Samhain

The older I get, the more I like Halloween, the more modern name of the Celtic harvest holiday Samhain. I like the timing of it, mostly.  Samhain is old Irish for "summer's end," and likewise, this holiday marks the start of the winter season and its darker, shorter days. A time for taking stock and preparing for the cold weather, with some ghoulish fun thrown in. Same as Thanksgiving, really, and as a Northerner for all of my days, its always seemed Thanksgiving is a month too late.

Xan's first jack-o-lantern.

Shelled beans from the garden.

Part of the gleanings from yesterday's 2nd annual Halloween Slaughterfest. 4 chickens, 2 geese, 2 ducks in the freezer for those darker, colder days. 

Dinner tonight. We just happen to have apple brandy, homemade, and delivered by our good friends yesterday. Brussels sprouts instead of turnips, with buttered barley. Yummmmmmmm.

In other news: suddenly, we are parents of a big baby. This guy has real personality and can do a lot of exciting things these days. I put together a playspace for him this weekend. He loves it! Opposite of his mirror is a desk and Jake recently installed some speakers upstairs, so we played and listened to NPR and worked together lots this weekend. 

Happy Halloween, readers. 

Autumn Update

Its been ages since I've written... apparently I'm not good at documenting the busy times.

I stopped and took about a hundred pictures of this mid-October rainbow on my way home from work on Friday. 

This weekend was an unexpectedly homebound one, and though I was disappointed to miss out on the revelry happening amongst and in honor of my friends, it was nice to be home, as well. 

We are in the midst of squash season. I just made several batches of squashiladas, attempting to emulate our friends' excellent recipe which we sampled alongside squash soup and jack-o-lanterns Friday night. I made pumpkin ice cream, sans ice cream maker, which couldn't have been easier or more delicious, especially studded with maple walnuts. I like some texture in my ice cream. Frozen in a mason jar! 

Xan even got in on some squash action, to mediocre review. 

In other news, Lupine is becoming a good dog. 

Xan is loving his cousin's hand-me-down backpack.

Without fail, time marches on. He'll be six months old this week! This picture was taken during a break from the fussiness two breaking teeth ensured for most of the weekend, and the smile made up for all of it.

We hope your autumn is marching on as well.