Watch out New Moon- we’re ready for you

I admit it. I read the Twilight books. Guys who sparkle in the sunshine don’t do it for me. Come to think of it- I don’t think I’ve seen Nate sparkle anywhere. I’ve seen him do other things that I can’t share on my family oriented blog- but not sparkle – no way – nuh-uh.


But Nate must be afraid of vampires. Or he feels threatened by how dreamy Edward Cullen really is – because my husband has planted more garlic than we could eat in four years. When I know he is doing something weird, and he knows I know it – talking to him never works.

“So why are we planting so much garlic?” I ask.

“This isn’t just garlic this is Susanville softneck- the perfect garlic for our climate.” His number one tactic is to confuse me with the facts. He thinks if he can spew enough facts out it will sidetrack me. He is pretty good at it. I am often sidetracked, in fact I remember when… But not this time, he was filling all my flower beds with garlic bulbs.

“So what are you going to do with this much garlic?”
“Braid it.”

“Braid it?”

“Besides eating it, braiding is what you do with garlic. You braid it and hang it.”

Now I have images of his next project which includes garlic hanging from various fixtures in my kitchen. Very Italianesque – but never in my decorating plan.

In the end I talked him into giving one of the bulbs away to his sister, who went home and planted more garlic than they will eat in a number of years as well.

At least Nate doesn’t have to worry about some debonair vampire coming in to sweep me off my feet. He’s got that covered, and braided, and hanging.

Thankful

I’m thankful for little reminders of the blessings I have…

French fries scatted through the back seat of my car.

Crayon sketches on the backs of my dining room chairs.

Soggy Cheerios floating in warm cereal bowl milk.

Princess dress-up clothes scattered around the house.

Chalk drawings on my sidewalk and driveway.

That macaroni and cheese is a delicacy.

That bread crusts are nasty.

And the sweet call of “Mommy” both day and night, to remind me, I am the most important person in their world.

The Poison Apple

I know why wicked step mothers poisoned apples. I know why the forbidden fruit is often portrayed as an apple. Why do the Halloween psycho paths pick the apple to hide their razor blades? Because the fruit is just plain downright evil.

When we constructed our house Nate carefully preserved the last two apple trees that survived in the once-orchard where our home is now built. By the end of each fall I always wish that he had simply cut the malevolent things down. We are always inundated with apples.

We pick them off when they are little to increase the size and decrease the yield. All summer long our daughters are paid a dollar a 5-gallon bucket to pick up the windfalls. And still we have bushels of apples. We gave some away, we made quarts and quarts of apple sauce, we made pie filling, we made apple butter. Still we had more apples.

I want you all to know. Once again, this year, I have conquered the apple tree.

Armed with my Vitorio Strainer, boiling and bubbling stockpots and gleaming jars I have won. The sink may be full of the casualties of my apple canning, the floors may be sticky from their lifeblood, but the last box of apples off the apple tree has been canned.

I didn’t do it all alone this year. I had help from a few stalwart individuals who would not feint at the site of buckets and boxes of apples. On the last batch my best help was Gracie. She turned and turned the handle on the strainer, mashing mountains of apples to mounds of mush.

In my canning frenzy, and halfway through eating a can of jellied cranberry sauce (I guess it must be one of those pregnancy cravings) I decided to try something a little different. I threw in some of this and some of that, our last batch ended up being Cranberry-orange-apple butter. The recipe, as best as I can render it is listed below

Lots of Apples

Couple cans of Cranberry Sauce (each containing over 600 Calories)

Orange zest

Orange Juice

Cinnamon

Cloves

Quarter apples and boil for 20 minutes. Remove from pot and press through strainer. Return to the stock pot and add all other ingredient to taste. Let simmer stir every few minutes for the next 2 hours or until the most of the liquid has evaporated. Pour in to jars and process for 20 minutes.

Pile it ON!

I am good at making piles.

There are piles of clothes in my laundry room.

There are piles of paper at my computer.

There are piles of dishes in my sink. But the piles I like the best are the piles we make in the fall. Brown, red and yellow, each tree adds to the ante with its own shape and size of delicately fading leaves.

Autumn leaves have played an important part in the life of our family.

Nate proposed to me at the top of Butterfield Canyon in a late fall snow storm. On the way down the canyon he stopped and gathered leaves off one of the many chameleon like scrub-oak trees that were trading their glossy greens for the sun bright yellow and brilliant red. I keep those leaves carefully pressed in a book on our mantle. I don’t remember how many leaves he picked off the tree – he said we could give each of our kids one when they got married. Some part of me hopes he only picked three.

When we lived in Nate’s grandparents house, as they served a mission. we were cursed with three giant ash trees and 17 or more towering poplars. They dumped leaves all over the lawn. It felt like all we did was rake and mow leaves all fall. Nate was out raking up the leaves one night when he lost his wedding ring.

A combination of the cold and the work let it slip right off his finger. We had cousins and aunts and uncles, flashlights and metal detectors. My mom finally found it. Nate says that was the point she either wanted us to stay married or figured she didn’t want to give me the chance to do any worse – so she gave it back.

There is something magical about jumping into a pile of leaves. Something magnetic. Something that whispers to the child that dwells quietly in each of us “Come and jump into me, burrow through me.” Piles of leaves capture the smell of the earth, when the tops of the trees, so far from our reach are finally ours to play in.

It’s not truly fall, and winter cannot come, until the leaves piled so high, are scattered and tossed, by those who pounce, bury and burrow.