Greens

Yesterday was the first day I was inside all day. The first day it was nasty enough, and cold enough outside to just cocoon into my space-heatered office, sweatpants, and late-afternoon tea, and let it pour. Come dinnertime, though, I needed ingredients, so I puled on my boots. It was shiverish out there in the gathering dark, to be sure, but thrilling: hacking off kale leaves as big as my head with a kitchen knife, feeling a little like someone forging a new trail through the "bush," from Kinshasa to some remote village. Pulling leaves from my cold frame full of spinach, and closing the lid, cutting a few tender fennel fronds that were spared by the freeze. Thinking to check for eggs--six!-- before heading back inside.
On the menu, one of my favorite soups, cooked as it grew fully dark all around. A good evening.
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A freeze, and things

There is something so gorgeous about that first hard freeze melting away in the early morning sunlight. This was Monday morning. My fennel, which stood tall through lighter frosts and freezes last month was finally felled-- and I wasn't prepared at all for the incredible licorice perfume it would release as all those burst cell walls were thawed and warmed throughout the day. The whole yard smelled like licorice-- and it was delightful. 
Several things have been consuming me the past few weeks. Good things and less-good things, but mostly I squint and focus real hard on the good things, and it's enough.

• Finding new ways to get moving, now that I can't rely on the garden-- and the house painting-- for my daily calorie off-load. Last winter I did-- and deeply enjoyed-- a weekly Zumba class, which I'm looking forward to starting again, now that I have time for it again. Yesterday, Del and I joined the twice-weekly "Dog Hike"-- a pack of dogs and neighbors who hike a 1 1/2 hour loop made of old farm roads just outside town. They meet at 7:30am, which is usually about the hour I open my eyes, but yesterday I capitalized on Daylight Savings Time and we got ourselves down there. It was a blast. 
• After the bottom essentially fell out of my freelancing income a month ago-- thanks mostly to poor planning on my side-- I've managed to work myself back up to where I was before by taking on new clients and crossing my fingers, hard. I have decided I am going to work as hard, and as much, as humanly possible this winter, so that maybe I won't have to work as hard in the springtime and summertime when it is much harder to commit myself to working.
• Maybe.
• This house-selling process has been complete torture. It feels cursed, somehow, like we're cursed to endure this seemingly endless pushing-back and pushing-back of our closing date, hoping and hoping and then hoping some more that we won't be asked to make any more concessions, that it won't fall through, that we won't be left at the altar. It has been two solid months of feeling strung-along and strung-out. It is so totally taxing, but the end is in sight.
• This Friday night, we are hosting just about everyone under 50 in this town (twelve people, ha) at our house for soup and bread. This year has brought some wonderful younger additions to the village, and-- maybe it's hard to understand if you don't live someplace so small-- I am so eager for all of us young families to forge the kind of relationship where we can call for favors, exchange babysitting, drop off a dozen eggs without having to ask, and share our strengths and talents with each other. This town really does have the best people.
• A couple weekends from now, my parents and Patrick's parents and my aunt are coming for pre-Thanksgiving (not actually Thanksgiving, just an excuse for me to bake PIE) and I am very very excited. I love hosting Christmas, but I miss cooking Thanksgiving.
• Christmas is coming, too, along those lines-- and I have decided that everyone on my list is getting a gallon of frozen green beans, or a gallon of frozen broccoli, from the garden. Because that is what I have, stacked up like lumpy green throw pillows, in my chest freezer.
• I might be kidding about that one.

So that's what's been consuming my focus the past several weeks. I am looking forward to starting in on some indoor projects-- touch-ups and a little bit of sewing and crafting and rearranging-- and I am looking forward to that closing, still dangling like a gilded carrot out ahead of us... still a possibility...

Fingers crossed.

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Kelly Hollow

We had an adventure Saturday afternoon. Mostly, Del had an adventure, and we sat back and watched. We arrived at the parking lot of one of our favorite places-- possibly THE favorite-- and, finding it deserted of cars on a cloudy day, we unclipped Del's leash and let him be a dog. Thrillingly and fully and no-holds-barred style. 
Gallop-gallop sniff-gallop, gallop gallop gallop mark territory, drink from creek, gallop gallop drink from different creek, sniff, gallop, sniff sniff, check for masters' approval, gallop gallop gallop. And so it went. He had such a blast. I tried really hard to get a shot that captured his joy, but he was moving so fast. I got a lot of butt shots. And I'll spare you those. 
He's such a gem. I know you know, but I can't stop finding new ways to be impressed with just how much of a gem he is. In the midst of the deep exciting woods, in the midst of being a wild wild galloping dog, Del still knew to stop and check back with us every dozen yards or so. He would stop and wait for us, ears cocked, when he got too far away. When he treed a squirrel, the good instincts went out the window, temporarily-- squirrels are Del's kryptonite-- but, well, I'll forgive him that. 
We had a fantastic time.
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Pretty house

This is how I feel: Yesssssssssssss. This is also how I feel: HOLY COW YOU ARE GORGEOUS! This is additionally how I feel: thank god it's almost winter.

My shoulders/arms/back/hips/knees have been sore a lot lately, as I raced the calendar to get all the high parts finished, so we could move the manlift before Halloween. Which we did, in the blowing rain, at about 4pm yesterday evening. This week it was mid-forties and cloudy most days, and I was up there anyway with numb feet in long underwear, just putting on those finishing touches. This has most emphatically not been for the faint of heart, this project that's only now 1/4 done.

But almost everyday, neighbors have walked by and waved a thumbs-up at me, and grinned upwards like YOU ROCK! THAT LOOKS AWESOME!, and almost every day a car has slowed to a stop in the street, and a window has rolled down and someone has yelled "I love the color!" I have been subsisting on this kind of outpouring of cheer and egging-on (and, of course, subsisting on my imagined view of the whole thing done) for months. And it has been enough.

And in true Kristina fashion, I am already buzzing to get started on the driveway side, next spring. Almost. After a few dozen afternoons sewing and drinking tea by the fire.

It's just unbelievable that this is where we started out. Look at those weeds!

Patrick and I both admit that we didn't pick the perfectest color for that fish scale. Ok, we admit that I didn't pick the perfectest color. It's fine, of course, we can live with it, but... now that I see it up there, I think we should've gone with something more neutral. A deep rust, maybe, or just a soft muted mouse brown. The teal is almost dark enough that it reads as a neutral-- and I like it to read as a neutral, because then it serves as a nice foil to the yellow accents-- but the teal needs help pulling off neutral, y'know? And that gray-green I put up there-- gorgeous color, but definitely brings out the vibrancy in the teal. Altogether it makes the colors look a little kooky, and not sophisticated and striking like I was going for.

That's just my take, at least.

Fortunately, repainting just that little part won't take a ton of time, or paint. Next year.
So, this is where I leave you, pretty old house-face. What a good year. What a good house.
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Garden chickens

Chickens are just the goofiest things. I've been letting them in my garden ever since I pulled my tomato plants, and it's quickly become their favorite place. Lots of grubs and worms hiding under that maple leaf mulch, and lots of cabbage worms to discover, and tasty asparagus berries to pluck. I regret that I can't let them in during other parts of the year, but first, their scratching would decimate my early spring seedlings, then they would eat the raspberries, and then they would eat the tomatoes. In the late fall garden, with everything sturdy and well-established or else on its way out, the chickens can scratch to their hearts' content. 
They talk to me, a lot. June, the out-of-focus yellow one in the top photo, is the most gregarious, following me around at times, acting like I've been put on this earth expressly for her to follow and extort food from. She chases Pete, too. Barrels after him, head down, velociraptor-style. He does not care for this behavior, but we find it quite amusing.
Yesterday we got five eggs. FIVE. The thanks we get for having a big garden full of treats. Omelettes for everyone!
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Costume party fun

As you might guess, we had a costume party to attend this weekend. Every year there's a theme, and this year it was Witches, which was, really, perfect. Easy for those who just want to wear a pointy hat, but broad enough to inspire creativity.
I had so much fun putting our costumes together. I can't even tell you. This is the first time, in 30 Halloweens, that I have dressed up as something scary-- true story-- and I really did not expect to enjoy it as thoroughly as I did. I did some joy riding around Ithaca last weekend, hitting thrift stores and weird little shops in general, absolutely scoring: a slinky black dress for $6, witchy little boots for $5, fabulous Gothic earrings (which you can't see, unfortunately) for $8, and black lace gloves-- the only thing I bought new, and the most expensive, at $14. (And they had a giant gaping hole in one of the seams. No one makes quality items anymore, do they?)

But the best part was putting on our faces. I don't spend a lot of time on makeup, generally, and I don't know much about it, either, so it was nice to go BIG here, and know that any slipups would be forgiven in the kitschy spirit of Halloween fun.
Of course, the party was pretty swell, too. 
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Closer

My father-in-law was here this week to install fish scale in the front gable. It took not very long at all, and it looks oh, so.... so.... nice. Like, hello, you fancy little thing! Oh my!
Of course, you have to squint around the missing planks above the porch, and the unpainted planks above the porch and on the left, there, and the fact that the gable itself is unpainted, too... well, do a little squinting, ok? Patrick has two gig-free weekends, this and next, (unprecedented!) and resolutely we will finish up the bits and bobs the house requires before wintertime descends. Storm windows will fit into place. Siding will be painted. All will be wrapped up. 
All will be good. Happy Friday!
P.S. After much deliberation (lots of consultations with Patrick as Del tugged impatiently at his leash), we've decided to paint the fish scale an in-between green-blue-gray color, adding a fourth color, and a whole other level of sophistication (I think) to the exterior. I can't wait to get it up there.
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