Preparations: Making stock

Yesterday night, with Patrick at rehearsal and chilly rain beating the windows, I gave myself over to one of my favorite autumn rituals. Yearly stock-making. It takes a lot, maybe ten quarts, to see us through the winter.

I wrote about the process a year and a half ago, right here.

Two hours of simmering, and a rank of jars filled with tawny gold. Well worth it.

Into autumn

I've had a chronic case of forgot-my-camera-itis lately. We took three hikes this weekend, and I have not one single picture to show for it. That's okay, though, because it led to the discovery of bumblebees in my asters.

For anyone who fretted over last Friday's rather down-in-the-dumps sounding post, rest assured. Like metamorphosis, the sorry worries of the situation have split and sloughed off, revealing something rather astonishing and bright. Potential.

We've been graced with a last sweet gasp of low-70s weather this weekend. Hence the three hikes. The promised frost did not show up Saturday night, at least not in my garden. It's Columbus Day weekend; tomorrow we all have to hunker down and get real. Winter is on its way. The carefree, doo-wah-diddy days of summer are gone. It's time, I think, for another little preparations series.

Mums are an important piece. Especially, mums which complement the craggy green porch-pumpkin.

Antidote

What do you do when the stresses of your world launch a great wholehearted fuss? What do you do when the worrisome unknowns in your head seem more pressing than hugging your husband or calling your friends? What do you do when you've had a rough day?

Here's what we did: we walked Diesel, because it's impossible to be worried and self-absorbed with a terrier on the other end of the leash. We made pizza, topped with homemade roasted red peppers. Transcendental. Pizza can improve any day. Patrick mowed. I mopped. And then we emptied a bottle of Pinot Noir.

And it turned out not to be such a very bad day after all.

Starting to stir

It's fall, and the sewing bug is back. I was waiting for it. Mid-August, leafing through project books and patterns and notebooks and thinking about Christmas sewing, I was wondering when it would show up. Now that I'm back at my job, (my job that permits a subterranean sewing space for use when there's nothing better to do) the sewing bug is back, as I knew it would be.

This year, I am paring down, just a touch. It's necessary, really. My life is more packed than it's ever been. By this time last year, I'd already knocked off four whole gifts, including a quilt. This year, my homemade gift list is just five items long. I'm trying not to feel guilty about that. I've been a handmade gift-maker for years, probably since I could hold a pencil. And I love it, I do. But. There is a lot of making I'd like to be doing for myself. We are buying a house, (still in the works, can you believe?!) and there will be curtains to sew. I haven't made anything for myself in awhile, yet I keep buying a few yards of this or that or some other thing, thinking I'll have time to make it into a skirt.

Also, with the advent of Etsy, there's a lovely, heartfelt, sustainable way to shop for Christmas gifts that never existed before. Ten years ago, there were two options: make something lovely, heartfelt, and sustainable, or go to the Mall and sacrifice your values. Now the act of shopping can actually be an enactment of my values, and I love that.

Are you thinking about Christmas yet? Have you read Bill McKibben's Hundred Dollar Holiday? What are your gifting values?

Are you peeved with me for even bringing this up, Christmas! In early October! Oh, friends. I completely understand. Back to my sewing.

The Quest for the Perfect Carrot

I am not someone blessed with the good luck of growing perfect carrots. Usually, they're stumped, nubby little affairs, wrinkled and bearded with little white roots. Every year I've done something different-- dug deeper, worked in more compost, tried a different variety-- and every year they've improved slightly. This one's pretty good, but, ok, I guess I ain't there yet. I'm not my friend Zeb, who pulls scores of nearly footlong grocery-store-perfect carrots out of his garden every year. Maybe someday.

But hey, at least I'm making progress. It's a learning curve. Someday, someday, I will grow perfect carrots.

Summing it up

If I had to choose one picture to sum up my month off, it would be this one. Here it is, I'm choosing it. Though no one's forcing me to.

This is Olive. If you've been to our house, you've probably never seen her. She loves Patrick and myself with all the fierceness of her little striped heart. And she loves Pete. But that's it. All other beings--humans, cats, and dogs included-- are terrorists. She dives under the bathtub and casts fearful gold-eyed glares at the milieu of would-be attackers.

We had a good month, Olive and I. I would "arrive" at my spare-bedroom "office" at around 9 or so each morning, with a cup of tea, ready to write. I would open the door and let an unbelievably sweet striped cat share the space with me, for the day. The room faces west; late afternoons were Olive's favorite. She's a bona fide feline solar panel, that cat.

She helped me write. For the first time since college, I had a deadline, and I was sweating ever-so-slightly. (Details of just what, exactly, I was sweating over, will be forthcoming in a couple months, you'll see.) Olive would curl herself-- in the sun, on my lap, on the back of the armchair-- and help. In her small sweet gold-eyed petal-tongued way, she helped me dredge up sparkling vocabulary words I thought I'd lost, and tighten my metaphors. She possesses an uncanny knack for placing quotes, that cat. It's all to Olive that I owe the final product.

Never underestimate the power of a gentle encouraging presence in your life. Especially when you're laboring out of a spare bedroom, trying to turn "aspiring" into "actual," sitting alert and crossed-fingered, watching your dreams start to lift off.

Back, as promised

Hello there. I've missed you-all. It's been a highly productive two weeks. I wrote a lot. I spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen, making stock and bread and homemade caramels. Also, I siphoned some money out of my checking account and did a little antiquing. It's autumn. It's what I do. Slurp slurp slurp.

See that brown transferware plate above? That one I was powerless to resist. See what's printed on it? Ferns. As in, Sweetfern Handmade. Sweetfern isn't actually a true fern, but that is neither here nor there. I love ferns of all kinds. Friends and family and well-wishers will attest heartily to that.

This is one of the most unique things I've ever found. It's a counterweight from a pendulum light. I bought it because it's copper, probably from the Arts & Crafts period (my fave) and printed with tulips. It easily weighs ten pounds, no joke.

To round out the excursion, and continue the botanical theme, a poppy-printed tray. Seventy five cents. Yee-oo.

Deep breath. This is the slightly wonky, not-quite sure-how-I-feel-about-it but it's-growing-on-me shelf I made from barn boards, wire coat hangers, and 60 old wooden spools. I was going for this. I didn't strike it, exactly, but I got sorta close. Maybe? Advice? Thoughts? In our next house, it's definitely going in my craft room. I think it'll look better stuffed with button jars and spools of ribbon. And for the record, this is what I was working on in that picture I posted two weeks ago.

What's new in your lives? This month has been pretty fabulous, but oddly, I think I'm ready to get back to work. Refreshed and renewed, eager for October and more writing. And lots more antiquing.