sunset views

applesauce cycle

there's nothin' like a cloudy, windy autumn day with a fire burning and the smell of applesauce filling the house. 

we were lucky enough to find a bushel of apples on the cheap, so we got a few and went to town making sauce, crisp and pies.  it took a week to get over our sugar high, and now i'm making more sauce and apple cake.  it's a cyclical process, but a fruitful one...(sorry).

plain sauce. no sugar or spice or anything nice.

adding cranberries would be nice, too.

mile high apple pie

dry beans

 

this is how many we've shucked so far. isn't it crazy? we've got many many more to do, however.  shucking beans is looking to be an all-winter project for us.  

just made soup with those great northern beans, which turned out successful.

next i'm going to mix-up my veggie burger recipes with some great northern and jacob's cattle beans, instead of black beans and/or pinto.  have any good bean recipes to share?

till the land

we've put down some rye for a cover crop, and some buckwheat in a few places.

speaking of tilling land, here's an interesting video on no-till farming. 

maybe one day we'll have a few work horses, and we can plough the land that way. until our plough-horses come, though, this is how it's done. 

props to conroy. his back is permanently in this position.

 

wild geese: mary oliver

this is a shout out to our friendly backyard companions who are getting ready to move further south any day now.  ...such a wonderful poet, and a beautiful poem.

Wild Geese 

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.