Halloween House and Pumpkins



     This photo is a scan of a greeting card that I bought because I loved the house and multiple jack-o-lanterns. In my Halloween heart, I think I reside here.

     Back to the real world and my own front porch, where only one carved pumpkin greets the trick-or-treaters. I called him Hungry Jack for obvious reasons.

     Hope everyone enjoys a hauntingly fun evening!

Wicked salad

     Halloween is such a fun time of year, even in the kitchen. Every year we buy one or two items to complement the season and this year actually found something useful. First thought was that these wicked salad tongs were totally nonessential but after passing them up, I had to go back and get them. (A good scrubbing was necessary after I found Rissy using one to scratch the kitty's back!)

     These witches have been a favorite for quite a few years but the wine and glasses are new additions. Afterthought was that we should have bought another bottle and not just for decoration.

New Clothesline (Going Green in Style)

     The current ‘going green’ trend rather tickles me. For a century now, appliances have been invented and perfected to lessen the burden of household chores. Two of these, the dishwasher and the clothes dryer, are standard and indispensable to modern homes. My mother had seven children and never owned a dishwasher - she still doesn’t. I have had one most of my adult life and, yes, I used it frequently but to be honest, I value it more for keeping dirty dishes out of sight than for the actual washing. It seems the time taken to scrape and load and later put away, is pretty much the same time it takes to wash by hand. I know there are studies and comparisons about energy and water consumption. What the studies don’t include is the psychological argument for hand washing and drying.

     In the "olden times" when it was my brother’s turn to dry dishes, he provoked my mother but made his stint a little more interesting by piling cups upon bowls upon plates to see how high they would stack. Luckily most were melamine but in any case he found a way to enjoy the chore. As for me, I don’t entirely dislike the feel and scent of warm soapy water and find it relaxing. The big window over my sink is another enticement – as the season roll by, I can watch cardinals and chickadees and finches at the feeders or goldfish jumping up the little waterfall in the pond or a ball of baby squirrels tussling in the grass. Since the double sink can only drain so many dishes at once, some must be dried and put away immediately. Therefore it is not a job put off till later, as is the case with a dishwasher.

     I am glad I have a clothes dryer. That said, I am also glad I have a clothesline in the basement and another in the backyard. A short aside on line drying: When my son was an infant, we had a washer but couldn’t afford a dryer. Disposable diapers were just being introduced and were out of my price range, so like my mother and her mother, I used cloth diapers and thought nothing of it. However, my mother-in-law took me aside one day to tell me that my fabric softener wasn’t working. Her unwelcome lecture couldn’t change anything (except increase my disdain for her pretentiousness) and she didn’t offer to buy us a dryer either. However, Michael never had diaper rash and he suffered no ill effects from his less-than-soft diapers.

     Back to the present, when I decided that my old rusty metal clothesline pole, original to the house and placed sixty years ago, was an eyesore and needed to be replaced. After some online research, I decided on wood instead of metal and tried the local hardware stores, with no success. Even the online outlets had only utilitarian, generic looking poles made of 6x6 posts and crossbars – ugly! Since I wanted something with a little more style, I kept searching until I found something appealing but it was outrageously priced. With a little skill and a lot of enthusiasm, I began measuring and sketching, then shopping for cedar and screws and line, and finally a few hours of sawing, sanding, assembling and staining. Michael, who is now thirty something, helped me dig and place the pole in concrete (only one was needed – the lines are attached to a very large tree at the other end). 

     I am quite proud of my handiwork and think the cedar and copper are gorgeous in the sunlight. And nothing smells more comforting than sheets line-dried in the sun.

*****

Jack-o-Lantern Cookies

     When there is not enough time to make cut-out cookies, an easy solution is usually at hand. Drop cookies with an orange glaze and a few mini chocolate chips produce passable jack-o-lanterns. Last year I made larger cookies and used candy corn for the faces but this year we have two new families with children in the neighborhood, so in order to have enough to share, I made smaller versions. Rissy said they look more like smiley faces, but that's okay. The recipients were thrilled and now I have some splendid preschool artwork to hang on the refrigerator and which gives me a smiley face every time I see it.



Herb Harvest

     The hot dry summer produced a poor crop of tomatoes and cucumbers but the herb garden positively thrived. Fernando is nearly hidden by the lush growth - perhaps next year he will be moved to a more prominent spot, though I rather like the way he seems to be peeking out from a secret hiding spot.

     Today I collected basil, parsley, thyme and sage to dry in the oven and chives to snip and place in the freezer. (An earlier harvest in September ended with an unfortunate mishap. Forgetting that the drying trays were inside, I turned on the oven to preheat it for a batch of cupcakes. In only a few minutes, the house smelled like the popular parties of the 1970's and the herbs were reduced to crinkly ruins.)

October's Full Moon

     Yesterday, early in the evening but still an hour after the sun had set, Rissy and I enjoyed a little star gazing. The sky was exceptionally clear and resplendent with innumerable stars (hence the immediate commencement of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"), and a very bright full moon. We then stood quiet for a moment and felt the aliveness of the earth: there was no wind but the leaves in the trees were rustling slightly, a couple of late season crickets sang strongly, and the moonbeams poured incandescent light over the landscape that was so bright it cast shadows. The air was still but life so present and tangible.

     The Farmer's Almanac states that this month's moon is usually known as the Hunter's Moon. I find a couple of the American Indian epithets a little more interesting. The Algonquins from the northeastern coast called it the Moon of White Frost on Grass, and the Lakota of the northern plains preferred Moon When the Wind Shakes Off Leaves. How poetic and descriptive were these peoples labeled "primitive"?

(This photograph was actually taken about 6:30 am in the previous month of September during the rarity which was a full moon on the Autumnal equinox. This event won't occur again til 2029).

Scalloped Potatoes

     A lovely sunny autumn day at home and as the sun begins to drop lower in the sky, the air begins to chill. The oven has seen little use in the last few weeks of summer, one of the hottest on record, and since I have the time today, and the simple ingredients on hand, I have decided to make scalloped potatoes with ham for dinner. Boxed versions of scalloped potatoes, while convenient and quick to prepare, do not even begin to compare with homemade which requires only potatoes, flour, milk, butter, salt and pepper. Interspersing ham slices with the layers of creamy potatoes produces a warming, tasty meal. (Years ago, my mother peeled pounds of potatoes and filled a huge casserole dish for our very large family - inexpensive and a great way to stretch a few pieces of ham). In this age of excess, some may find this bland because there is no addition of cheese, onions or spices, but the method which the French call gratin, is simply cooking in a shallow dish and topping with a golden crust. Ah, and therein is the best part - the slightly crisped, almost brown top layer - a serving is incomplete without including that crusty layer!

Hummingbird Feeders

     Sadly it's the end of the hummingbird season here; the little fellows (we seemed to have more of them this year than ever) have all migrated to warmer climes, so it's time to take down the feeders. Early in the summer, my old  feeder cracked so I went to buy a new one. I saw a delightful one at a nearby store that cost $29 and it was only copper wire and glass feeding tubes. Replacement tubes were only about two dollars so I bought two and then went to the hardware store and bought four feet of copper wire for sixty cents, did some wirebending, stuck in some ivy and I think they looked pretty nifty. Apparently the hummers did too because we had quite a few visitors.

     Even though it is lamentable to remove these tokens of summer, I will soon be diverted and cheered by replacing them with the charming decorations of the harvest season.

Childhood Dinners

     A lunchtime discussion at work today centered on dinners from our childhood. All of us spent our growing up years in the suburbs of St. Louis and our parents had only slight ethnic influences in their lives. Memories of respective grandparents, however included dishes from ancestral countries and seemed to evoke the most nostalgia; fare discussed included goulash and cabbage from Hungary, sauerkraut and golabki from Poland, risotto and gnocchi from Italy, sauerbraten and strudel from Germany, potatoes and stew from Ireland, and bread and scones from England.
     In the nineteen-fifties and sixties, our thoroughly modern mothers collectively tended to shun those cultural tendencies and therefore meals, though delicious, were rather generic: meatloaf, fried chicken or pork chops, roast beef, pancakes and applesauce, burgers or on rare occasions, a grilled steak. Seafood consisted of tuna casserole or fish sticks and the closest we got to ethnicity was spaghetti or American chop suey. TV dinners did not seem popular in our homes and eating out was a rarity -McDonalds was a very special treat and the only menu items allowed were burgers and fries. One tradition we all shared was the partaking of the Sunday dinner early in the afternoon, which was amusing because none of us have continued that custom!

Why blog?

“A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.”
--Henry David Thoreau

...and that is an accurate description of how I think and why I write. I get frustrated relating to people in my nine-to-five life, because I must tailor my language and syntax to fit their intellectual capabilities. If that sounds snobbish, it may be that I am a language snob – vague words, incorrect grammar and inaccurate spelling simply grates. That said, I also firmly believe that a bit, and sometimes an awful lot, of wit is an essential life tool.

At one time, I was happy sketching and painting, but that too became frustrating because I could not find an individual style except for realism. That inclination led photography to become my graphic medium of choice because it provided a perfect channel for replicating the visual wonders of life that abound in so many ways, large and small.

The creative bent that has always enhanced my life is a recurring theme in the subject matter I have chosen to share in this blog. Cooking is not just for body fuel but for taste and presentation as well. House and garden projects are necessary but can be inspired and original instead of mass-produced and expensive. (Frugality, which often in my life was absolutely essential, is an important concept in my life – I now consider it an enjoyable challenge and actually practice it mostly without forethought). The observation of the natural world is inspiring and intriguing, whether related to the seasons, animals, weather or earth and sky; environmental awareness is a gift to be shared, either with those who are already mindful of the splendor or those who appreciate a little prompting.

Welcome all on my journey of observations and illustrations, of imagination and life.

Pumpkin harvest

How can it be that orange is my least favorite color yet autumn is the most beautiful time of the year? A pile of pumpkins can evoke such rustic sentimentality.