Brilliant Folage

This year the fall foliage has been positively brilliant. Stunning barely begins to describe it. We've had a dry summer this year and apparently that's stressed the trees. Here, I was on my way to get some corn when I passed this yard and I just had to stop.

Millis Massachusetts, 19 October
Everywhere you look this season. The trees just glowed.

I took a day off last week.

The view from my living room window 17 October
Every time I think of moving I look out my window and decide no, no, don't think so. I've been here 24 years now and the view never gets tired.

I walked my neighborhood...

This is just to the left of my driveway

Just a roofline

And a side street

The oil company down the end of the block
This went on for a couple of weeks. One of my neighbors said the trees looked like they were on fire. I really just can't ever remember colors this vibrant.

Of course there are other reflections of the season.

Gathering broccoli and cauliflower

A really big buck has been roaming the barn property
He's looking for girls. It's mating season.

---

I have a really funny L story.

Here, this field by our barn.

There's a woodchuck out there. We're *very* careful to watch for chuck holes. I know where they are and we stay way clear. So one afternoon this woodchuck comes crawling up the tree line. Now L has no problem with animals. She sees the chuck and thinks nothing of it. But the chuck sees her and races to his hole and disappears. Well. L has *never* seen anyone disappear right before her eyes! She snapped her head and did a double take. She stopped and looked at me over her shoulder and I swear she was thinking "WHOA! Did you see *that*?!". And if that wasn't funny enough as we moved along she kept nervously looking at the spot where the woodchuck disappeared. It was quite hilarious. She really is tons of fun.

One Tough Horse

I swear she really enjoys messing with me sometimes.

12 October
L was a little..."up" Saturday. It was cold and wet. Felt almost like November. So I decided to free lunge her and help her get it out of her system. I let her charge around like a nutbag for a minute and then we got down to work. After 20 minutes or so she carried her head low. Her eyes were soft. She licked her lips. Classic submissive posture. I'll admit. I was fooled.

All I did was divert my eyes from her and...boom. I didn't even look away from her. Just shifted my eyes. She leaped and spun an outside turn and wheeeeeeeee hahahahaha charged off in the other direction flagging her tail. Oh <groan>. She used to do this a lot. She was playing. Of course I couldn't leave it here. We were at it for another 30 minutes. After putting her through all of her moves. I had her do all her gaits. I had her turn. Turn again. And again. Do some circles. Halt. Back. After staring at each other for 5 or 6 minutes she turned to face me. And took one step. That's as much of a "join up" as you'll get with L.

L knows not to leave her stall without an escort. I can leave her door wide open all afternoon while I do barn work and she'll stay in her stall. I can even leave the barn. Go unload hay or make a trip to the manure pile and when I come back she'll be standing in her stall doorway watching the door. So several weeks ago I make a trip to the manure pile. I come back into the barn to find her watching the door. As soon as I come in...she takes a step out of her door. One step. And she stands and looks at me. So then I charge half the length of the barn screaming and barking and flailing my arms. Quietly, without hardly a blink, she steps back into her stall. Just past the threshold mind you. No further than what she knows is necessary. Really. What kind of horse does that?!

I'm very lucky she's such a sweet gentle animal. She's 100% Canadian Horse!

---

Ok. I might be overreacting here. One of our local orchards.

$15.95 for a pie?!
Wow. Just. Wow. They're getting $15.95 for pies and people are lined up to buy them. And $14.95 for apple crisp? I thought I was seeing things. I think anyone that would pay $15.95 for a pie should have their head examined.

Really feels like Fall

Yesterday was the first day this season it really felt like Fall.

3 Nov 2012 - looks ...and feels ..like Fall!
The light was harsh, the shadows were sharp, the sky was filled with those steel grey clouds and you just couldn't shake off the cold. Oh...it's been cold but that's been mostly overnight. The days have been pleasant for the most part.

Got a itch!
We're more or less confined to the property for the time being. The woods next door have been POSTED. Crap. I noticed a few weeks ago the neighbor's been out putting up new Keep Out signs all along the tree line. He's put up hundreds of them. Clear into the next town. I don't know if he means that for us too. Next time I see him I'll have to ask.

I set up obstacles around the property last Spring. Nothing crazy. Just something to help keep us tuned up. It's enough to have L do something she doesn't want to do to make my point. She mastered the course in no time. So meanwhile, to put the challenge back in it, I started taking L through the obstacles backwards. She hasn't been at all thrilled about that! As the saying goes, it's all training, all the time, whether you realize it or not!

With the foliage disappearing I'll have to expand the course. We should get a little ring time in sometime soon too.

Fall 2011

Picking my picture of Fall 2011 is challenging this year. Mostly because Fall was...bland. I don't really have one single picture that I think says..."Fall" from 2011.

This is a favorite from the season. And it says "Fall" to me. That's a closeup of L's neck and shoulder from the front with her rhythm bead necklace. It's the color of the light and her winter coat that make it "Fall". I just love her winter coat! I can practically smell her when I look at this picture.

5 November 2011
Of course I have to include this, at least as a "most memorable moment" from Fall 2011. The (big) snow storm in October.

30 October 2011, 8:12 am
With any luck that will also be the last snow of the season! Actually, the snow I don't mind so much. It's the cold I hate!

There are other things that always say "Fall" to me.

Kitty starts sitting in the sun.

It's bourbon cider season!

I like this on ice
Even though you can get this in August and September it really is meant for celebrating the harvest season and always means Fall to me.

The Origin of Oktoberfest style beer is an interesting story
And of course with much sadness, I have my last ear of corn for the year...

The last ear of 2011 corn. 10 October

Improvise

I like fancy tack as much as the next guy. But sometimes one has to improvise.

My improvised crop
L started messing with me and I decided I needed a whip. That was the best I could do. It started off longer than that but I actually had to use it. It broke. Still worked as well as the ones you buy...

Pretty horse!
I'm going to have to clean that bridle.

See how she's all kinds of alert? The chickens were wandering about the yard and, for some reason, that always causes her much concern. I'd love to get in her head even for just a minute.

What a sensational weekend. Mild and pleasant. Well in to the 60s on Saturday. I'd be ok if the winter was like this all season.

---

I prepared a modest, very light Thanksgiving dinner this year. I was in a little distress over squash. Thanksgiving dinner without squash just isn't right. Then I had an idea!

First course: butternut squash soup
I loosely followed this recipe. I almost always "loosely" follow recipes.

I used vegetable broth. I didn't use cream. I used a little bit (maybe a teaspoon) of finely chopped fresh ginger and I served it with some dried sage. Fresh sage would have been better. It was *delicious*.

Earlier in the week I checked and I had Swanson's vegetable broth in the cabinet. Then I read the label. 1920 mg sodium per can?! High fructose corn syrup?! MSG?! Disodium Guanylate?! What the? I threw it away. Fat free sure I still wouldn't even give that stuff to anyone. America's Test Kitchen taste tested vegetable broth (10 samples!) and said basically, I'm paraphrasing here, it's all crap.

So I made my own. I was very proud of my broth!

Homemade vegetable broth
I chopped up an onion, a couple celery stalks, a carrot, garlic and any other vegetable that looked like I'd probably throw away in the next few days. Some broccoli about to turn yellow. A turnip going a little soft. I sautéed them in olive oil for about 10 minutes on high heat. With a tiny pinch of salt. And some cloves and whole peppercorns. Then I added 8 cups of water and threw in a half a bag of spinach that was just waiting for my next trip to the dumpster. I boiled the vegetables vigorously for about 30 minutes. After straining I had a nice rich flavorful broth. There's some solids in there. Tiny pieces of vegetables and chopped garlic. I could have strained it again but I decided that was flavor and besides, I like "rustic".

It made a delicious butternut squash soup!

But I think the real test will be when I use it to make minestrone.

Product Review!

Hands down - Best. Brownies. Ever.

More snow?!

Of course it's all about the snow. Real snow - not just a few minutes of flurries.

Saturday 29 October 4:05 pm
And it's accumulating...

4:10 pm
What a most perfect night for soup. I *love* pea soup!

Pea soup on the stove
Thanks a million to my friend M for that bone! Everybody knows I want their bones.

From a lifetime of fiddling I have the most perfect pea soup recipe:

• 1 Ham bone
  
• Water
  
• 1 bag of split peas
  

Put the ham bone in a stock pot. Cover it with water. Bring the water to a boil. Add the split peas, reduce to a vigorous simmer, cover it. When the bone falls apart it's done. That's usually about an hour and a half.

That's it. No onions, no carrots, no salt, no nothing. I have messed with pea soup recipes for years. Decades. And as far as I'm concerned I just wasted perfectly good bones. Skim the fat off the top before serving and maybe, just maybe, for something really special, add some chopped fresh mint leaves when serving it. I don't know how well this soup keeps or freezes. It's so good I always eat it all.

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It was all over Sunday morning.

Sunday 30 October 7:20 am
Well. The storm was all over. Of course we had no power. It was pretty enough but it would have been prettier if I didn't have to drive over to the next town for a cup of coffee.

I can't really complain. I spent the morning reading cook books and we got power back later in the day. There are people that *still* don't have power and a little old lady froze to death in her bed without power Thursday night. What a sad thing. Apparently every time trees fall down now we could be without power for a week or two.

As much as I hate the cold and the snow and everything the barn property was really pretty and the horses enjoyed their first good snow roll of the season.

Run in shed
The barn was without power for most of the week. We melted snow in the sun to fill water buckets and when the clean snow ran out the fire department filled a tank for us. They were very good about that.

And remember this? Here's the same place on Sunday afternoon.

30 October 2011
I wanted to ride in the worst way Sunday afternoon but the wind was just awful. It was cold biting wind as bad as any we have in January.

North wind!
Such an unusual sight. The corn stalks are usually long gone by the time there's any snow. The wind hardly ever blows from the north here. When it does it's always bad no matter what the time of year.

Snow?!

Thursday, 27 October, 7:00 pm it kinda sorta started to snow.

By 7:15 it was real snow. Big fluffy flakes the size of quarters. The earliest I can ever remember snow is Halloween. I think this is the earliest snowfall in my lifetime.

28 October 2011 5:50 am
And the snow remained throughout the day!

Almost 4:00 pm
And there's a winter storm watch on for tomorrow afternoon.

This is not good.

Ok, yes, yes I did fall off my horse.

No no, I'm not *that* stupid. I was wearing a helmet! Wear a helmet when you do this stuff! I just don't understand people that don't wear helmets when they ride. Trust me, I do know about this stuff. Do you *really* want your loved ones to know what it's like to have you not know them? Do you *really* want them to worry about you every minute of every day because you can't get back from the mailbox at the end of your own driveway without getting lost? Taking care of someone with a head injury is a very bad thing. Wear a helmet!

Horses make you humble. It's one of the things I enjoy about hanging out with horses. Some lessons though are a little harder than others. I've been riding almost exclusively bareback for the past 9 or 10 months. It's done wonders for my comfort level and it's done wonders for my seat. I'll use a pad if I plan on being out for more than an hour or so because I have a bony butt and well, I wouldn't want my bony butt on my back without a pad for a couple of hours.

So there we were having a great time. It was hot. And dry. A little breezy. My favorite kind of day. Fourth of July coming and I'm on vacation! Out riding Sweety bareback. Yay!
It was our first lap, just warming up, I was being a slob and I'm thinking well aren't we so cool. I really should have known better. Hardly a minute later I'm lying in a heap in the dust and Sweety's off eating grass. I hate it when that happens.

I probably could have stayed with her if I'd have thought to grab for her mane. But I made a grab for the reins and I've worked too hard on soft hands. Soon as I realized I was grabbing for the reins to hang on I let go. I'm not the fastest thinker sometimes. I could have hung on to her mane or even her neck - wouldn't be the first time - but things like this happen fast.

Well I gathered her up and climbed back on board and we went on to have a perfectly lovely ride. No real harm done. But I am getting too old to be falling off my horse.

But I confess yes, my butt's a little sore.

A nice vacation breakfast helped take some of the sting out. I just *love* Laughing Cow Creamy Swiss Cheese in my omelette. The MOËT speaks for itself. The cup is filled with Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. Really good coffee. One of my most favorite.



And remember - always wear a helmet when you ride your horse! These guys even hand out free helmets.