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October 2008
October 31, 2008
October 30, 2008
ghosts of halloweens past
this week we brought our box of halloween goodness down from the attic. inside there are a few random pumpkin themed trinkets, minimal decorations, and a growing collection of margaret's past homemade costumes. magical wearables of all sorts from the past re-emerged in their own special halloween parade. there was...
2003's dragonfly
2004's mermaid
2005's fairy
2006's organic banana
2007's pirate
it is wild to look at the dragonfly from her first year, when she was so small i didn't even have a need to sew feet/legs into the suit, and realize how much she has grown... who knew that these costumes would be such a marker of time? of course seeing these creations had me returning to my scattered photo archives to dig up some pictures of margaret wearing these get-ups out and about. in the spirit of this spooky holiday season, i thought i'd share them here, sort-of virtual-halloween-parade style. each time i look at them i think i change my mind about which one is my favorite... the shiny quilted mermaid? the silly crawling dragonfly with the really, really long tail? the walking, talking mid-peel organic banana?
in the meantime both chuck and i are once again working the needle, thread and preliminary sketches this week to put together 2008's disguise... whew! we're close. it pretty much just needs a little velcro and hemming and then she'll be ready for the tricks and the treats.
October 22, 2008
sharing the love
each year in the fall, our farmers invite all the csa members out to the farm to celebrate together that which we were all a part of — the farmers hard work, the support from the members and the amazing local organic gifts from the earth that we all got to enjoy as a community... this year's annual potluck picnic was sunday. (by the way, i love a good potluck! just the word alone conjures up such a great image of happy-togetherness, doesn't it?) well anyway, we decided to bring a dish to share that used one of the sunshine squashes that we got in our produce box a few days before and decided on a torta di zucca (which i already mentioned in the last post — that i wrote way back somewhere in time, a whole week ago?— that they make perfect picnic food). mmmmm... yes, chuck and i made the torta and packed up some plates, napkins, mugs, blankets, etc...
just some of the b.y.o picnicware that we opted to pack (above). and some toscano kale out in the field (below).
along with the potluck (have i mentioned that i love a good potluck?) everyone is free to walk the fields to see the crops, watch the angora goats get their seasonal shearing, and play in the hay...
things have been a bit busy around here lately, so it was really nice to spend sunday out at the farm. it was good to kick back, under the open sky, and appreciate the efforts all around... and of course enjoy the shared potluck creations... it was fun to see how different people used items from their weekly csa-share like squashes and potatoes. i wish i could have found out who brought the great simple curry brown rice and carrot salad. i would have loved to find out how to make it. since sunday i've been going through some cookbooks and googling away to see if i could find a recipe for something similar. so far, no luck... anyway, it is really nice to see the season "wrapped up" this way (even though we do still have another month or so left of our weekly produce pickups), with all the members and farmers coming together... emphasizing the share in our crop share.
some beautiful local llama yarn. (i picked up a small skein in brown).
October 15, 2008
good evening
thanks to some warm weather, chuck's day off, and to a little unplanned planning (yesterday i got into the cooking groove with our csa produce and in addition to our regular supper i also spontaneously cooked up a torta di zucca for today) we were able to pack up tonight's pre-made squash dinner (torta's are the perfect traveling/picnic food... i learned this from nonnie) and head down to the beach together. being october, i wasn't sure what it would be like down by the surf, so i brought along extra wool blankets, fleeces and hats... however the air was warm and the sea breeze was calm. the extra blankets stayed folded and the hats stayed in the bag... it was nice. and warm enough to actually roll my pants up past my ankles and search the water's edge for treasures (even with the rolling up of the jeans, they managed to get soaked anyway.) i was quite surprised at the amount of beach glass today. a good mix of sizes and colors... add to that good food... good peeps... good fun... good golden sunset... it all made for a very good evening.
October 12, 2008
from orchard to oven
since our trip to the apple orchard on thursday we've been quite busy cooking up and tasting the fruits of the season around here. friday in soup and pie. saturday in pancakes. sunday mixed in with our oatmeal and then in a little pie reprise (the second one baked up much more to my liking). sigh. so goes the life of a family of seasonal apple pickers, enjoying the flow. simply a very appley autumn weekend.
October 07, 2008
diamonds and diagonals
after many measurements and trims on the 60°angle, i finished up another square for month three of the one quilt project. this latest one is headed down to australia to leah. she sent out white cotton along with a generous supply of scraps from the same color family (as you can see, i received some great greens). can't wait to see how this ends up in its final quilt.
October 06, 2008
back to monday
last night wrapped up the first step in the week in the life project — the photographing and documenting of all the everyday details in a continuous, uninterrupted week's time. whew! seven days straight. nonstop. the days actually went by so fast and yielded quite a lot of new pictures. (some of which i posted daily to the blog - i hope you enjoyed that!) pictures of everything. all the beautiful little moments from our simple breakfasts to the bedtime books. i'm so glad that i decided to take part in this challenge. now. the picture taking and record keeping was only part one. part two is to take all the information and create! woohoo. using photos and words, create something lovely and tangible that tells this story of our week. create something that will forever be a little window into our lives right now... so, yeah, i'm up for that. now i just need to order some photo enlargements, break out a fresh xacto blade, find my good journaling pens and pour a little more chai tea...