Archive | Autumn

Delicious Souties Squash

Gardening1

Souties Squash1

Souties Squash2

Souties Squash3

Souties Squash4

Souties Squash5

Our Souties squash were finally ready to be harvested this weekend, we picked a whole bag full and I baked some of them for our Sunday lunch. I can honestly say, this is the most delicious squash I have ever tasted! Full of flavour, soft, creamy and yummy! Richard removed their stalks and cut them in half for me and then into the oven they went to bake for about half an hour. I added butter, salt and pepper beforehand and was hoping to add some crumbed feta but to my great sadness, we didn’t have any! (They were still awesome without the cheese though).  I also made sure I saved seeds for next years planting and will definitely have a bed of this squash growing each year. I found these wonderful heirloom seeds at Livingseeds and must buy some other seeds for our winter planting.

PS If you haven’t entered Liz’s lovely pattern giveaway from The Sitting Tree, go here.

10

Autumn Nature Table Crafts

Autumn Cone People

Autumn Cone People1

Autumn Leaf

Slippers

Slippers1

 

Kye and I have been busy with a few nature crafts for Autumn. We found the inspiration for these crafts in a lovely book called Earthwise by Carol Petrash. This is a wonderful book divided up into the different seasons with lovely projects for each season. We used some pine cones, acorns and felt for the cone people and for the Autumn leaf picture, we used some paint, pretty handmade paper and a toothbrush with an oak leaf as our template. He is thoroughly enjoying our Autumn crafting and is so exited to discover what he will be busy with each day.

These are the sweet slippers that I mentioned in yesterday’s post. My mom has been knitting slippers for everyone in our family, they are truly divine! I have never worn such cozy slippers in my life and even our older teenage daughters adore wearing them too! We have adapted a slipper pattern found in the book called The Children’s Year. Each pair my mom makes for us is such a special gift.

What seasonal crafting have you been busy with?

PS I have added a free tutorial over on Ravelry, it’s a tutorial on how to stuff and finish off your knitted animal patterns, if you would like to download it go here.

9

Autumn

Acorn

Souties Squash

Souties Squash1

Calendula

Tomatoes

Onion Flower

I love this time of year, the garden is winding down, Autumn is upon us here in the south… It’s a time to move inward, both outside in the garden and within ourselves. A time of introspection, a breathing in so to speak. The air is cooler at the end of the day, not a freezing cold but a definite reminder, though gentle, that we are heading ever closer to our winter months.

The garden needs attention, veggie beds will be harvested and manured and we will start planting our winter seedlings and seeds. Our Souties Squash are almost ready to be picked and I can’t wait to taste them, they are rather large, so I’m not quite sure of the best way to cook them, I’ll let you know what we do. I’m sure they will delicious:)

I must say, after all the hot days of Summer, I am rather looking forward to log fires in the study and lounge fireplaces. To be able to sit there and knit is one of my favourite things to do. It feels cozy just thinking about it… We still need to order and pack our wood and also plan ahead for possible power outages. We have had a couple in the last few weeks, a town about half an hour away from us had no power for a week! We have a borehole and a solar geyser but we need to figure out a solution for electricity sometime soon, instead of being totally dependant on our electricity company.

Kye has been asking which festivals we celebrate around Autumn time, he can remember so much from when he was little and I can see how celebrating Advent, Spring, Michaelmas etc… has enriched his life. I can see, when he talks about these festivals, the happiness he feels comes from deep within and holds great meaning in his heart. We will be preparing to celebrate Michaelmas soon (we are in the south so our celebrations mirror the north on opposite sides of the year) and also the Autumn equinox in a couple of weeks. Do you celebrate any special festivals around Autumn time?

12

Bringing in the Wood

This is how one dresses for wood collecting…

Remember these huge squash shaped vegetables hanging on the nets in our veggie garden? Well, we finally found out what they are, I sent a photo of them to Sean over at Livingseeds and he identified them as Zimbabwean Manhaga Pumpkins! We still have plenty ripening on the vines and I can’t wait to see how they taste.

The days are definitely becoming shorter here and the sun is rising later in the mornings, much to Richard’s dismay, this means less bike riding time for him before work. I love Autumn, the coolness of the weather, the falling leaves, how the garden slowly ‘goes to sleep’ for a few months although our garden is still green and bursting with life. I know that this will soon change…

We have been bringing in the wood from the wood pile, preparing for winter, Caiden moved quite a large amount of wood next to the fire places and Kye was there helping him by giving instructions about how he felt the wood should be packed.

I think I am going to be dyeing the wool for my Tea Leaves Cardi today, wish me luck!

Hope you have had a lovely start to your week.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
13

Powered by WordPress. Designed by Woo Themes


Hit Counter provided by Los Angeles SEO Company