Gutter Flutter

It's 65 degrees right now, but with the wind it feels positively chilly.  I'm comfortably wrapped up in a shawl, even as I have all the windows open to flood the house with the wonderful fresh air.  Fall is my favorite season, and I'm loving it - chilly breeze and all.

I've been knitting like crazy in preparation for the Christmas season, but also because nothing feels cozier in the fall than to curl up with a ball of yarn at your side and a project in your lap.  Here's a peek of a few things that I've been working on:

 

 

I don't think I've ever had so many knitting projects going at the same time!  I'm already looking ahead to future projects.  I keep saying that I'm going to start knitting for myself, and I'm going to start with a pair of fingerless gloves...something that sounds really good right now!

We're doing our end-of-season yard work, too.  Todd has been up on the roof, cleaning the gutters.

We've both been working in the beds, weeding and pruning, and Todd swept up the paint chips from our recent house painting.

We spent an hour in our little swinging seat this weekend, looking out over the water and enjoying the wonderful weather.  Starting next weekend, our board games will be played down there, with a roaring fire going in the outdoor fireplace.  A double hooray for fall!

We can see the changing seasons in the insects, too.  These brown shield bugs are all over our screens.

They want inside, a warm place where they can overwinter.  They're harmless to us, but destructive to crops.  They're actually native to Asia, but came over here sometime in the 1990s, probably in shipped goods.  They have no natural predators here, so they've been able to spread quickly!

Spiders, of course, are everywhere in the fall.  This beauty is Neoscona crucifera and lives just outside our bedroom patio door.

 

Lots of spiny-backed orb weavers around...

...and lots of tattered web remains in this late season.

It's fun to be working and observing outside in the fall, but fall baking is a great joy for me too.  Hearty stews and homemade bread, roasted chicken, squash and late-season root vegetables are all nice, but it's the sweets that hold a special place in my heart...starting with pumpkin bread. 

I have a favorite recipe, of course (recipe here), but I kicked it up a notch this week by adding 1/2 teaspoon of cardamon, leaving the ground cinnamon at one teaspoon, and adding a cup of cinnamon chips.  I can't believe how much that improved an already-wonderful recipe.  Letting it sit a day or two makes it even better.

I do decrease the white sugar by one cup now, because 2 cups of sugar plus (or without) frosting is plenty for us.  But if you're feeling indulgent, go for it!  Just don't forget those cinnamon chips...they really take it to the next level. 

Have a great week! 

Lurky Turkey (Vulture)

First came the rain...

...and then came the frost.

The temperature dropped so quickly that the dew literally froze on the grass blades.

Just one crispy, chilly day of frost, with a promise of many more to come.

This time of year, Todd always gets the call from my mother: her gutters need to be cleaned out.

I like going down to my mother's, because her new house stands on the site of the house where I grew up, in the country. She's adopted lots of cats, who always come running when company comes.

Most are pretty skittish, almost half-wild cats who spend most of their time outdoors, but she has a few spoiled indoor cats who drowse indifferently when you bend to pet them.

They know they're going to be fed soon!

My mother has an incredible green thumb that I can only hope to develop with time. The front of her house is a showcase for her hanging plants. She has the traditional ones, but also some unusual jade plants. Some are twisted...

...some look like peas on strings...

...and some are jagged and stick-like.

But what I'm really envious of is her flowers. While my marigolds turned brown, my zinnias flopped over, and my indoor house plants always on death's door, her flowers have thrived. Even after a frost!

She has mums of all colors.

Her Christmas cacti are budding out, right on schedule.

Unbelievably, she has huge mounds of columbines flourishing in the back yard...mine have been dead since mid-May.

Roses twine and bloom everywhere.

Her ruffled petunias are still opening faithfully. Mine? Dead since June. I can't seem to deadhead quickly enough to keep them blooming.

Masses of sweet william...one of my favorites...bloom sturdily in pots.

The whole back of the house, and the garage, have a long, lush border of impatiens.

Really, it's not fair! I guess I'll have to try harder next year.

As we were driving down the road after finishing, we saw something that we never see in the city...a turkey vulture.

These scavengers can weigh up to five pounds. Interestingly, they don't sing like most birds. Instead, they make a low, unearthly hissing noise that reminds me of a propane torch. A good recording is found here: Turkey vulture sounds

I hope we can go bird watching in that area soon!

With the weather changing, I wanted to knit a cover for my hot water bottle. I'm a bit of an addict. To me, there's nothing cozier than heating up the hot water bottle and putting it in my lap, under a blanket, when I'm snuggling on the couch, or at the foot of the bed at nighttime. It creates a heat that's penetrating and long-lasting. The rubber is too hot to place against skin, though, so a cover is needed.

It was quite a journey. First, I selected a pattern that required you to knit two halves of the cover and then sew them together at the end. I avoid sewing when I can, so I decided to try Judy's Magic Cast-On. By weaving the yarn around two needles, you create a cohesive twist that you can knit up from. I've never tried to cast on 60+ stitches this way, though, and in the end, it fell apart.

I moved on to a crochet provisional cast-on. They're simple...you use a crochet hook to "knit" a chain of stitches with waste yarn...

...and then, using your main color,you knit into the waste yarn stitches and continue with your project from there. At the end, you remove the waste yarn, put the live stitches on needles, and graft them together to seamlessly close the space.

I then knit the entire cover in Misti Alpaca baby alpaca. It's wonderfully soft and the colors are so vibrant.

The pattern utilized bobbles to form a "berry tree" on the front of the cover.

It was perfect, and soft, and beautiful...but I ended up frogging the project. I had selected the wrong yarn. As beautiful as the alpaca was, it didn't have any 'give' and didn't cling to the hot water bottle. Instead, it hung like a sack, and a bit too loosely.

I knit another cozy with a simple cable pattern - in wool.

It was knit top-down, and the bottom was closed up tidily with a 3-needle bind off.

I made an i-cord string for the neck.

A long journey, but some good lessons learned!

It was another long journey that brought me to a recipe staple that I now make twice a week. I traditionally have disliked scones. They're too dry and crumbly, and I've never been fond of the taste. However, I thought a scone with a redeeming ingredient, like pumpkin, might be tasty. I tried several recipes before combining two of my favorite and coming up with a recipe that I am very pleased with. It's tender, moist, and not too sweet. It's almost like a pumpkin cake, but without all the eggs and oil that moisten most pumpkin recipes.

Spicy Pumpkin Scones
Adapted from Brown Eyed Baker
Makes 8 - 12 scones

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
7 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon cardamon (optional)
6 tablespoons cold butter
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk

Icing
2 ounces cream cheese
1/4 - 1/2 cup powdered sugar
pumpkin pie spice (to taste)
1/4 teaspoon milk

Directions
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Mix together dry ingredients.

With all these spices, it has to be good!

Once combined, cut butter into mixture until pieces are pea-sized. In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients and fold into the flour/butter bowl. The key is to barely handle the dough. If you over-mix, the scones will be tough. I use my hands to mix it just until it holds together. There will still be a lot of flour showing. That's all right!

Dump your dough onto your baking stone or cookie sheet and carefully pat it into a circle. Your dough should be about an inch thick. Use a pizza cutter to lightly score the dough into triangle shapes.

Bake for 15 minutes. Mix up your frosting and thinly spread it over the top.

Truly, this has become my favorite pumpkin recipe. It's so quick to throw together and the taste is just amazing. One batch lasts a little over a day in this house...if I'm lucky!

I hope you'll give it a try. Enjoy!