Autumn Delights
Autumn Delights
Today is the first cold snap of the season and we are savoring our rare chance to wear cozy sweaters and turtle-necks. The cold winds dash color into our cheeks as we sip hot cocoa piled with cream and sprinkled with nutmeg. The voile curtains in the parlor billow and dance. The kitten Frank curls up luxuriously in a pile of blankets. Biggest Brother is in a playful mood and grabs me for a quick dance around the living room. The ladies are in a baking mood and discuss snickerdoodles, sesame dipping cookies (wonderful with the cocoa!), cranberry muffins, and delicious rocky-road brownies.
Cool weather is fine for domestic busyness. Ironing, folding warm laundry, stirring soup, and baking bread are welcome duties. Of course, we have no objection to sitting in an overstuffed chair, reading aloud some exciting narrative or the good old-fashioned poetry of Mrs. Rawlings.
Saturday night we carved pumpkin candleholders for the missionary covered dish dinner we are hosting this Thursday evening. They came out very well, I thought, and I hope to soon post a tutorial. We roasted the pumpkin seeds with butter and salt and decided that they made a tasty autumn treat. They disappeared in short order.
Well, I shall not spend more time writing about this lovely weather, but go now to relish it. What autumn delights are you enjoying?
Photographs: Various. © Handmaidens of the Shepherd, October 2008.
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STEPHANIE said...
We’ve been enjoying this cold snap as well! Everyone has been playing outside to get the full effect of the chill. :-) The little ones are in full-fledged winter wear. They love the hats and mittens, even though they’re not necessary. We’ve been baking, too. We have three pumpkins in our kitchen to have fun with. We’ll probably start this afternoon!
Wednesday, October 29, 2008 01:20 PM
HANDMAIDEN said...
Oh! What are you doing with your pumpkins?
Wednesday, October 29, 2008 07:11 PM
HILDEGARD said...
One of the supreme delights of the autumn in my neck of the woods is gathering elderberries, which grow bountifully in a nearby park. The first fall I was in this valley, seven years ago, my roommate and I went gathering, as we had just learned from a friend how to make elderberry sauce or syrup. Which is precisely what we did, and poured the finished product over coconut breadsticks.
And so it began, sometimes leaving behind the ones we couldn’t reach, sometimes climbing the bushes to get what more we could, once carrying our sacks of them hanging on a big stick like the twelve spies who carried grapes out of the Promised Land.
This year, we took a ladder, for the best bunches are always beyond the tallest pickers. And we still had to send someone climbing up through the limbs and leaves to procure the ones we wanted! Or perhaps climbing is simply the best part of the picking.
Thursday, October 30, 2008 11:06 AM
Tuesday, October 28, 2008