A Porch With A House Attached

Very true around here I do not want to hear it lol.

Another week, another hike, This is Page Pond. 

My friend and I hiked this for the first time. 

 

This is an old dam from a saw mill that operated in the 1800's 

We kept seeing these down branches covered with mushrooms so pretty and I am not sure I have seen that many before.

And we saw this it looks like someone had already broken it but still it is very beautiful. That is a lot of work that's for sure.

This is the first time we have gotten turned around a bit. My friend had a map that was not much help and the signs not so much either. 

My big problem was I had walked 4 miles with hills and all before I headed out so I was very tired by the time I got out. 

This is the blue that I dyed this week. I am trying to clean out my wool closet and I am dying wool that I would never use as is. 

I did two different batches of dye for the same color wool 

one was a charcoal the other a purple. It came out pretty well and colors that I would use. 

I heard the quote that Rutherford B Hayes said when building his house. "I want a porch with a house attached" Just how I feel.

The leaves are now brown and falling from the trees so we will have to tuck our porch in for the winter.

We live on this porch we have our morning coffee and we eat our dinner out there. We spend every spare minute that we have there. But sadly when the cold weather sets in we have say good bye to it until spring. Sad

My sweet Donna (husband's cousin) and my room mate when we go to any rug hooking retreat is sending out happy Mail!!! 

She hates when I say we are related by marriage. She just wants me to say we are cousins,really we are cousins of the heart I love her to pieces. We re-met at a family reunion years ago, we clicked and have been in touch and laughing since!

She painted all of this!!!!

She has so much talent, she does it all! I am in complete awe of her always. Click here to visit her blog. She has inspired me to send out happy mail this winter when we are all shut in. Really who wouldn't like getting happy mail?

***

I got a new box grater and second swipe I caught my thumb pretty good. OHHHH it hurt! and it is very slow healing it is right on the bend of my thumb. 

***

We will trick or treat with sweet B this year again but not join my son in law's family at his grand mother's. She does such a nice job of feeding everyone and so nice to visit with the family.We will really miss it. We had our zoom appointment with husband's Boston Dr. He said lay as low as you can so we are. 

***

We are going into cooler, rainier weather this week sigh we are headed into w-i-n-t-e-r I spelled it out so Lauren wouldn't see it lol.

Have a great week everyone!

A Fallish Halloween

Are you sick of fall pictures yet? This fall has been just glorious. And I have seen a lot of falls! My daily walk on this road just keeps getting prettier and prettier. 

I love quotes by John Muir and other naturalist. 

There has been an explosion of hiking in our beautiful White Mt.s since covid hit and some of it with awful results. 

But what I see now and then is people walking or hiking on these beautiful roads and mountains with ear pieces in. It drives me crazy!!!

Listen to the wind in the trees, some trees are so close together they squeak when the wind blows from rubbing against each other. Or the song of a bird, the chatter of a chipmunk well you get the idea why be there if you are not going to be present?  

Even when I get in the car for my 10 minute ride home from work no radio goes on, I want to think my thoughts in quiet before I get home. I listen to music and people all day. There is just so much noise sometimes.

We are finally getting much needed rain so the leaves are staring to come off the trees. It gives me such joy to walk through them and hear the swish and crunch they make, makes me think of being a kid. 

While I am not ready for snow we got a little bit this week.

further north they got 4 inches. A sign of what is to come. 

We are having an on demand generator installed. When we ordered it it said it was 12 weeks back ordered. Husband got an email this week 2 weeks in and it is on its way!!! We lose power a fair amount and this is long overdue. It is pricey as we are having it wired right into the house so when power fails it starts up in seconds to keep us going. When we lose power we lose everything! The down side of living in the woods. So happy it will be up and running before our winter storms.

This is my brother in law he hosted a family Halloween party today

And this is his lovely wife lol. They do such a nice job and it was good to see everyone. We social distanced and wore a mask when we couldn't. We do not do much so it was so nice! And the weather was great!

This is farmer husband. Lots of laughs and just plain fun.

I am almost done with my sheep pillow I have to get an insert or stuffing.

And this would be a finished Jack's crow. The color is a little off just couldn't get it right.

And this is my newest rug taken from In praise of Autumn by blackbird designs. I am changing it up some and I am not keeping the gray pumpkin it is a work in progress.

This post has been long enough so I will head on down the road for now, have a wonderful healthy week!

What Happened?

A battle all day at work...

Last Monday my sweet friend and I headed up Rattlesnake, a hike we have done before. This is in the town I live over looking the lake. It is usually very busy but we caught it on a less busy day and up we went.

The day was glorious! 

After we got to the top we lounged on the rocks and ate snacks and talked, perfect! We are pretty good at social distancing and we donned our masks when we met someone on the trail. That was the first time I had used a mask on a hike not that great let me tell you.

I took a trick or treat pumpkin and cut it so I could wrap it around the light in our lamp on the driveway.

Then husband got in the attic for something and found our ghost.

He is holding an orange pumpkin it just doesn't show up when I take a picture. And the pumpkin above is the same as the picture before.

I have a few Halloween/ fall things scattered around.

I made pumpkin bread with cinnamon sugar on the top it is very good. And I will settle down with a piece and a cup of tea after this post.

Husband has lit the fireplace, we are tucked in. It gets dark so early now.

I wish I had done a before picture but this is the wool I had shown last post in the dye pot. It came out great! It was a horrid gold.

We have a weekend house guest this is Kora her family is camping no dogs allowed. So she has settled in with her grandparents and is enjoying herself. 

Jack's crow why do I have such issues??? I ripped out for the third time husband looks over and sees the large holes and says.

"Oh my God what happened to your rug can you fix it?" Um I rip out all the time, I guess he had never seen the aftermath lol. I started laughing for some reason it struck me as funny. 

 Jack's crow is done I will show a better picture when he is bound I am going to give this a try this time. 

And this is the first time I have hooked on two different rugs at the same time. I have lots of half done things that I put away and start on something else, but this time when I ran out of wool on one rug I would work on the other. I am almost done this one too and it will be a pillow. 

Husband had a Dr's appointment this week about 45 minutes south of us to our capital. He called me at work and said "How about I pick up Olive garden to go for dinner tonight." Now I know this is just a fancier fast food but we have nothing like that near us. And I didn't have to cook! We were both thrilled with it and had plenty for a second meal. Kind of crazy what makes us happy now days.

His big appointment in Boston that he has yearly has been moved to a zoom appointment. We are thrilled it takes us 2 plus hours to get there to see this Dr for about 15 minutes. The traffic is horrid and we are exhausted when we get home.

***

I hope you all are enjoying the fall and safe from hurricanes and fires. Have a great week.

My Cornstalk Mystery

Our beautiful foliage is fading fast this year.

I got Jack's crow on linen and started hooking it is such a sweet pattern and quick.

This is the small sheep I got at Dorr Mill last week. Everything is hooked except the background so I got the dye pots out and gave it a try. This was Dorr natural (pretty white) I just over dyed it with some khaki formula from a dye book. But since I didn't want it to dark I did just a little in the pot to dirty it up a bit.   

The rest I put over a very garish gold. It is still doing it's thing I will show you next week.

We swapped our rooms round today, this is the family room that we really lived in when my daughter was home. But when we remodeled a bit we put in a bar at the kitchen counter. Then we decided to move the family room to the full living room for years. Well we missed the fireplace in the family room.

So we moved it back and pared it down. I just don't like the tv over the fireplace but really that is the only place to put it. 

I did a very long walk this morning and added a very steep part to get my legs ready for more hiking. This was the foliage today.

And this was it about 5 days ago. The wind and rain have done a number on our colors. We are about 2 weeks ahead in our color. It was so dry this year I am sure that had something to do with it.

My cornstalk mystery continues this year. For the past several years someone has been leaving cornstalks tied to my mailbox. We have no idea who. This year they left so many!!! and a small pumpkin! 

This act of kindness touches my heart so much and inspired me to leave hydrangea bouquets on the porches of my friends. While not anonymous everyone loves it. Especially in these times any act of kindness is so appreciated.   

We celebrated 45 years this year! When I say that I feel I should be talking about someone else. Where did the time go? 

***

I got asked for the cake recipe so here it is easy and soooo

yummmy

World War II Chocolate Cake

8" or 9" square or round cake

1 1/2 cup of flour

1/4 cup of cocoa powder

1 cup of sugar

1/2 tsp salt 

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla 

1/3 cup veg oil

1 cup cold water (or 1 cup of cold coffee black coffee even better)

mix together

bake 350 for 30 to 40 minutes.

This makes a single layer and it is so moist if I make it just for us

I just dust it with powdered sugar. 

Let me know if you make it.

****

Have a wonderful healthy week.