Above are the shadows of my house and my favorite tree this morning. Yesterday was an interesting mix of weather. We had snow, sleet, freezing rain and mostly just plain rain. All day long. Rick made a batch of Caraway Swiss (cheese) and I made broth for turkey soup by boiling down the turkey carcass. Not much else to do. Bella was a bit stir crazy not being able to go out in her yard and play, but otherwise we all managed to stay snug and cozy with a fire going all day in the wood stove to keep off the damp chill emanating from the windows.

We had a good Thanksgiving. How about you? We had more than enough food (we’ll be eating turkey for the next week) and it was good to see friend Carolyn again.

We relaxed and took it easy.

And, best of all, Carolyn got to see bears! Can you believe they made a grand appearance just for her? Friday we were watching movies in the living room just before dark, TV turned up for surround sound and had a fire burning pretty merrily in the fireplace. I happened to see something black out of the corner of my eye through the sliding glass door and thought that Rick must have let Alex outside on the deck. Wait a minute, that’s not Alex, it’s a BEAR. On the deck. Not four feet away from where we were sitting! I kept a calm voice so the dogs wouldn’t be alerted and start barking and said to Carolyn “Quick, look, there’s a bear on the deck.” Rick was in the other room and came to see. Myrtle was up on the deck too but not quite where the cub was. He was standing up on his hind legs trying to reach the bird feeder. They heard us talking and started leisurely back down the stairs to the yard. We stood on the deck outside and watched Myrtle and the cub for a few minutes until they left the yard. Myrtle and the one cub got to the edge of the grass and the cub climbed up the big oak, showing off, as Myrtle decided whether to give up the bird feeder idea or not. We could see other black-ish moving things in the woods—the other cubs. It was hard to see them in the dusky gloom, but they were there.

They came back again on Saturday night around the same time (4:30 or so). I was sitting in the sun room reading when Rick walked in. He glanced out the sliding glass door and said, “Every time I see that old tree stump in the woods I think it’s a bear.” Two seconds later he said, “Wait a minute—that is a bear!” Sure enough, Myrtle and the cubs were roaming around just outside our fence, foraging for food. They were pretty far apart and we could only account for four of the five cubs. They are not staying as close to momma as they used to. They are really getting big.

So we are going to have to keep a closer eye on the yard now. I assume they are getting ready to hibernate (or as much as they ever do here; more like a mini-hibernation.) and trying to fatten up for Winter. It’s nice with all the leaves on the trees gone that we can now see them.

While the weather was nice on Friday, Rick got some slow motion footage of Bella running. I love the second vid of her and what her ears are doing! Check them out below. She continues to grow and amaze us with her intelligence. She’s a very good puppy.

With the yard all cleaned of leaves, our chimneys finally swept, the canoe inside for the winter and a roof leak fixed we feel almost ready for Winter. This Friday John Deere is coming out to service Johnny and swap out his grass cutting apparatus for the snow blower. Then we will truly be ready. Bring it on!

Not much else happening around here. I just haven’t felt like blogging much lately and I’m not sure why. Hopefully that will pass. As always this time of year, I wish we could add another month between now and Christmas. There just doesn’t seem like much time to plan for Christmas once Thanksgiving is out of the way. And I never seem to give Christmas much thought until after Thanksgiving. Every year I think I’m going to do things differently, and every year it’s the same. Oh well. I guess we’ll get a tree this coming weekend and decorate the outside of the house ... yikes ... and before you know it, Christmas will be here. When do you put your tree up?

Becky awarded me this lovely award the other day and I am just now getting around to posting about it.

Thank you Becky! I will get it posted in my side bar soon. I don’t know how to make it appear there myself! The rules say I am supposed to pass it along to five other bloggers. Most of the blogs I read don’t display awards so I am not going to participate in the same way. Instead I will just tell you my five top favorite blogs. In no particular order they are:
1. I would return the favor to Becky but she already has one.
2. Reya
3. Letty
4. Susan
5. Paula

I have many others I enjoy as well, but these are the ones I will always read first. If your name is there and you’d like the award, please help yourself!

Our cheese making class on Sunday was just wonderful! We really enjoyed it. But more on that later. What’s that? Did I take photos? Of course I took photos! What a silly question!

I’ve been knitting almost every day now after taking the summer off. I have three projects going at the moment. I just finished one of Rick’s fingerless mitts (except for the thumb and finishing),

I am working on this drop stitch ribbon scarf (a gift perhaps?)

and trying to add a few rows to my Three Button Sassy Shawl each day. I got this pattern in my email yesterday and it’s calling to me. One can never have too many fingerless gloves/mittens. The pattern looks fun and interesting.

I have many more things to blog about this week so I’ll probably be posting every day. Check back for updates! Plus, there is something very special in the works for this weekend. Something exciting is arriving all the way from Bozeman, Montana.

Please get out there and VOTE today!! I’ll be there standing in line this afternoon waiting to cast mine and then I am going to hide under the covers until they count all the votes and we finally know who our next President will be. Depending on the outcome I may be moving to Canada!

Guess who forgot about setting the clocks back last night, both external and internal? That’s why I got out of bed at what I thought I was 7:00 this morning and jumped in the shower so I would be ready to leave the house at 8:30. As I was standing there with hot water pouring down over my neck and shoulders, Rick came in and told me that it was really only 6:00. Well, I was already wet so going back to bed was not an option at that point. So, here I am in front of the computer instead. Aren’t you lucky? This is one of those random-not-planned posts.

We have plans for today. We enrolled in a cheese making class at a creamery about an hour’s drive from here. We get a tour of the farm and then make our own round of cheese which they will store and age for us. I think we get to pick it up sometime after Christmas. Should be a fun day.

Yesterday we took care of all the leaves carpeting our front yard. I think they make a lovely carpet but if left they will kill the grass. In the two years that we’ve lived here we had someone professional come and blow the yards of leaves. It’s a lot of leaves! It’s also very expensive as you might imagine. This year we took Johnny Jr. (who has a mulching attachment) and drove very slowly over the leaves mulching them into tiny pieces that just disappeared into the grass. Good for the grass; good for the pocketbook. It worked like a charm. We’re very pleased at how well this worked. Here you can see before and after.

We also replaced our little wood stove in the sun room. It was old and tired and needed new stove black. You couldn’t dampen it down to burn efficiently and it ate wood like it was candy. Our new stove will burn very efficiently and heat the sun room and kitchen area very nicely. Here they are side by side for comparison. The difference is like night and day. (Pun intended as I took the photos at different times of the day obviously.)

The man who installed it is also the chimney sweep that didn’t show up last week in our deluge of rain, so that was handy. He took a look at both chimneys and gave us a reasonable quote for sweeping them soon. They need it if the amount of chunky soot that came out of the little stove’s pipe is anything to judge by. We need to break it in so we had two little fires in it yesterday. What a difference! The tiny pile of wood burned for a very long time, giving out the kind of warmth that only wood can provide. Cozy.

As I type our little turkey family is out there in the front yard pecking away at the seed I threw down yesterday afternoon. It’s pretty light out there now at 6:59 a.m.

The trees are still beautiful. The colors are now all burnt yellows and oranges since we’ve had some pretty good frosts.

Gorgeous color, crisp days, frosty nights and cozy fires. What’s not to love about this season?

A week ago we went foraging for mushrooms. Before I get into more details of our annual mushroom forage, I wanted to show you a photo of our bounty from it.

Hen of the Woods: eaten
Chicken Mushroom: eaten (still a few bits left for maybe an omelette?)
Honey Mushrooms: pickled in a jar

Every year Allison of Two Pond Farm graciously allows people to join her on a mushroom hunt on her property. We did this last year, but only came home with honey mushrooms. Before we set out she showed us the prize we might all find: the coveted Hen of the Woods. Here is a photo of hers that she had found that morning (on the left).

After admiring her huge, organically grown pumpkins and being greeted by the geese, we were off.

Unfortunately our walk started off through the pasture where the lambs were. (We ordered a half of organically raised lamb from Allison back in the Spring, and frankly I could hardly stand to look at them. It’s better if I don’t think about it.)

We all started finding little honey mushrooms almost immediately. When one of the other people with us stopped to cut a nice sized clump of honey mushrooms, I happened to turn around and look down in the other direction. Hen of the Woods!,  I yelled for all to hear. I had found the prized mushroom! Mine, mine—all mine! Here it is before I cut it off the tree:

We found other mushrooms that were not edible, put pretty to look at.

This one is a coral mushroom. You can see why it was given its name since it looks like a piece of coral in the sea.

And some that we just left alone. We couldn’t identify these ugly stone-like ones growing in between the turkey tails.

We also found this disturbing plant growing in the woods. Known as “Doll’s Eyes” they are extremely poisonous and if the berries are ingested they can cause cardiac arrest and death.

Toward the end of our forage and on the way home, someone spied this Chicken Mushroom. It was extremely fresh and ripe for picking! Which of course we did. Everyone helped themselves to several “shelves” of this tasty mushroom.

Here is a peek into someone else’s basket. She gathered more honey mushrooms than we did.

With the Hen of the Woods we braised a rabbit in red wine, sautéed the mushrooms and served them on top of parmesan polenta.

The Chicken Mushroom we decided to use in a recipe from our wild mushroom recipe book: Mock “Chicken” Paprikash. First we cut and cleaned the mushrooms.

Next we sautéed them in a pan with green bell pepper and onion.

Then we added chicken broth, a cut up ripe tomato, sweet paprika, and finally the sour cream mixed with a little flour to thicken it up. And ate it. So yummy! Truly a seasonal treat!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Just because we eat wild mushrooms doesn’t mean that you should. Please use extreme caution! Even the Chicken Mushroom, which cannot be mistaken for any other mushroom, can cause gastric problems in some people. Rick and I have quite a bit of experience in identifying edible mushrooms. You should never eat anything that you are not certain of. Never. When trying a mushroom for the first time, eat sparingly until you know that it’s going to agree with you.

As you already know, Rick and I love to go to the farmer’s market in Warwick, New York. It’s just across the border for us and a lovely drive along Greenwood Lake. Some things remain a constant such as the cheeses and breads from Boblink Farm, the pesto booth, the goat cheese vendor. What doesn’t remain constant is the variety of fruits and vegetables. Let’s see what is now showing up at the market, shall we?

Onions and potatoes abound.

Peppers are popular! So many different kinds!

Leeks are lovely too.

Many shapes and varieties of eggplant are available.

Of course, who can forget apples this time of year?

Even a type of watermelon can still be found.

I couldn’t resist coming home with a few of these gorgeous hydrangeas for drying.