Joining Ginny's yarn along today- with this little green waffle sock I can't seem to get too finishing- Dori keeps reminding me, and I keep forgetting. I have the first one done, and it is already looking rather worn in as both boys think mama-made socks are the very best sort of sock for wood floor skating but poor Dori is rather impeded by only having the one to skate with. Must finish the little green sock tonight! 

I knit this little acorn cap for Dori's birthday and gave it to him with a copy of the Elsa Beskow book that the pattern is inspired by. Its Little Pip's acorn cap and is such a sweet little knit. He loves both (phew! He can be hard to please in the clothing department, I just never know with him!) and looks so ridiculously cute in it I can hardly keep from nibbling him. I'll try to get a proper shot of the little acorn boy soon.

And generally we are just puttering around, doing all that needs to be done this time of year- putting the garden to bed, keeping going with the preserving, and the usual home- school and household stuff.  We made a big batch of applesauce yesterday and canned some, and have more apples on the way. We've been collecting rosehips and drying them for winter tea, and gathering the last bits of food out of the garden.

We have a huge piles of dried field peas to shuck too- there must be a quicker way to get them out of their dried pods (I'm thinking threshing or rolling them in a pillow case or something?) but for now we have just been sitting on the deck and shucking them in the sun. The weather is turning though, I think our usual autumn weather has arrived- time to break out the woollies!

And again, no pictures of the books I am reading, but I promise to do a re-cap on some of the pile I've been working my way through. Some really good ones.
Happy Wednesday, friends!

 We had a lovely busy farm weekend, working away on various projects, gardening and cleaning (thanks for tackling that icky root cellar, babe!) and making some home school manipulatives and getting the freezers sorted. We organized them into monthly bags like the wonderful Jules does- carefully divvying out all that good food- the strawberries and the fish and the peas and the beans and the meat and the nettles and the zucchini and the huckleberries and gooseberries and raspberries- into monthly sacks so we get to enjoy it all over the whole winter season. It is going to be so exciting to pull those bags out of the freezer at the beginning of every month! 

 We didn't get to many of the equinox celebrations we had thought to do, but we did manage a fancy supper and homemade honey marshmallows- roasted over a candle at the dinner table! We were uncertain about a campfire with all the dry weather and we haven't needed to light the woodstove, so we decided to give candle roasting a try- good fun. Although we have yet to settle on a sure celebration for autumn equinox, in many ways we are celebrating daily with the abundance around us at this time of year. We celebrated with good local food and sharing some sweetness together. 

Happy Autumn, friends.

Outside :: My favorite fall flowers

:: bundling up the onions to hang in the pantry for winter,

:: garden play

::the last of the zucchini and our tiny winter squash of which I am proud (we've never had any success, so three little ones is something!)

:: this little onion guy which Dorian became rather attached to. I asked Dori to pick an onion for our supper, but he thought the "crazy hair" was funny and wanted me to carve on a face. When I asked when I might be able to have the onion to cook he said "No Mama, you can't cook him- he is becoming a friend!" We didn't eat the onion guy.

Inside:: Processing the last food from the garden. We were quite pleased with our bean harvest this year- lots of fresh eating and many for the freezer. They were very happy in the hoop houses.

:: playing inside more now. Dorian takes any opportunity to play quietly on his own.

:: the game "Harvest Time" seemed very fitting this afternoon- the goal of the game is to cooperatively harvest all the garden veggies together before the winter frosts come. We managed to get them all in, just in the nick of time.

We have been sensing autumn's arrival with the darkness lengthening, and the cold mornings and the food positively brimming out of the garden. We are all feeling ready for the shift to a more inward, less expansive sort of energy to our days. We love summer so, but are always happy to welcome autumn when it comes. The raspberries are amazing this year- we have preserved lots already and I have been picking almost daily to keep up with them all. Sometimes I have helpers out there, and other times the kiddos keep themselves busy nearby.

This fort engaged the boys in play for so long- first as a kitchen for making raspberry pie,  then transforming into a home on the beach for a pair of energetic surfers, and then a refuling station for astronauts. And all the while I was picking beside them, soaking in the autumn sunshine and the love for these sweet children of mine.

We are enjoying our last few days home all together before our autumn routines begin. 
Happy weekend, friends!