Dreary Old November

Despite the rainy, dreary weather, we had a perfectly lovely weekend. Pizza at Mom and Dad's Friday night. A Saturday morning of talk, looking though the weekly ads, and a game of Quickword. (which is a game Mom and Dad have had for years but we haven't played much, if ever. But we liked it this time, since we actually knew what we were doing.) Then a trip to a local used bookstore/antique place with Mom and Tori. Cozy evening at home. Wonderful Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon nap. Evening walk to pick winterberry with Tor-Tor. It all makes November worth while.

And now I am off to grocery shop for Thanksgiving things! I love baking big batches of things and planning out food. Clover is having it at her new house this year, so technically, I am not planning the food, but I discuss it with Clover, which is just as fun!

Birds in our tree

Tori's pig, who is a reincarnation of Houdini and refuses to be fenced in. A free range pigger. 

A cool root system and mossy rock 

The drabness of November. November has very little to recommend it.

The hedgerows are full of dead Queen Anne's lace, burdock, nettles, and little remnants of our snow

These cows look as enthused about November as feel.

The feeder wagon

This was 4 o'clock in the afternoon. So dark!

A little fern, way greener than it has any right to be at this time of year

Swampy clearing

And ta-da! Winterberry! Did you know this is a hollyhock? Me neither. It is a deciduous hollyhock.

Tori picking

Dead weeds

A frog who clearly lost his way to his hibernation spot

Tori's bunch of winterberry. Which was much more impressive than mine, since I was distracted by taking pictures.

A nest in a tree in the gloaming (I love that word!)

Coming home

Peeling apples for Apple Pandowdy

Elsie with their new sorting pie and silly Lily

I told Elsie to smile. Ha!

This is the sorting pie. All little fruits of different colors, so you can sort by color, fruit, number, etc. There are tweezers to lift the fruit with, so I thought it would be great for developing Gilbert's fine motor skills, as well as reviewing colors, numbers, and sameness. It was one of those Amazon deal of the day things this past week.

Apple Pandowdy from my latest issue of Saveur magazine. I wasn't nuts about. Basically it is an apple pie in a cast iron skillet with pie dough squares placed on top. It has molasses, cider, lemon juice, butter, as well as cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon. The filling has no sugar, I guess replacing it with a touch or molasses and cider. But it seemed to be a little less sweet than it should have been. Almost savory. The kids loved it. But I am not sure they loved it more than a normal apple pie.

My stuff from the antique part of the bookstore. $20 for the whole deal. The kids love the little table, (which is very sturdy) making it a stove for their new pie, a desk, a stool, etc. Isn't that a sweet little basket? I have a weakness for baskets in that shape. I have wanted a duck decoy for ages, and this one was cheap, since the neck had been repaired. The dishes were $3 for all and I love pretty dishes.

The mug has a little wee gnome tucked inside. It has "Jack Frost nipping at your nose" on the side, which I realize is infinitely tacky, but I love mugs with little things inside them. This makes me tacky too. But I love my mug. The kids will be using it for hot chocolate. Doesn't Olga of Norway have a great cover?