Again With The Sunshine

I am going to break out into song any moment.

You wish you were here, because it's been as beautiful as any "Sound of Music" set in our neck of the woods. It may or may not be due to Grace and her self-fulfilling prophecies slash weather reports, but we're still basking in the autumn sunshine every blessed day.

Do I sound cranky about it?

Last year I was melancholy throughout late September and early October... I know this because my blog does not lie. If you asked me I'd say, nah, everything was great last year around this time. But the blog tells a different tale.

Sigh.

What kind of girl wishes for rain when she's got this kind of October:

A girl who loves to curl up by the fire with a good book and a cup of tea, that's who. Do we have any other takers?

I do love the outdoors. It's a good thing, too, because there's quite a bit of outdoor work to be done when you own a little "hobby farm." Whether it's for money (and trust me, it's not for the money) or for a "hobby," packing 50-pound sacks of grain, wrestling wily chickens, and scooping horse manure are not in the same hobby league as, say, building a model train yard.

Every time we step out the door, or look out the window, for that matter, there's a lot of work looking back at us. Raking, mucking, painting, plowing kind of work. Gasping for air kind of work. It's the antithesis of a peaceful retreat to the country, really.


Sarah heard my cry for coziness and a change of seasons:

She drew a city scene on the chalkboard (note super-cute chalkboard that I MADE) and then did a little performance art thing with banging the eraser on the rain "dots" of chalk, which caused chalk dust to billow out like snow over the rooftops of the chalk houses.

Okay, so then we all had asthma attacks. But it was funny.

Why am I so eager for a change of season? It's not just the draught-caused trickling well water, and it's not any sense of existential dissatisfaction with today. I love the summer, and I love the end-of-summer, beginning-of-fall activities we've been buzzing about. Canning applesauce (darn if Grace doesn't prefer the store-bought!), drying pears, making jam, planting bulbs, starting an orchard, picking winter squash and reading up on root cellars while we study traditional homesteading. I love that stuff.

I think what I'm really yearning for is not fall at all. It's not rain, or even chalk-snow; it's the peaceful easiness that comes over me when there's nothing to be done except sit with a good book and a cup of tea. I want to twiddle my thumbs for a minute and dig out the sewing machine because I can't very well dig in the soggy earth or walk up the hill in a monsoon. I want that decision to slow down made for me.

In reality, the stormy weather doesn't bring any more simplicity than I create.





And speaking of creations:

I had this brilliant (shush) idea to paint silhouettes of a rooster and chickens on the side of my chicken chalet.

But my rooster kind of looks like a squirrel.

To make up for it I swished around the foam craft brush into the vague shape of a roosting hen and then lettered the side with the words "Fresh Eggs."

It sounded really cute at the time.

I did finish the lettering, but it doesn't look any cuter. In fact, from the road, it looks a little like it says "Fish Eggs." I'm expecting some anglers to stop looking for bait any day now.

Do you see why I need something to read? Note to all of my blogging buddies: For the love of the chicken coop, could you post a little more often?

My ten-day spending hiatus is fast approaching (nearly as quickly as I'm losing my resolve), I'm all burned out on the food preservation effort, my kids have plenty of clothes so I don't need to sew... I don't know how to knit... we gave up television because we're cracked... and I don't have anything to read in the house (aside from literally thousands of books, but you know...).

So a little blog reading by the fire, with a cup of tea. That's what I'm looking for. I'll even settle on doing this slow-down with the sun shining outside. It doesn't have to rain in order for me to stop and smell the teabags.

And if you can't blog, would you at least email me?

Or comment?

(I may be going a little stir crazy in the country.)