Showing posts with label fall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fall. Show all posts

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Nature Repeats Itself

I find it fascinating that natural patterns are everywhere.

There are Star Shapes







And Heart Shapes







And Spiral Shapes







And Pear Shapes





And repeats of Blue





And Orange





And Brown Log Shapes...





...whoa, sorry, I only say that one because of the firewood that hubby calls "the shitwood" as in "it's not that frigid out so use the shitwood in the fire tonight." It's from the tree that he had to trim to build the fence, it's Box Elder wood and not as quality as the split hardwood that we have out there.

The shitwood in action:



It turns out that it's actually not all that shitty. It's dry and Jimmy and I are nice and warm and I'm certainly thankful that it doesn't smell like burning shit, so I wanted to give it a break from the name "shitwood." However, when the fire is rolling and stove is open for loading, this wood does give off the faintest, ever most lightest whisper of...body odor.

I don't want to call it B.O.-wood, but it definitely is doomed with bodily excrescent qualities...and its scent is unmistakably another example of nature repeating herself!

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Ketchup!

Yay, my card uploader came and I can catch up with some of the updates I would have done if I didn't break the USB part of my camera. Here they are!







My fall frenzied front door.

***



Our stuffed peppers!

***



Für Eileen, so that she may find rest. The hubris of lukewarm success in delicious deception quickly evolved into a delirium that clouded my judgment on the day I chose to replace a forgotten egg in a batch of boxed brownies with....a big scoop of cauliflower puree. Oh kaaaay, a mistake I realized long before my loving hubby insisted I never make it again, and personally I think he could have skipped the reports on all the squirrels who turned their noses up at them outside the window, where the brownies were left to die. Well, the above photo is proof that some rodents DO enjoy sulfur-infused brownies, so THERE!



My scrapper-kitty Stephanie (with cauliflower ear) as she watches the squirrel who proved my husband wrong. She herself would never touch the cauli-flownies, but definitely wants that beautiful squirrel's final breath.

***



Halloween! Look how happy he is!



Rear view.



Why me wear this?



Maybe he can pretend to like it?



Here we go, Gator!



At our first house, I found this when I asked Jimmy if he was ready to trick-or-treat. Guesssss not.



Halloween skies.



Tuckered out trick-nor-treater.

***



I've been sad that we never gathered a chance to forage city apples this year so with my affinity for "wrong" food I was searching fall alternatives, and since we were overflowing with Ritz I was drawn to the recipe for Mock Apple Pie. In the past I'd encountered a handful of people mention the phenomenon of Mock Apple Pie...I wasn't sure I understood the concept of it all, I didn't know if Mock was a species of apple, or if it was a mock-pie, or what. Soon enough they'd tell me that it was a pie made out of crackers and I'd note how they'd shrug their shoulders when reporting that it tasted like real apple pie. In my head, these conversations led me to immediately question the person's entire existence, it was too weird to digest, my brain convinced me that these people's haircuts suddenly looked wrong, I wondered whether their livingroom was decked out with silver-paneled walls, if these people would also tell me that canned potatoes were good for homefries, all that. They were always very nice people but I wondered who could trust the savvy of someone who thinks soggy crackers taste like apples. Count me first when it comes to campy cuisine but these must be really low standards, right? HoJo Gourmet? Well, I'm left to eat my Uggs because seriously...Mock Apple Pie tastes just like apple pie!





It even tastes great with cheddar cheese, evidently the cream of tartar is a major reason for the "deception." I was initially a little disappointed to learn that Mock Apple Pie wasn't invented in the 1950s by the good food scientists at Nabisco, but instead it was created by actual bonafide pioneer women who were "bereft of apples" and put together this cracker pie for their families who missed the apple pie back east. Genius.

***



Ruby Tuesday's, after voting Tuesday night. Jimmy's mac and cheese was easily the best meal among the three.

***



And, to tie the room together, Jimmy's favorite food: Ketchup! And this is my favorite brand to serve him--organic, no high fructose corn syrup, under $2.00.

***

I'm very happy to have photoability back! Who knew how much easier near-daily blogging is when you have a camera!

Friday, October 23, 2009

In Maine, You Do Foliage Reports

The leaves outside our house are changing.



I think they're so pretty! If these aren't Maples, there are Maples out there because I remember Wally mentioning wanting to tap them for syrup but we obviously couldn't because of transient neighbors and the likelihood of their biofluids mixing with the syrup, and that they'd probably want to keep any pails for themselves, or destroy them onsite. No, no foraged sugar shack for us, not along this avenue of many diverse fruits (and nuts! Yuk yuk!) And homeless drunk people.


And meth-heads.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

A Twig Rig

Building woodstove fires is wicked easier this year thanks to these:



These are harnessed sticks from the box elder that Wally had to cut down in order to put up our fence last spring. He knew the branches would make awesome kindling but wasn't sure how to store them so that they'd stay un-mucky, and in one place. But after encountering some thought and some orphaned wire and a recycled pallet he had his answer. I call them "the genius bins" for no real reason other than a passing comment he made (and doesn't remember making) about being a genius for putting them together.



And I agree! I love our genius bins! AND our cheap easy kindling wood. Happy woodstove season! (all seven months of it...)

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Jimbo: First Hood

Hrrm, that post title is supposed to be a spoof on Rambo: First Blood, but it's not really working, is it. Still, I'm very proud that I bought this Rambo-riffic camouflage yarn after the sun went down tonight and had finished knitting my FIRST HAT before Jimmy even went down for na-nights.





Frugal Christmas 2009 is officially AWN.

And the gifts keep coming, I got a number of 'art' photos to share.









Actually, I'm only posting them because I think the colors of my house and my hat model look better when the flash is off. It's just that they're, uh...a little hat fuzzy. Happy Start of Hat Season, all!

Friday, October 9, 2009

Stacked

About 3 years ago Blue Eyes from CJ's Firewood dropped off the final 2 cords of our firewood, and today the planets all aligned so that I was home, Hubby was home, no one's back was broken, we started bombing the moon, the weather was good, there was no Elvis impersonator practice, and most impressive of all, Jimmy was taking a decent nap so we could finally stack it! We were pretty psyched, but also pretty surprised when Channel 8 showed up, presumably to cover the event.



I mean, I knew it was a big deal to us, to finally get the pile out of our driveway, but I didn't think it was THAT big of a deal! I was a little mortified to think that Southern Maine would consider it newsworthy that we were finally picking this huge mess up, that our wood pile was so blightful and such an inconvenience to everyone in the region, but ultimately I think I scared the newsguy away with my camera, he drove off after "pretending" to check out a mild car accident at the corner. Jeez, slow news day, Channel 8????

But we're stacked up for a warm winter with our wood dry and cozy under the Jethro wrap. More happy fall, y'all!



Thursday, October 8, 2009

Four Day Foliage

I took this photo October 4.



Today it looks like this:



I also took this photo 4 days ago:



Today, it looked like this:


It's kinda like a page out of Highlights!

Four days ago my baby looked like this:



Then today, this kid came out of my camera.


Who is this little BOY?

I always figured I was just a lazy slob because my zippered hoodies always do this:


but it turns out the left-shoulder thing is hereditary! Whoa!

Jimmy wouldn't eat the leftover stuffed shells I served for lunch, but he did eat baseball field dirt.





Other stuff from October 8:


Pinecones,


Pineneedles!


Helicopter.



Mumma.


Freakishly large greenbean,

...and a whole bunch of other stuff I didn't have a camera for. I love Thursdays, Thursdays are my favorite!