A Stitch in Time

Sunday evening came. Sunday evening went, deer season ended and yet, there is no deer hanging in the shed. For the first time in four years, Andy did not get a deer this season. On the bright side (?), barely anyone got a deer this year. The harvest in northeastern Minnesota was down almost 20%, thanks in part to hard winter last year that thinned the herd and some pretty terribly hunting conditions almost every day of the season. 

So there's no joy in Mudville. Actually, it's more like Frozenville around here. There's been a serious layer of ice on the bay since Sunday and since it's midday and just about 11 degrees F outside, I'd say that ice isn't going anywhere for the next four - five months. C'est la vie.  

It feels strange not having several evenings of sausage making ahead of us and I have to admit a little part of me is dying knowing I can't whip up a batch of venison stew on the first -20 below day in January. But I'm pretty sure we won't starve even if the freezer does look a little skimpy. (At least the freezer still has plenty of garden veggies, eh?) Yesterday I binned up all of Andy's hunting gear and schlepped it and the meat grinder out to the shed. What else can you do?  

This morning I wrapped up a project that's basically consumed me for the last week and a half. I finished up the very last mitten is an order of five pairs to be worn by a bride and bridesmaids at a wedding on the first full weekend of December. It was a rush order because the first Etsy seller the bride contacted backed out less than a month before the big day. I have to say, knitting a mitten a day is no way to live your life and I'm really over purple as a wedding color. (Sad, because I used to love it!) But I'm so thrilled to have the project complete and to have added another special element to the wedding day. Fingers crossed that they get a little snow to make the wedding photos even more fun with all of these crazy mittens! 

As you probably, I've been struggling with focus and creativity all year. (I know you're sick of hearing about it - please excuse the wallow.) But guess what?!

All of that time spent focusing on mittens seems to have gotten the creative juices flowing because on Sunday morning I sat down and tapped out what I think are the first 500+ words of a children's novel. The story's been drifting through my head since the summer, but I'd been doing my best to ignore it , partly because I didn't have time to write and partly because, a children's novel? Really? Then on Sunday, as I was bringing in firewood, the details of the story became so clear, that I knew I had to at least start it.   

I truly have not written a word of fiction since Spring 2011 which, come to think about it, might be the primary culprit in what shall be known as "The Funk of 2013." I'd stopped making room for creative writing, because, well, fiction doesn't generally make you mo' money, mo' money. But it turns out that a steady diet of freelance assignments and commitments is just a recipe for burnout. When I hit save on that little teeny piece of fiction on Sunday morning, my heart felt happier and more free that it has in a very long time.  Sure, I need to get on top of my actual "work work" very soon (November has been an unmitigated disaster, y'all), but somehow I think those 500 words of fiction each morning will actually make it easier to rise up and face the music. 

I'm off to town to tomorrow to bake pies and help prep for the annual community Thanksgiving dinner. Is it just me, or has Thanksgiving taken forever to get here this year? (Yes, I know it's late.) I'm ready for some Christmas music! Anyone celebrating Thanksgivikkah?!

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10 Degrees and Getting Colder

Can we just take a moment to note what a disaster this week was when it came to getting actual work done. Seriously - so awful. There. I feel better just having said it.

It wouldn't have been so frustrating except last week was the first week in a while where I felt like I gained some traction with work projects and life in general. But no sooner was I all like, "Finally, I've got my groove back" before the groove was gone. Then again, I'm starting to wonder if "my groove" is kind of like my sense of rhythm: nonexistent. 

Andy was home a good portion of the week, although the majority of his waking hours were either spent in a deer stand or scouting deer on foot. It's been all for naught so far, which feels a little strange considering how quickly last year's deer season was buttoned up. There's still another week left in the season and plenty of deer in the woods.

It's been a cold, snowy week. Running is officially hit or miss. I'm not sure I like it.
  
Despite getting next to nothing done this week, my Etsy shop took off like a rocket this past week. Sales galore, custom orders, oh my.  I thought I was ready for the holiday rush, but apparently not, especially since I was somehow sweet-talked into knitting five pairs of birdesmaid mittens for a wedding the second weekend of December. If you need me between now and the end of the month, I hope you don't mind my knitting needles tagging alone. Cripes.

Despite a little Etsy holiday stress, I'm feeling rather festive, which probably has to do with the fact that I spent yesterday afternoon perusing the local shops for gift ideas for the annual gift guide I compile. I have so many gift ideas swirling through my head at the moment and am inspired to do the vast majority of my holiday shopping locally this year. (Says the girl who says that every year and then ends up buying the majority of her presents from Amazon.)

I'm also thinking about doing all of my Christmas shopping with cash, to give local merchants a break on credit card fees and keep the pesky holiday credit card bill at bay. In other news, I'm completely debt-free at the moment. I finished off my student loans last week and vanquished my credit card bill this morning. Although I've never carried a balance on my credit card, it's rather exciting to have the total amount I owe anyone at the moment be $0.00.

I spent yesterday morning volunteering at our community Empty Bowls event, which raises funds for the local food shelf. (That's the bowl I took home, up above. If I'd photographed it in better light, you'd see what a beautiful sapphire blue it is.)  My summer schedule prevents me from getting involved with pretty much anything in the greater community, so it felt so nice to be able to give some time to a good cause, meet some new people, and reconnect with a lot of familiar faces. I contributed some treats to the bake sale component of the event and as I was cutting up my batch of Scotcharoos, it struck me that I may hem and haw about not getting any "work" done, but that those bars will probably do more good in the community than anything I would have produced at my computer. Consequently, I'm coming to believe that you can learn everything you need to know to get through life in a church basement (I'm not even talking about Sunday School here), but that's another post for another day. 

Today is Andy's birthday and I am not baking him a cake. After five years of trying to foist my family's tradition of birthday sweets on the poor man, I'm starting to realize he doesn't really give a fig if he gets a birthday cake, or pie. Perhaps a pan of cinnamon rolls are in the works, but we'll just see how this day goes, shall we. 

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Deer Season is Nigh

I spent a good chunk of my life dreading November. It's just so very dark, glum, and lifeless. But in recent years, I've felt November sneaking into my good graces. It tends to be the last month before winter settles in when driving to town can be done with absolutely no thought or gnashing of teeth, which in and of itself elevates the month pretty considerably in my opinion. It's also a month when we have a chance to return to ourselves. There's time to read a chapter of a book over lunch, to bake bars for a community fundraiser, or just bake something because it'll make the cabin smell nice and you're finally done with the manic push of trying to put up all of the garden produce. 

November's also contains the firearms deer season in Minnesota, which during my childhood just meant we couldn't walk our dog in the woods behind our house but now brings both excitement and suspense. Just yesterday I received an email from one of my editors with the subject line, "Now you have to kill something." I had twinge of horror before I opened the email that he wanted me to shot a deer this season and write an article about the experience, but the email just contained a link to an article about the reopening of a noted tannery. Still, the fact people know I'm interested what to do with deer hides shows just how much my life and priorities have shifted in the six Novembers I've spent with Andy.   

Also, I'm not sure why I always dismissed November as "ugly." Just look at those lovely rosehips. Sure the world's freezing up and it's dark as heck by the time Andy get home, but I also get to see more of my significant other this time of year because Andy takes a bit of vacation time during deer season. 

We haven't spent as much time this autumn tromping through the woods looking for deer sign as we have in the past, so it's hard to say what the season (which starts on Saturday) will bring. Despite numerous after dark drives through the neighborhood, we've seen just spotted just one deer on these now rather infamous "deer drives." The trail cam however proves there are deer out there and with deer season starting a week later this year, there's a higher chance there will be some snow on the ground which makes tracking easier, or so I'm told.  

The cabin has yet to be fully transformed into deer camp, but there's a new pair of insulated camouflage water boots by the door now. Tomorrow the deer stand will go up in some as yet to be determined location and soon the pleasantly scented soap in the shower will be temporarily replaced by "Scent Killer" soap. There's something comforting about the routine whether in two weeks there's more venison in our already packed freezer, it's not a bad time of the year. 

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November Sponsor Round-Up: Thankfulness Edition

Holy jamoly, it's nearly the middle of November already! Before much more of this month passes us by, I want to introduce you to some of the lovely ladies who are hanging out with me this November over on my sidebar. To shake things up a little bit, I asked each of them to share what they're thankful for this month. Very apropos, don't you think? ;)

Today, I'm thankful that the sun came out, even for the briefest of whiles. The sunshine gave me the little burst of energy I needed to through my day's to-do list and it also meant I didn't have to start a fire in the woodstove until after sundown. Winning!

By the by, wanna be part of the next sponsor round-up? Check out sponsorship options here or email me to discuss swaps. 

Lynn of Turnips 2 Tangerines

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Hi, I'm Lynn from Turnips 2 Tangerines. You can always find me in my Little Kitchen in the Big Woods of Northern WI, making family favorites. Stop by and join me.

I am thankful for the love and joy that my family brings to my life. 

Right now Lynn has a Winter Giveaway going on. You could win a Nordic Ware Snowman Baking Pan, 16 oz Door County Seasonal Coffee, Two (2) Holiday mugs filled with Peppermint Candies. Check it out!

Eline of Eline S.

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 Hi I'm Eline! I'm from Belgium and I'm studying tourism and recreation/leisure management. After my schoolwork I love to make my own jewelry. This blog is about my shop, my creations, cool craft tutorials and I show people where I found my inspiration. Through my blog I hope to meet other creative people.

I'm very thankful for my new 'secondhand' car. I am also very happy I could help as a volunteer on the Etsy booth on The festival of Creativity in Turnhout.

Zalika of Hope and Sugar

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Hi this is Zalika. Hope & Sugar focuses on Self-development. It is a personal blog where I share my thoughts an lessons from life experiences.

I am thankful for all my existing friends and also all the new friends I made because of blogging.

Hannah of Thirsty World Designs

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I'm an artist and blogger from North Carolina, and Thirsty World Designs revolves around my daily adventures, however big or small!  It's has a lot of my photography and local places, events, or cuisine as its subject!  I try to blog about all kinds of topics but it all ends up circling around the art and people closest to me!

I am beyond thankful for this beautiful season we've had, as well as the job I have received that is actually in my career field as a recent college graduate!

Tell me: What are you thankful for this November?
 

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A Post With Dead Animal Pictures

Not interested in a blog post which features dead animal pictures? Maybe don't read this post, mm-kay. Not that the pictures below are particularly horrifying or gory, but I'll understand if dead animal pictures aren't really your style. Heck, they're not exactly my style either, yet here they are, nonetheless.

This is the story of how Andy's six point buck turned into a rather hefty eight point buck yesterday afternoon. (No, not by magic.) A couple days back, Andy predicted that if Obama won the election that he would shot the biggest buck ever on Wednesday. This evoked a "Uh-huh, sure," from me, but after a pretty incredible election night which reaffirmed my faith in Minnesota, I started to wonder if he might be right.

It should be noted that both Andy and I are getting over mild colds. In fact, I did not step outside of the cabin once on Tuesday and instead spent most of the day on the couch watching Judd Apatow movies while suffering my way through the sneezing, constantly blowing your nose stage of a cold and waiting for election results to come in. After staying up to listen to Romney's concession speech, I fell into a Nyquil induced slumber and woke up with a start on Wednesday morning, anxious to hear how the two proposed amendments to the Minnesota constitution had fared.

After making some victory waffles, I decided I should probably get some fresh air, so I decided to go for a hike with Andy. We tromped around in the woods near the cabin for about an hour and a half, casually looking for deer. We were nearly back to the truck and I was starting to feel a little eleven o'clockish, so I was less than thrilled when Andy announced a "short little detour" down a swampy section of powerline.

We'd walked maybe 30 seconds down the powerline when I saw rather large buck ambling around about 100 yards from Andy.

"Andy," I hissed. "That has a huge rack."

Andy had to slosh about a bit to find a place where he could rest his rifle and I stood stock still in the swamp for about five minutes until Andy could shoot.

Here's a tip for you. If you have a head cold, dragging a 200+ pound deer several hundred yards through a swamp, may not be the best activity for you. I'd always heard Andy complain about dragging out deer, but knowing that dragging out a deer is hard and actually experiencing dragging a deer out of the woods are two very different things. By the time the picture below was taken, I was pretty sure I was dying.

Happily, when we got to the truck (an hour and a half later . . . .ooooo, so very hungry and thirsty by then), a guy from the local electric co-op stopped and helped us get the deer into the back of the pick-up. Still, my fine motor skills were pretty fried for the rest of the day. I was dropping all sorts of things in the kitchen yesterday night! 

Suddenly we have a much bigger butchering job on our hands. Luckily the new meat grinder shipped out today and I was able to pick up some pork shoulder locally because we have a lot (a lot!) of sausage making ahead of us. It's safe to say that deer season is officially over at Of Woods and Words and that we will not be going hungry this winter. (We are sharing all this venison.)

My friend Sarah and I were laughing yesterday night about how much my life has changed in the last four years or so. If you'd told me that one day I'd be helping hunt deer and be concerned about Boone and Crockett scores, I would have laughed in your face. Yet here we are, and you know, here really isn't a bad place to be. 
 

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Transitions, Darkness and Working at Home

Here we go again: transition time at Of Woods and Words. Not counting the many, many seasonal changes we have each year, we go through two major transitions annually: when I go to work full-time out of the house each May, and when I starting working from home again each October. Both transition periods have their hiccups, but arguably the autumn transition back to working from home is more difficult because I feel a need to transform myself into homemaker extraordinaire, freelancer extraordinaire, and Etsy extraordinaire, while also attending to the demands of my day job. (Whew! I'm just glad there aren't pets or children in that mix!)

Full time work officially ended last Sunday and over the last eight days, I've been bouncing between home and work, trying to get everything set so I can truly start working from by the end of this week. The first week after closing up for the season is always discombobulated: the last board meeting of the season, packing up the building, moving the office to the cabin, and making sure everything's set to over winter without freezing, shattering, or being gnawed on by vermin.


It's really easy to be way too hard on yourself during these times of transition. I've been sleeping far too much this past week. Despite my best intentions to get up and at it before sunrise, it's so dark in the mornings, and the bed is so awfully warm and cozy, that by the time I drag myself out from the covers each morning, I already feel like I'm behind.

It doesn't help my motivation that I devoted last Monday morning to making an editorial calendar for myself which when completed, I looked at and went "Holy shite, no wonder I'm always feel like I'm forgetting something." Even when I drop my day job obligations from 40 hours a week to a mere 16, I'm still over-scheduled. So perhaps before I move forward much farther during this work at home season, I need to figure out some ways to work smarter, rather than harder.(I.e. make more money while either doing the same, or less work.)

Then there's the fact that Baja went to shop last Thursday and was given a 4K diagnosis (why hullo there new transmission, clutch, timing belt, et al.) from a very reputable mechanic. After weighing just about every option out there (declaring a total loss, car loans, becoming a one car household, etc. etc.) we're repairing it since that's most economical and environmentally conscious thing to do, which means I'm not exactly in a position to pass up any paying work that I can get. Whenever I claim that there's some conspiracy against my using motorized equipment, Andy says I'm being silly. But honestly, even my KitchenAid mixer exploded after only two years of use. It's fine. It's really getting rather amusing by this point.

In the last 15 days, I think the sun's shone about seven whole hours and we're all feeling a little gloomy. I forgot I even had Halloween decorations until I was cleaning the back bedroom on Saturday and happened upon the holiday decorations box in the closet. Yesterday, it snowed all morning (and actually stuck to the ground and accumulated), so it's been a little confusing what season it actually is. Most likely, with Halloween being just two days away now, the Halloween decorations will spend all of 2012 hibernating away in the closet.

Although it's a rather dark, bumpy transition time at the moment, I'm trying not to focus on what hasn't been getting done, and instead focus on what I have been accomplishing. Suppers are certainly tastier now that I have a little more time to devote meal prep and the house is at its tidiest in months. And look, I even created an Etsy shipping corner in the back bedroom! It's about the little things . . . right? Quality of living is definitely improving around here.

Certainly, there's a need to bump up productivity. I just have to remember that being kind to myself as the seasonal darkness creeps in, and creating light from within rather than being dependent on sunshine and long days to elevate my mood, is probably the best way to make the annual transition into working from home go smoothest.

 

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The Truth About Deer Season

Life is full of surprises. If, just a few years back, you'd told me that deer season would be a pivotal moment in my life each autumn, I would have laughed you out of town.

But life with Andy means life with deer season and I think I've transitioned into my role as deer season widow rather seamlessly. I've learned to like venison. I've learned to make a mean sausage.

But I'm still learning. The take away lesson from Deer Season 2012 to date is that deer season doesn't really start on the date determined by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. (Which, for the record, the firearms deer season begins on November 3 this year and goes until sunset on November 18.) No, deer season actually starts on some arbitrary date in early October.

And that makes some of the cabin inhabitants very happy indeed. 

 

A couple weeks back, Andy proposed a spontaneous overnight trip down to "the big city" to "get away for a little while." Our night "out on the town" ended with us sitting in our hotel room, eating potato chips and ice cream purchased from a gas station because we were both too exhausted to actually go out. By early the next morning it was apparent that Andy's true motivation for the trip wasn't really fun and games. Nope, the trip was strictly business. He wanted to pick up a new rifle and scope in time for deer season. (See above).

  

I really had no idea what happens when your significant other buys a new deer rifle. 

Here's what happens:

Suddenly your significant other starts picking you up from work all the time. But instead of heading home, you end up in a gravel pit or a shooting range so he can sight in his rifle - aka shoot the gun a gazillion times, while making minor adjustments to his scope to make sure the rifle shoots accurately. Your job? Using your keen eyesight and the spotting scope (at left in picture above) to tell him where he hit the target after each shot. This continues until it's nearly dark and the smiles of the picture below are distant memories.

Once the rifle is sighted in, you'll breathe a sigh of relief. . . only to realize that it's time to start scouting for deer season. This means your significant other still picks you up at work, but this time you get to crash through the dense forest until twilight, following skinny little deer paths, watching for buck signs such as scrapes and rubs, all while you're still wearing your work shoes.

Each evening, about 9 p.m., your significant other will announce that it's time for a "deer drive." These exploits usually take .5 - 1 hours and involve driving slowly down the road, watching for wildlife along the shoulders. You'll see foxes, bunnies, even a raccoon, and plenty of deer, and every time you see a buck during one of these drives, your significant other will be so excited that he'll chatter incessantly until you've both stayed up way too late. 

Oh, does it sound like I'm complaining? 

While I'd be lying if I said deer hunting didn't try my patience at times, I'm not so selfish that I don't see the value of Andy wanting to share one of his favorite times of the year with me. There may be times when my eyes glaze over when he goes on (and on) about rifle and scope characteristics. There are most definitely times when I wish I had more appropriate footwear on. But the truth about deer season is that I don't mind that much. There's a gentle lulling quality to our deer drives together and I'm happy to support Andy in his excitement and ambition this time of year.

Life is full of lessons and surprises.And I'm still busy relearning October and November as the partner of a deer hunter.
 

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Can You Can It? Yes, You Can!

I'm pretty lousy at phone conversations. When people pose the inevitable questions of, "So, what's new with you?" I always clam up. "Work, make dinner, sleep, repeat" is all that ever pops into my mind as an answer. Luckily, when I was chatting with my friend Betsy, she helped me flush out my usual lame answer. "I notice that you've been canning all the food," she said.

Why yes, I did can all the food this summer. The proof is in the pudding . . .err, in the mason jars really. Here's a run down of everything that made a trip through my hot water bath canner in the last three months or so:

Peach Salsa

 8 pints. Recipe from yours truly, but with some pointers from Ball's Blue Book of Preserving to help ensure that it's safe for the hot water bath canner. I sure hope we don't get botulism. So far so good.

Applesauce

8 pints. No real recipe here- just a splash of water to get the apples cooking (and not sticking), then sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg to taste. Applesauce has to be one of the simpler pleasures in life. So good when stirred into oatmeal, or eaten straight out of the jar.

Barbeque Sauce

6 pints. A double batch of the "Best Barbecue Sauce" from Mel's Kitchen Cafe. We use a fair amount of it during the summer grilling season and one pint jar is just the right amount for a batch of pulled pork sandwiches.

Blueberry Butter

8 half pints. Recipe from Food in Jars. I wanted to get some of the berry harvest into jars but I'm not a huge fan of just plain blueberry jam. (I mean, I'll eat it but . . . ) so this seems like a good, less sugary alternative. It really does taste like blueberry pie on toast. 

Blueberry Pie Filling

4+ quarts. Or you could just can some blueberry pie filling. This recipe merges my pie filling recipe and a recipe specially for canned blueberry pie filling.  Because I'm a cranky old lady before my time, I will not share the recipe, but will tell you that it involves sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla.

Bread and Butter Pickles

5 pints. We had a bumper crop of cucumbers this year and I wanted to make pickles for the first time. This is my coworker's mother's recipe and it is delicious. I was especially pleased that the cucumbers retained most of their crispness. Not sure if that's because I added "pickle crunch" (calcium chloride) while they soaked, or if homemade bread and butter pickles just have less problems with getting "soggy." 

Dilly Beans

4 pints. We were also up to our ears with green beans in September, so when I could not chop, blanch, or freeze another green bean, I made a batch of dilly beans. (Recipe from Food in Jars.) I would have liked for the beans not to have floated, but oh well. Next year, I will definitely make more because Andy and I opened up a jar earlier this month basically inhaled the contents in about 10 minutes. I'm not proud.

Pickled Jalapenos

3 pints. Recipe from Food in Jars. A very simple recipe to preserve jalapenos for chilis, tacos, enchiladas and more all year. We actually don't use that many of these. I just feel bad letting jalapenos go to waste.

Dill Pickle Relish 

7 half pints. Another happy result of the cucumber bumper crop. Recipe from Tasty Kitchen. I did cut the amount of celery seed in the recipe in half because I don't much care for celery seed. It's definitely more like the sweet relish you buy in stores as opposed to store bought dill relish, but it is still darn tasting on a bratwurst. Which is a relief, considering that we have 7 jars of it.

Peach Jam

4 pints. Very basic peach jam, recipe straight from the Sure-Jell package. I love peach jam, but I'm feeling a need to shake things up a little next year and maybe try one of those bourbon vanilla peach jam recipes I see floating around the blogosphere. Funny, I was gifted with a couple jars of peach jam from other canners this summer, so we've got plenty of peach jam for the winter. (We still had some leftover from last year when I made this batch.) Quick, give me all your baking recipes that call for a jar of peach jam!

Raspberry Jam

4 pints. Oh beautiful, lovely raspberry jam. I love raspberry jam and yes, children of the 90s, I would marry it. This is another recipe straight from the Sure-Jell packet and I feel absolutely no desire to attempt to "improve" upon it. Raspberries, sugar, and a bit of pectin are all you need to make me very happy. Every summer I swap blueberries with my mom to get enough of her homegrown raspberries for a batch of jam. And then I don't share it.

Apple Cider Syrup 

6 half pints. I was hoping to find some "real" apple cider this fall so I could try out a batch of Marisa McCellan's Apple Cider Syrup. We made an impromptu trip to the big city last week and I got to stock up on cider. I'm not much of a coffee drinker and my favorite drink at Caribou is actually the Hot Apple Blast. This syrup can be used as a base for a hot apple cider drink - just add water for Hot Apple Blasts all winter long! The syrup is also very good drizzled over ice cream and I imagine would be pretty yummy on waffles or french toast too.


Pear Vanilla Jam 

4 pints. Final canning project of the year until marmalade season next January. Recipe from Food in Jars. It's a lovely gentle jam, which works just fine in a PB&J sandwich. However, I think this jam's true destiny is on the appetizer plate next to some baked brie.

Now all the jars are filled up (whew!) and I get to see back and nosh on the fruits of my labors. It's a very delicious feeling indeed.

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Shop Update: Autumn Products

My knitting needles have been clacking away, trying to fill my Etsy shop with all sorts of autumn themed items. I love the products I've developed, but lately we've been waking up to a powdered sugar world, with both frost and, yes, snow, clinging to grass and rooftops, making me question the timeliness of these products. I find it awfully hard to come to terms with snow in October, but it's a good reminder that it's probably time for me to ditch the falling leaves motifs and move on to designing holiday products, as well getting to work on my Christmas knitting queue. 

But if you're in a kinder place in the world where the snow is still holding off, I have some great items for you to add to your fall wardrobe.

I made a pretty green heather lace with leaf pattern: 

And an autumn hued circlet of leaves:

 

The item I'm most excited about adding are these fingerless gloves. Because I work in an old drafty weather, fingerless gloves are a Godsend during the chilly weather of the shoulder seasons. They allow me to function normally, without my fingers freezing to the bone. I'm so excited to have design this pair, which I think are not only functional, but also stylish. These are designed for a close fit to allow your hands a full range of motion while you're wearing them: they won't turn you into all thumbs like mittens or bulkier fingerless gloves. Because these gloves are meant to fit snugly, just let me know if you need a different size or if you have a color preference and I'll get to work making the perfect gloves for you.

Happy Monday!
 

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Rabbit, Rabbit

Well, hello there October! Where the heck did you come from?!

Does anyone else welcome in the new month by saying "Rabbit, rabbit?"  I adopted the tradition/superstition years ago when I watched the Nick Days blurb on Nickelodeon about how it supposedly brings good luck all month if you say "rabbit, rabbit" first thing on the first day of the month. (You know you were raised in the 90s when . . . )  According to Wikipedia (oh font of all knowledge) this superstition originated in Great Britian, probably in the late 1800s, and has since spread to all English speaking countries. I made sure the first words out of my mouth this morning were "rabbit, rabbit" so now I'm set with good luck all month. ;)

Speaking of Nickelodeon (is it even on the air anymore?!), why is it that I can remember all the words from the "Good Burger" skit on All That ("Welcome to Good Burger. Would you like a Good Burger? Can I take your order, please?"), but I can't remember the capital of Kazakhstan, which I did a report on some time in middle school . . . roughly the same time period as when I was watching (apparently) way too much Nickelodeon. And I can still hear the Nickelodeon jingle: Nick-a-looow-de-on!  Hmmm, suddenly I understand why I didn't get into Yale . . .

Source

MOVING ON . . .

All I really wanted to say was, "Happy October!"  I've reached the end of my marathon work schedule, which means that today is the first of two whole days off . . . in a row. I'm pretty giddy about the prospect of this newly found free time. Of course there are plenty of projects vying for my time already, but for the time being, I'm attempting to catch up on the blogsphere. The dirty house can wait another hour or two before I give it my full attention.   

Andy and I writing off September as the lost month. Because September was such a blur, I find myself still thinking that it's the end of August. Then I head out back and wonder what the heck happened to the garden.

Apparently the garden all hopped into the freezer (I'm sure I had some hand in this, probably in a semi-conscious state after work), because our chest freezer is stuffed to the gills with green beans, tomatoes, cabbage, apples and blueberries. With the freezer being so full, Andy's been pestering me about where exactly we'd put a deer if he gets one this year. He raises a valid point. I think we have months to eat our way through the now very full freezer before we have to contend with storing 40 pounds of venison sausage, but then realize that November and deer season are next month. Yikes!

But enough. For today, I'm going to take a break from first world problems like wondering what we're going to do with all of this food and instead, spend my day soaking up the autumn colors, which I'm pretty sure peaked over the weekend. It's a cool, grey day - perfect for tea, reading, knitting, housekeeping projects and trying out new recipes for dinner. I hope you all find some time for renewal today as well. 

The view from one of Andy and my main grouse hunting hikes earlier this week

Side note: want to sponsor Of Woods and Words this October? There's still space for some more advertisers and I'm totally open to swaps. Lemme know.

Happy October! May you have good luck all month long!
 

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Best of All, We Love the Fall

The autumnal equinox came and went on Saturday and already we're noticing the night creep into more and more of our daylight.

I don't mind the longer evenings though. Andy and I often devote an hour or so after work to hike through the autumn forest looking for grouse until twilight falls and by the time we return home, it's nearly dark. The darkness reinforces the idea that autumn evenings are for quiet, peaceful projects . . . or movies and popcorn.

Although we've had a bunch of blustery, autumnal weather (aka, down right cold and wicked) lately, we've somehow managed to avoid a killing frost. The garden keeps chugging along, but since we've had such minimal rainfall in the last month and significantly less daylight, things like cucumbers aren't plumping up overnight like they were back in August. While I have a rather sadistic wish for all of the pole beans to just freeze already one of these nights (the thought of washing, chopping, and blanching another gallon or two of green beans makes me rather weary - although I know I should be relishing the bountiful harvest), I'm still pulling for the Brussels sprouts which are still teeny tiny.

Even with the lingering garden produce, it's clear that autumn's here in earnest. We're all set with firewood for the year so other than some restacking, we won't have to devote much time to that autumn chore. Still there's a sense that it's time to start making preperations for the winter ahead. Andy and I like to walk around these days and say knowingling to each other, "Winter is coming." It makes us feel very profound.

Source: thechive.com via Amanda on Pinterest

I have to admit, apples get a higher ranking than pumpkins as "autumn food of choice" in my book. Already we've been noshing on apple cider and some local apples. Hopefully within the week, I'll have time to make a batch of applesauce.

I always feel the most myself in the autumn. External demands on my time decline and I get to reclaim my wardrobe of sweaters and vests (but never together . . . I do not do sweater vests.) Besides, I think it's easier to think clearly when the air is crisp and the leaves start to fall. While I miss the wildflowers of the spring and summer, I find the starkness that comes after the fall color and before the snow beautiful in a simple, timeless way.

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” - George Eliot

What do you love about the fall?

Be sure to link up your autumn themed post as part of Margot's September Blog Party.

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