy background better.  I painted 15 landscapes for Xmas cards, all similar but not quite the same, just to keep things interesting for me.

October Colour

 

I had to leave the house at 7:50 am.  The sun was just rising.  I had to stop in the driveway to take this photo as the light and colours were spectacular.   While the mornings are late in coming, I'm really not looking forward to the time change.  I'm on the side of keeping one time zone and not switching back and forth.   Switching seems to cause more issues than not.

This was the view across the road two nights ago.  The light was perfect.  The leaf colour change this year have been odd to say the least.  We've been stuck in a no colour zone for ages.  There have been a few trees changing colour but mainly lots of dull green leaves.  Then a couple of days ago when I was locking up the chooks, the trees were still mainly green in our yard.  The next morning though, it was like every one of them had coloured overnight.  So amazing and beautiful, but definitely odd.

The one zucchini plant left was hit by powdery mildew a while ago.  It survived, albeit damaged with greying leaves.  However I went to pull it out the other day and not only is the plant still flowering, but there were 5 zucchini still growing.  One was starting to get too big, but these 4 are still perfect.   I'd though there were only a few leeks left, but this was a lovely surprise.

I saw this stump full of shelf fungi by a woodpile.   While the trees are finally coloured and the leaves are falling astoundingly quickly, there is still a lot of green in the grass and weeds.     This made a nice contrast.

Soon the world around will be white.  The skies will be grey, or watery, pale blue.  We'll get limited sunlight hours, so I'm enjoying the sun and colours while we still get them.

2 Busy Weeks

Colours have been slow to start in our area, and apparently due to the weather.  The slow and mild decent into autumn, is the reason our colours aren't nearly as bright as usual.    My trips to Westfield have been interesting as the leaves coloured there earlier and have been falling.   I've gotten to tromp through the leaves on the way to my building, which is always fun.   

This is one of our favourite local trails, which overlooks a small lake.    The sky really was that blue that day.   Our winter skies, and sometimes our late autumn skies tend to be pale and watery grey blue.   

One of the invasive weeds in our area is Virginia Creeper.   It takes over fence lines and grows into any nearby trees.    I pulled a couple of vines from a large pine tree near our fence line and the rest pulled off the back part of our deck.   I took a couple of bittersweet vines as well because they were growing up in a space between decking boards.   They were all still fairly green, so I wove them into wreaths.  They need to dry flat before I bring them in to decorate them.  I checked them this morning as was surprised how damp the underside felt, so I flipped them over.   I put them in the gazebo to keep any rain or dew off them.

I wove a scarf on the rigid heddle loom using some lovely yarn I'd picked up.   I did the calculations for the sett before I dressed the loom and using 10 dents per inch worked out perfectly .  However, the yarn was fuzzy, not quite as bad as a mohair yarn, but noticeably fuzzy.    Hindsight, after only weaving a few rows, says I should have gone down to a 7.5 dent to make the fuzzy yarn easier to weave.   I had to open every shed with a pick up stick before weaving.    I have more yarn, so I'll try that next time.

Regardless, the scarf, while taking a bit longer to weave, was quite nice until a quick check of the underside showed that I had some small floats from skipped threads: about 5 of them.  Instead of bothering to fix them, I ironed some lightweight interfacing on the back and cut up some  shapes to make stuffed woven strawberries.   I stitched them by machine, cut little leafy top green bits free hand from felt and sewed them on by hand, adding some hemp twine for hangers.   I'm going to see if the guild wants them for their $5 ornament fundraiser.  If they don't, I have lots more materials and there will be strawberry ornaments for everyone this year!

I had my sock machine, a Legare 400 in at Westfield to demo.  It was a slow day, but the people who did come in were really interested in both the building and the machine.   I had some really great conversations with people which made a somewhat slow day actually good fun and interesting.  Plus the day went by fairly quickly.    I'm going to need to make a nice little acceptable travel table though as finding an antique  table which can support the machine really securely and not wobble, or fit properly has been difficult.   Still it was a great day and I got a pair of socks made in-between conversations.

 

Open German Tart

 I was fiddling around with a cooking challenge and was skimming through an issue of Godey's Lady's book, 1863 and I found this recipe for a very simple pie.   If you've never made a pie before, this would be easy enough from scratch and could look amazing.   Of course you don't have to make it all pretty, but it was easy to do.

I didn't convert to volume from weights because I rather like baking with the accuracy of weights.   Anyway, the pie crust is more of a cookie dough and came together really easily.   I sliced up some apples and laid them on top, and popped it in the oven until the scent of cooking apples was noticeable.   I checked it, left it another 10 minutes and it was done.    I set the tart in at 400F for about 15 minutes and then lowered the temperature to 350F until it was done.

I had used a baking sheet to do this and the edges on the pan meant I had to let it cool before it was strong enough to lift over the pan edges.  Next time I'd turn the pan upside down and bake it on the underside so that I could just slide it off onto the cooling rack.   The crispness of the crust was great the first day, but the next day was just a tad soft, and I think this might be why.  I'd make it again though as it was really fast to throw together.  The taste was not of an apple pie, since there are no spices and no liquid to keep the apples soft.  However the crust is like a shortbread or sugar cookie, with the apples on top and was really nice.   It would be really nice with some ice cream or maybe a drizzle of caramel sauce, for a more modern dessert.

I sliced up 4 medium apples and it was probably too much.  It allowed me to get fancy with the layering of the fruit though and make it look a bit like a flower.  You don't have to be fancy about it though.   The downside is the pie is a little lacking in colour.  I was wondering if maybe running a bit of egg wash over the edges would help.   Whatever it was lacking in colour though, the delicate taste made up for it.   

Open German Tart

3 or 4 apples, peeled, cored and sliced

1/2 lb flour

1/4 lb butter, softened

1/4 lb sugar

 1 egg

 

I just dumped all the ingredients in a bowl and mixed it together to make a dough.  I greased a pan and rolled out the dough into a circle and transferred it to the greased pan.  I trimmed the edges a bit and fixed couple of tears in the dough .  This was easy as the dough was a bit soft and easily manipulated.   I then rolled up the edges to make the rim.   I placed the apples in a circle and when I realised I had too many of them, I went back and reset them, over lapping a bit more like petals.    Once all the apples, well all but 3 slices were in place, I popped the tray into a pre-heated oven.    Really super easy, fairly fast and impressively pretty without a lot of effort.

Godey's Lady's Book - Jan-April, 1863, pg 302

It's two volumes in one book, so this volume is the second one, starting at page 586 or so and is available on the Internet Archive.

End of Summer Activities

 It's getting dark so early now.  The chooks are headed back to the coop by 6:45pm and it's getting dark so quickly afterwards that I rarely have time to get a bit of walking in.  During the summer I tend to walk in the evenings, as it's still plenty light out and the temperatures are starting to cool down.  Now though, it's too dark about 10 or 15 minutes after I lock up the girls.  I've gotten into the habit of downloading a trashy audio book from the library and listening to it while I walk.  I've discovered that most modern regency romances are really silly and worth a few chuckles while I'm out walking.

Other than that, I demonstrated Dorset buttons and spinning for 2 days at the local fair.   The buttons on the Saturday and spinning on the Sunday with a couple of weavers.   The weather was perfect and didn't start to turn until after the fair had closed on Sunday.   I got to eat my lunch, sitting on a straw bale, listening to 2 different bands.  One was quite good, who played modern country music.  The steel guitar player was good and the music was nicely amped so you could actually hear it.   I fell in love with the steel guitar  at that moment.  I messaged hubby that maybe one should be added to our instrument collection, but apparently it's priced in line with the Hurdy Gurdy I'd like to have as well. That means it's well out of our price range.   

The other musician was a John Denver impersonator.   He does a great job and this year he costumed up before he hit the stage, which made it perfect.  Last year he was on stage without his wig, and without a full costume, so the look didn't match the music.   If you closed your eyes though, it was almost right...  I got to eat my lunch, listening to good music, with a really nice antique tractor on display.  What's not to like about that?

The Dorset Button display went really well and lots of people stopped by to ask about them.  Last year not a single person talked to be about spinning as they were all interested in the weavers.  This year it was the opposite.  You just can tell what people will be interested any particular year.

A friend asked me for some heritage recipe help for a friend of hers, who needed a Quince jam recipe from an earlier time period.   I spent about half an hour or so digging up some recipes and sending them on.   Then I found another recipe, slightly different which I passed on too, with all the citations of course.    I got a lovely invitation to come and pick quinces from her quince grove.  That was fun.  These fruits smell amazing.  I walk into the kitchen and there is a sweet, spicy almost cinnamon scent.  They are also huge.  I've only seen one quince before and it was quite small.  These things are as large or larger than my hand!  I'm letting them ripen up a bit while I decide what to make with them.   I'll make a period 1860's quince marmalade for sure, and maybe some quince paste, which seems to be a fruit leather type of recipe. I'm looking forward to trying these and will post the results of my attempts.

End of August update

The river on a late summer hike

 This morning had a bit of unexpected excitement.  When I put my glasses on when I woke up, I realised that they were broken!  They were fine when I took them off at bedtime.   Of course without my glasses I couldn't see what was wrong with them, although I did find the missing lens and knew that the frame was unattached at the earpiece thing.   Luckily hubby figured out that a tiny screw had fallen out and by disassembling an old pair of glasses, he was able to fix mine with the scavenged screw.  I was so happy to be able to see clearly again without old glasses or sneaking hubby's glasses, which worked okay in a pinch, although not perfect.

Yesterday I harvested some garden tomatoes.    They are finally starting to ripen.  I've eaten a cucumber and cherry tomatoes for lunch for half the summer, which was lovely.   I've gotten 1.25kg of blackberries in the freezer.   I could easily get another 1 or 2 pickings in,  but I'm not sure it's worth it.   This time of year the seedy berries sometimes get even seedier and they are smaller pickings, for the same amount of work.   I have more than enough for a good batch of jam.

Last time I made blackberry jam, I pressed all the berries though a sieve with a wooden spoon. I've been looking for a Foley's food mill to make that job easier but they don't seem to be available any longer.  These are the metal cone mortar and pestle shaped ones.   The last time I saw one in a store a couple of years ago, I was very tempted to buy it as I've wanted one for years, but the price was really crazy high.   Amazon has one but it's fairly small  and almost $100.   I'm not sure I want to spend that much for a tool I'll only use a few times a year.

 Second choice is a grinder type food mill.   They are more reasonably priced.   When the kids were young, a friend and I would get together a couple of nights in the fall to freeze corn and make apple sauce.  It meant that we each had a freezer full with only a couple of hours of work and fun.    She had a food mill, which was old but really sturdy.  It ground up the apples in no time.   I'm hoping to find one as well built as that.  

I'm ticked at myself for not buying Plums when they were in the store.   Prune plums make spectacular jam.  If you chop them fine enough, you don't even have to peel them, as the peels will dissolve while cooking.   Maybe there will be some left at the market.

On a grey, damp day we went for a walk through the antique mall.   One booth had a few copper moulds in it.  One was $25 and another shopper and I commiserated over that being a ridiculous price for a jelly mould.   She would only pay $5 for one, and because I will pay a couple of dollars more if it's one I really like and don't have, I found these 3.  The strawberry one had some gunk on it, which the $25 one, the same strawberry mould didn't have.   I paid $8 for these and the gunk washed right off the mould with no scratching, discolouration or residue.  I was happy.   

canning and garden update

I wanted to make a batch of bread and butter pickles and some relish, but didn't have enough small cucumbers from my garden.    We went to the local "farm market", which is a shop which brings in local produce, rather than a farmers market because it's only open on Saturday morning, and the timing was wrong.   It was $8 for a small basket of pickling cucumbers and I'd need 4 baskets for the 2 recipes.  There was a half bushel for $30, which was less than the 4 baskets so of course being frugal, I got the half bushel.   

I made dill pickles.

I made cucumber relish

I made a second batch of dill pickles, these ones sliced into rounds instead of spears.

I made bread and butter pickles, my favourite!

I gave 3 lbs of cucumbers to my daughter so she could make pickles.

I still have enough pickles in the fridge to make another batch!

We have more pickles in the pantry than we can eat in a year!  I even started canning some in small jars as give aways!

Last week the blackberries started ripening. They don't all ripen at once, so it's not an onerous task.   If you leave 3 days between picking, or sometimes 4, then it's worth the effort.   This is including the fact that I neglected to weed out the nettles earlier in the season, and keep forgetting to wear long pants and sleeves, resulting in tingling legs and arms.   Anyway, I've got just over 1 kg of blackberries frozen, for use later in the season, when the weather cools down a bit for more comfortable processing.  There are still quite a lot of berries left on the brambles though, so I'm guessing several more pickings before I give up and leave the rest to go to seed.

I also pruned the tomatoes back to get rid of a lot of excess leaves and hopefully aid the fruit in ripening.   I'm not sure I cut away enough of the excess leaves though.  They are still pretty full. The plants have quite a lot of fruit on them, but it's all still very green, due to another summer of less than adequate sunshine.    I may have to buy some tomatoes just to make sure there are some canned in the pantry for the winter.   I use all of the 1/2 bushel that I put up when I have to buy them, but could easily use more.

I have herbs to dry, mainly oregano, basil and parsley this year, and potatoes to harvest.  The tomatoes are wait and see.   The cucumbers are still producing and I'm getting one or two pickling cucumbers a day, which I generally eat for lunch, along with whatever cherry tomatoes are ripe.  The zucchini is still producing, but they are just starting to get a bit of mildew on them, so they'll be done soon.   Peppers, hot Hungarian banana peppers are growing fast and furiously this year.   I will need to harvest soon and I'll likely have to pickle them for winter use too.   They are pretty delicious.