Pictures of a (legendary?) fall

I bought a little secondhand espresso machine over the weekend.

I'm going to save money. It's been bad for the budget, Dutch Bros. moving to town, and the girls' dance classes six days a week and the lack of sleep and all.

I grit my teeth and choose contentment, sticking fingers in ears to deny a negative word. La la la I can't hear you. Because I'm mature like that.

Not long after, not so very much later, forced smiles relax into reality. I see the beauty directly in front of me.

 Oh, Jane. Your portrait does not do you justice.

 The man whose sign proclaims irrigation automation. His name is Greene. And that makes me smile bigger.

We stomp down the leaves after they've fallen. Our grass is so green here! Even in a drought year we didn't use the irrigation system in the front lawn at all. (Apologies to Mr. Greene.) Then the leaves head for the compost mountain.

 Sal and Laura and I get a lot of time to appreciate the bajillion of covered bridges around here while the big girls are at dance. I (used to) carry a Dutch Bros. mocha while we played. Covered Bridge Capitol they say. There's a plaque and a sign and everything.

The hens don't venture out until the mist leaves the hillside. See that little, itty bitty hop vine there? So much for covering the henhouse in one season. I also planted lavender. But Jane thinks lavender and geraniums are for her. Breakfast lunch and dinner. Baaaaad sheep.

Shades of grey. Rated G.

 (Have not read those books. I just think I'm funny. Don't mind me; acting ridiculous cheers me up when I have to make my own mochas.)

 I have a soft spot for pumpkins on ladders. Funnily enough some of my ladders I pulled out of burn piles and trash heaps. Repeatedly. A-hem. Then the cucumbers climb them all summer before the autumn squash take up residence. We also use old dry-rotted wooden ladders for roosting rungs in the chicken yard and henhouse. I have seen some clever people make rustic - shabby? farmchic? steampunk? what is this steampunk? - bookcases. I can never. never. never have enough bookcases. But I also like to stay married so the wooden ladders stay outside.

 We are building a library, which will decidedly NOT have rustic ladder shelving, up in the attic. Got a little sidetracked by plumbing disasters between the pump and the house. And again between the pump and the barn. Then most recently by some cottage-style built-in beds for the teen girls. Oh and we can't forget the stair rail, the upstairs bath reno, the tiny back yard studio remodel. Multitasking makes for a lot of projects nearly there. And the library is the furthest from "there."

 We never have enough photos of Madeleine and Sarah anymore.

And I thought I might bore you with sunflower pictures this summer -- I took hundreds! We cut down dozens and dozens to dry but left a few for the birds, who flit around and weigh the blossoms down while they have an October snack. I walk as quietly as I can but they don't stay for a portrait. Sort of like my teenagers.

Can you tell I'm overcaffeinated? The unintended side effect of frugality, my friends.

If I were a gardener

 If I were a gardener I'd probably wait until the last frost date to plant those tomatoes.

 But two weeks of 80 degree days and 50 degree nights and I. just. could. not. wait.

The garden is bigger this year than last. We (the famous "royal we")
tore out the fence between the Hill at Bag End (anyone?)

and the garden in order to expand into the sunniest areas.

For reference, the fence used to be on the left side of this photo.

The fence you still see separates the horse paddock from the garden.

At least until some equine with a long neck and
a lot of determination needs a snack of corn.

There is really no way to move our garden to another area on the property
(at least without a good deal of expense and
also shuffling the chicken yard or children's play yard)
but we could and did capture a little more sunny footage for the corn and beans.

A new fence may or may not go up on the west end. I kind of like that open feeling. The deer may like it too.

 The original homesteaders here cleared (read: clear cut) the steep hillside to the back of the garden and horse paddocks. They operated a sawmill on our creek and some of the stumps are so huge (and ugly) that they have not rotted in all those decades. We are slowly replanting that hillside on the "back yard/garden" side but we have not decided what to do about the hill on the "horse" side.

Stay tuned because a good idea is bound to emerge.

Between other projects. And dance lessons. A-hem.

Composted manure enriches our raised beds and traditional tilled gardens. Amazing stuff, and free. Last year we had to purchase soil to fill the newly built raised beds because we weren't ready to use the previous owner's compost. I would not like to have to pay money again for what seemed to be mostly wood fiber.

 A very old grapevine that we discovered in the mown lawn is flourishing on its one-year-old arbor. Last year we even harvested grapes! That was a blessing to me because I was loathe to leave behind our gorgeous grape arbor at the old farmhouse. Similarly here we uncovered a 40-foot row of raspberries that were choked with grass just beyond the beautiful existing strawberry bed.

It is a happy report that the raspberries are looking great this spring as are three young blueberry plants that the sweet sellers planted not too long before we moved in.
To that berry garden we added three additional blueberry plants,
a gift from friends with a nursery, and two currant bushes.

My lavender at the front door is huge! Last year it was root-bound in a four-inch pot; this year it is competing with the already-in-residence purple columbines. Soon both will fade and be replaced by the squeal-worthy peony show.
A girl's gotta have flowers. And the odd Grecian statuette.

Are you gardening this year?

Look! It's autumn. Or: Still peaceful, happily surprised

Madeleine took this picture at the dedication of a local park (engineering done by Mr. Suite!). And then we rode in the balloon. A Very Good Day.

Over the summer we took approximately forty-nine trips to the river, "rednecking it" with our lawn tractor trailer full of toddlers and inner tubes and a cooler full of pb&j sandwiches, iced tea in Mason jars.

For the first two weeks of October we left the flotation devices and life jackets and whatnot accessible. "One more swim" was still possible. Beach books still resided in go bags. Sun tea was even an option because we still had, you know, sunshine.

Salvador has discovered his pockets. So boy.

Now that the rain is here and our stove is crackling with flames that fog up the viewing glass I am almost instantly ready where I wasn't before. I didn't see this coming, and the surprise is a little burst of joy over and over. Fall. How is it possible to be taken unaware by a season one has loved for 40 years? I think it's a bonus, a little-known side effect of that cliched but wonderful practice of "living in the moment."

Come to find out I like the NEXT moment a lot better when I enjoy the one I'm IN well.

The tractor races at Farm Suite's front room always draw a big crowd. Scalewise anyway.

When Madeleine, our nearly 14-year-old, was a tiny baby, we were unfortunately anxious. (Royal we again.) When is the next feeding? How long will she sleep? Should she sleep that long? Can we grocery shop between naps or let her sleep in the car? We missed a lot of joyful moments, I fear, in the practice of scheduling and looking for what was next.

Our schedules today, as I go on and on about here, are ever-so-Seussian muchly much much more busier than that. (The house it often looks like it was visited by the Cat in the Hat.) On a daily basis our calendar is so full as to give me hiccups if I look toward what is next, or worse, how many/few minutes we have to prepare for "what's next." Algebra, chemistry, literature, ballet, tap, jazz, modern dance, flute lessons, community theatre rehearsals... they all go better with a cup of tea and my full attention. The next will come around in its own time.

And just in case you ever struggle, as I have for years, with how to do that, how to be fully present and still be ready when the agenda switches up, I want to share the logistical, completely non-spiritual tool that has helped me achieve a little bit of peace in apparent chaos.

It's a calendar. In my purse I keep an old-fashioned appointment calendar. I also have it hand "synched" to my phone and kitchen wall and computer calendars. Even though I resisted this system for years, preferring in my fantasies to think I was better unencumbered by such mundane tools, I actually feel much more FREE having it all written down, keyed in, cross-referenced.

My little purse calendar saves the double-booking disasters and saves my life. (We also have a newer launch pad system of dance bags, snack bags and whatnot that I think you can probably imagine better than I, and this is instrumental in the new peace system as well. I might write about that later but I'm not very predictable in the posting. Maybe I should put blogging in my calendar. A-hem.)

Does jazz start at 3:00 or 3:15 on Mondays? Would we be able to pick up an extra child in the carpool next Tuesday? Can we move flute to Friday at 4:00? In five seconds I can answer and I don't have the anxiety that comes with the not knowing, the must-remember-to-check.

When I get an email tweaking rehearsal schedules I transfer the new information to my calendar(s). When the girls get invitations to parties I write the time and contact info in my calendar. When I make my weekly menus I write them in my calendar.

The calendar saves us from the fast-food drive-through, which my kids and wallet dislike strongly, on nights when there's no time to go home for dinner between dance and theatre. I can plan ahead for portable meals for my actors and snacks for the rest of us. I can reasonably tell my dear, patient, already organized since birth engineer husband what time we will be home.

Don't get me wrong: I still struggle with busy-ness. But it seems somewhat manageable this way and I can even feel free to be happily surprised by something as small as a "divine appointment" with a friend at a coffee shop or something as huge as the change of seasons.

Now to go deflate the inner tubes. Because, friends? It's raining outside.

Garden of Weedin'

Sweet elderly gardeners everwhere have nothin' on me, I'm telling you. I am so totally tempted to find a gnome or a dozen and pop them in all around my yard between signs that read "Garden of Weedin'" and "Weeds. 5 Cents a Dozen. U-Pick."

On a related note, I have been a very, very good girl. Mr. Suite is exceedingly pleased because I have conquered my longstanding bad habit of leaving piles of weeds to die or dry or take root in pathways until he finally gets sick of the piles and comes along with the wheelbarrow. Bad, bad gardener me has now been officially replaced by the Toys R Us Kid me through the handy acquisition of that garage sale wagon pictured above. I pull it along behind me and fill it with weeds and then one of my actual kids takes the weeds to the chicken yard.

(My children, incidentally, do not dare write their "Rs" backward because their mother is neurotic about mentioning the inanity (and insanity) of that particular branding idiocy every single time we see the sign, or now, how-convenient-is-that, every time they pull my weed wagon. And, why, yes, I did just use multiple parenthetical statements much as a nesting doll, all the while criticizing advertising spelling. Brilliant.)

Ta da!

Cheap garden tool, happy husband, free chicken feed. It's a win-win-win!

How is your gardening season growing?

I Sedum chairs?

I love sedum... and I love garden art... but I've never done anything to marry those two loves... until now.

When a painted, weathered porch chair lost its seat. That'll happen if you water a basket of geraniums on it all summer long for four years straight. And then, ahem, you use the chair as a stepstool to hang a banner for a yard party.

So the seat parted ways with the rest of the chair... and met up with some scraps of chicken wire. Cutting the chicken wire to size was the hardest part of the project. It helps if you take time to find wire snips instead of figuring the kitchen shears are "close enough." Don't ask how I know.

My lovely assistants gathered moss and carefully lined the chicken wire with a cushy planting area for sedum, which will love the airy drainage. I hope.

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And on a side note, does it seem that my sorta-kinda-how-to is really more of a "how not to"?

Case in point. Moss and chicken wire will not support actual sitting.

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I'll share pictures after I plant the sedum, which I have to dig up from between rocks and in a wheelbarrow I planted last year. Then I'll place the whole sculpture (artfully?) in the garden.

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This was a fun, free project and it feels good to be back to making something out of nothing. Very farmgirl frugal of me.

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Also? I know my puns are not that funny. But I crack myself up. And not just when falling through a porch chair.

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What projects are you planning? Planting? Falling into?

In which the manic nesting continues

It dawned on me, quite literally at 5 a.m. yesterday, that I hadn't yet made a quilt for the Suite baby.

So in my typical organized fashion (snork perfectly appropriate here) I settled in at the table with a stack of fabric from my stash. And nary a plan. Of course.

That led to some last-minute, ill-advised changes that had me seam ripping the center block out not once but twice. Laura thought that was fun. Plus it distracted her from the Charlie Chaplin mustache of a cut she suffered in an unfortunate high chair incident.

This afternoon, with precious little light from our perpetually storm-crossed windows, the quilt is done. Fini.

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I wanted to play around with a traditional nine-patch and log cabin, only I've seen these wonky log cabin quilts where the center "hearth" of the block is asymmetrical. Let me tell you, it's not very easy on a girl. That there center block is the third wonky block I pieced and inserted into the quilt. Again, I don't recommend my methods. Casual and balanced is difficult to do at once. For me.

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And a little side note: I must bestow the Husband of the Year award, once again, to Mr. Suite. For valor at the cutting table in pursuit of a piece of Warm and Natural batting. He may have been completely out of his element, making three phone calls to ascertain material width and length and whatnot, but he is completely secure in winning that particular award; he's got it wrapped up for decades yet.

Slipped! (Or, it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful)

All linked up to Pink and Polka Dot's slipcover party... there are some seriously beauty-ful slips over there!

Did I promise a picture of a third-trimester slipcovering adventure? (You should click there to see the devastation wrought on one representative cushion.) Did I tell you I could camouflage, nay, bestow new life upon, my old blue-and-pink striped sofa into something a little more restful for our den? And for less than the cost of a mocha at a coffee drive-through?

Well. I wouldn't want anyone to think that the $2.99 is some sort of joke. I don't think I spent even that, unless I counted thread. But if you want to attempt this at home be prepared to raid your fabric stash and, further, to be happy with a mish-mash of prints.

I slipcovered all the t-shaped seat cushions as well as the back cushions. And the ottoman. And the cushion for one wing chair, which is, in its au naturel state oh-so-80s-hunter-green-with-pink-dots.

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But I ran out of steam (and the ability to sit at the sewing machine with my baby bump in the way) for the body of the sofa. So that part's still just tucked and draped.

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So I present to you the (maybe less than) $2.99 family room cover-up. It'll do.

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And it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful. (To me.)

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A few details: The seat cushions on the sofa reverse to match the turkey red paisley on the back cushions. I do have plans to sew a fitted slipcover in cafe-au-lait color for the sofa itself and for the two wing chairs (one is living in another room currently). And I probably will sew cushion covers in the same creamy neutral in case I get in the mood for a less mix-and-match-Ralph-Lauren look. But I'm pretty happy with the interim version, especially since the feathers are no longer flying from the upholstery!

My $2.99 family room makeover ... the tease edition

Those are the mix-and-match fabrics I grabbed from my stash for a much-needed sofa slipcover.

Needed? Nah. (I am so mortified to post that picture. It's almost as bad as the kitchen before of yore after which Lexi exposed evidence, hotly debated by me, of a tequila/margarita "habit." Exposed stuffing... almost as bad as suspicion of drinking on the blog.)

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We've actually had a SureFit slipcover on this sofa for the past few years or so. I think the brand name SureFit is ingenious in the same way a small car becomes "comfortable" in the advertisements. Of necessity there's no mention that you can't get your knees to fit between the steering wheel and seat. In this manner, the SureFit slipcover, while cute, needs constant adjustment, tucking, cursing, and so it's time to make a fitted cover for the body and new upholstery for the seats to hold it all together.

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I wanted a new sofa even though this one is unbelievably comfortable. Well-made in that annoying heirloom furniture way. (Ugly but too good to throw out.) It's just, um, not my color scheme and it's HUGE. It takes up the entire den. So I wanted a new sofa even before some mysterious strange phenomenon (can you say "my children never jump on the furniture"?) started pulling the upholstery and underlying thin layer of down and feathers to bits.

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However: I shopped for MONTHS for a new sofa before deciding to tackle this project in the face of my shopping failure. (Hardly a first. Shopping and me, we're like t --- h --- i ---s.) I have slipcovered before, friends, and it's not a job for a girl in her third trimester with accompanying asthma, pre-term labor, a family to feed, etc.

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Nevertheless. I'm sewing. And I'll keep you posted.

Thankful Tree

Somehow I messed up NaBloPoMo. Blogger wouldn't post my scheduled items, I couldn't log in as me to fix it for two days, my chickens were pulled limb from limb by stupid dogs, I broke my hip, the whole comma splice thing is annoying me already. Moving on.

It's really okay with me that I failed NaBloPoMo. Because I must tell you about my new favorite thing.

It's a Thankful Tree, shamelessly stolen from Margaret at our church. I am so in love with it that it might not be fair to my family. All that love aimed at an object. But trust me, you'll love it like that too.

All you have to do to create your own Thankful Tree is choose a branch from your backyard and embed it in sand or pebbles or a little Quickcrete. I am using a beautiful Manzanita branch that I once had on the wall as sculpture. I also chose one of my most gorgeously mossy terra cotta pots. But any old bucket will do.

Then have your children (or do this yourself if you are OCD like me) trace Oak and Maple and Ginko leaves onto construction paper in appropriate fall colors. Russet sounds good, doesn't it? The church has used real leaves before, but then they are no good for saving for.ev.er. As I might be wont to do. You too?

Then punch a little hole in the hundreds of leaves your children (or OCD you; remember, you're never too old to control the crafts) cut out. Thread some raffia or pretty ribbon through each hole.

Display them prettily on your sideboard in a pottery bowl next to the tree with a Sharpie marker or two.

As your Thanksgiving guests arrive, let them know they are welcome to fill out a Thankful Leaf. Or force them, if they are stodgy about it.

After the leaves are filled out (we encourage pre-writers to draw a picture), have them tie their leaves to the tree.

It is my favorite thing about Thanksgiving. Thanks, Margaret.

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And, in case you're keeping score at home, I can't take any pictures at this time as I am currently unable to walk. Standing up, sitting down, transitioning between the two: none of them any good. This should be fun.

Daily Dose Of Spending

A month or so ago, I threatened -- nay, planned -- to sneak in an extra spending hiatus this year. I even invited you to join me. THEN I went so far as to set a date range, because I thought it might help more of you play along if you could stock your pantries before swearing off spending any money for 10 days. Ten long, frugal days. Ten days of testing our willpower and resisting our natural urge to spend.

Why did I ask you to play along? Weren't you just dying to see how it would turn out for you? Would you make it through a week and two weekends without any three-dollar lattes? Would your planning and thrift match that of our grandmothers'?

I've been there. I've done that. I sewed the t-shirt.

But this November, despite my plans, I am NOT doing it. I just can't. We've cut back so far, and so deep, that I just couldn't face 10 days of giving up the occasional paperback book. We don't even have television anymore, people. No HGTV. No RFDTV. And no other strange initial TV either. It's raining outside (I know, I know, I asked for it.) so we can't play horses. The garden is done so I can't mess around in the dirt. It's reading or board games or nuttin', honey.

So, instead of embarking on the "bonus" spending hiatus, I went and bought a thermos. It's a little ironic, since I own a fairly impressive collection of vintage thermoses (thermi?). But this one is brand-new, with no one else's coffee schmutz inside. It's cheerful red gingham with a glass liner. The stopper and cup are pristine. Because, you know, they're new.

Every morning since I bought it at an overpriced gift shop in a college town near me, I make myself some of my favorite espresso. I warm some milk on the stove. It's doesn't take any longer than the microwave, and it's just essentially better. Then I further splurge on a splash of hazelnut syrup.

I think I've paid for my spendy new thermos in money saved at Dutch Brothers. But that was not the intent. I went to spend a little. To feel spoiled for just a minute. I walked into the overpriced gift shop with the goal of blowing some cash on me. Me me me. I spent some money, and it wasn't on groceries or auto insurance or Osh Kosh or animal feed. Is that called retail therapy? Because I think I like it.

Anyway it's cute and it makes me happy. And ... all the other volleyball moms wanted to know where I got it.

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.)

Saving Up For Spring

The weekend roundup is fairly farmy from here. We stewed the last of the tomatoes and read a lot of homesteading literature. I learned a new homemade yogurt recipe -- and the bonus is that I get to use my vintage thermos collection in making the yogurt. Little things like using my collections and rolling up my aprons in a bushel basket make me happy. What can I say to defend myself in the face of this confession?



I can say this: The EGE worked a lot harder than I did this weekend. We started our orchard. It was all pretty much like manna from heaven, what with the fruit trees being available for one-tenth of the nursery price thanks to a woman I grew up with who just purchased a nursery down the road.

Fall is a great time to plant trees and shrubs in our area. It gives the root systems lots of time to develop before the tree has to do any other work. Because we lucked into dwarf trees that are already three to five years old, we may even have apples, pears and cherries next spring and summer.

The dog didn't help at all.

The sunflowers are all done.
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Except they're not.
Madeleine decided to spend her weekend saving and sorting seeds. Cosmos, nasturtiums, sunflowers, marigolds. Then there are the herbs: parsley, cilantro, sage, thyme. She's sortingthem in tidy little bags and pricing them for sale. Little packages of springtime.

The EGE gave her, albeit temporarily, a corner of the "mancave." Every father of four girls needs a mancave, and his is sufficiently manly except when it's invaded by my extra oven/range at Thanksgiving. In his mancave (which is a finished corner of the shop building) he keeps a television for sports (no Angelina Ballerina shall defile the manliness factor), a radio for more sports, his tools and paints and stacks of rolled plat maps and, oh, man-type stuff. I think it is pretty fantastic of him to invite the fledgling seed business in for a season.

And here's a nonsequitur I couldn't resist:


She made that sign for Seven's stall door. Isn't it sweet?