Signs of growth

Fingers in the dirt and planting seeds have been therapeutic ways of home-coming for me. Since mid-September we have been munching freshness and green from the garden by the fingers-full and arm-fulls. 

I thought I'd post some foliage and exciting signs of growth from our neck of the woods, indoors and out.

 See the little bud? My Swiss Ivy is coming back to leaf and life!

I love this new leaf reaching up to cup the sunlight.

Meet my new cold frame. I built it around one row of swiss chard plants and then transplanted the rest of them in. 

Another peek. 

Here's a view underneath another rig-up over my broccoli and cabbages that I hope to baby into the cold weather.

Turnips and greens, crimson chard, beet tops, radishes, cress, romaine leaves, and collards! 

Dill, parsley, & sour grass for salad (I simply harvested these, didn't plant them)

Arm-fulls of turnip tops!

Here is a beautiful bunch that I had the pleasure of plucking from someone else's garden

...but I shall leave that for another post.

musiments

Speaking of playing, M&I have been delighting in the gift of musical instruments.

This is our wedding-gift piano, with a lovely tone and touch. It is like the comfort of an old friend to me.

Here is another wedding gift that plays on our back porch with any breeze. This tickles me to no end!

Music is a language that I think that all humans speak and understand it at some level. So it has been fun to have our guests feel free to pick up one of our instruments to try:  

My father-in-law sat down at the piano bench and played a one-finger tune he hadn't in 56 years; 

my friend stopped by and pulled out a popular ditty she'd memorized by ear as a kid; 

and our living-room carpet is practically flush with blue grass for all the strumming our cousin banjo player has done in this place. 

The guitar, harmonica, recorder, kazoo, seed pods, and jars with beans complete our current fleet of musical instruments, which we hope will only grow over the years.

Food Play

We have fun with meals. Kids are often told not to play with their food, but being married to M, it's hard not to...

Actually I made this breakfast. Lots of orbs to be had in the summer.

This little niece knows good chicken when she smells it, waiting long past when she was hungry and declining other food so she could haul in on these 'huesos' that uncle M grilled on our Kenyan jiko (like a hibachi)

Brunch smoothies with sibs- hey!

Radishes grew crazy big and juicy this fall, beating the early turnips in girth per days of growth.

A mighty-tall stack of pancakes. Good thing this niece and nephew had already been outside playing the morning away.

Just lunch, by M.

Here is how this engineer makes applesauce- by smooshing cooked fruit that no one else wanted through a screen over a tub.

Stirring made fun.

M's dream 16-foot sandwich, on our wedding-eve. It filled about 40 people.

Our riches may not be in silver or gold right now, but we certainly eat well!

Bouquet

I am married to a man who comes back from walks with this.  Fall is a season that both M&I love and we've been long looking forward to spending our first one together. Last year this time we were 'together' but continents apart. So it has been fun to make the most of it.

  

Gathered in hand, the beauty around us is stunning- sassafras leaves, cedar, dried berries, roadside weeds, chicory in morning sun, maples, heavy dew on grass, and on and on.

This Fall, a new concept of the blazing glory of the season occurred to me. It is: that in the course of all the leaves turning, every wavelength of the visible color spectrum is passed in front of our very eyes, as if in slow motion (and yet in a wild blink!). You might say, but what about blue. Ah- but remember, at a certain distance, mountains are suddenly every shade of blue and purple. 

It's been delightful to mull that thought through my mind this season.

Shredder

Here is our shredder...

and a box of old and personal papers to go into it. 

I love having a wood-stove. I love having something to cook on, make tea, thaw things and warm by. Last weekend with night-time temps in the 20's, we were glad for it's capacity. But for normal days, it's oversized for this small house. We can have the livingroom up to 80 degrees in short order- much too hot for me!

We have two friends, both named Dave to thank for helping us with the installation and pipe fitting.

Shindig

M&I have been reliving the fun from the weekend and our 

"We-got-married-party"

We don't have many pictures, but the memory is sweet.

On Saturday, little did this peaceful scene, from our back deck, know what it was in for...

 The first round of friends arrived by noon and got the party started with campfire popcorn. The game was to catch it coming out.

Throughout the afternoon, the house filled with music, pictures, and mint tea, friends and kinfolk, young and old.

And then, the craziness got started... 

 There was homemade jousting in the orchard. All you need is a bike tire, a cardboard tube, some helmets and some goofy people.

M's Mom gave a beautiful cake printed with our picture in edible ink on rice paper.
Here the bride and groom are properly cutting the cake (instead of the cheese, like at the wedding).

Our humble kitchen/living-room was filled to overflowing several times.

And we were thoroughly pounded! Guests brought us pounds of 

popcorn, borax, nuts, beans, flours, fruit, soap, napkins, and even music, stories, and candles!

The night before our wedding, we said we were millionaires.

Now 3.5 months into marriage, we know we're even richer.

Setting

Here is the current view, up into the orchard, from our front deck. We enjoy migrating birdsong and protection from the sound of traffic beyond that patch of woods in view.

This is the view of our dwelling as you approach from the lane. Welcome! The orchard and woods is off to the left. Farmers fields are down below, beyond the Right scope of the picture. 

Since I was 18, I have been a towndweller. Then in my time abroad, excepting London, I landed in many a rural spot. So now we've set up house again in a rural county...and to my amazement, this picture below is almost exactly the scene from our back deck, except...

...it was taken from just over the hedge on our compound in Kenya this spring! That brought home the appreciation I'd gained in my experience in so many homes in the last 2 years: that while many aspects of our lives are un-translate-able, they are also very, very much the same.