Cornbread and Rosehips

The wheel has turned.  Nighttime temps are dipping pretty low.

 Days are short and bright.  Mornings sparkle!! 

 

 The rose hips and the willows are the brightest colours in the landscape.

 

 

The creek is almost frozen over.  

 

 

   We keep the kitchen wood stove stoked pretty steady now ~ a cozy and comforting necessity!  This means that the oven is almost always at the ready. Which means, among other things, cornbread. 

Our favourite cornbread recipe uses yogurt and no flour. 

I like to replace the egg with ground flax seed.

 So easy, so quick and so good.  It goes like this.

Use a shallow 1 quart casserole for this cornbread.  Put a tablespoon of butter in the pan  and place it in or on the stove for a few minutes  to melt the butter and warm the dish.   In a bowl, mix the following ingredients together  and then pour into the hot baking dish. 

3/4 cup cornmeal
1 egg (slightly beaten)   or omit the egg and use 1 tablespoon of ground flax seed instead.
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups yogurt (real yogurt, not a low fat variety)
1 tablespoon honey

Return to a hot oven (425) for about 30 minutes until firmed up  and just browned at the edges.  And that's it. The recipe doubles nicely too.   I discovered this recipe in a cookbook I bought in the early 80's 'Nikki and David Goldbeck's Wholefoods Cuisine' I still have the big paperback minus it's cover and I still use it.   Groundbreaking at the time, it's become a good vegetarian basic.  

See you again when the snow flies.

Any day now.

October again

"Listen!  the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,

We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!"
-  Humbert Wolfe 

Our 48 acres have been offering up some lovely crisp mornings this month.  The days more often than not turn bright and sunny.  And the Sunsets!!  
Walkabouts. Photographs.  
David, as you may already know, is my Sky Man. He takes beautiful photos of all sorts of things (notably birds) but something magical happens when he points his lens at the sky. Colours, clouds, sun dogs, shades of blue... 
here's one from the other night.

 If you're so inclined, all of these photos appear much larger with a click of your mouse or a tap of your finger. 

 

This particular morning it felt like winter had come

and then ....  oh my.  Too lovely for words.

See these guys to the left here.  I never know just where on the creek they'll be, but one of these mornings I will approach softly enough not to disturb our little flock of fall ducks.  They don't go far but I don't like to startle them. 

It's Sunday.  4:30 in the afternoon. Time to start a fire in the cook stove, think about dinner and winding down, not that we've been all that wound up.

 

Thanks as always for dropping by.  Till next time.

The deep breath that is September

 

Early this month the change of season began to make itself known. Bright summer greens being touched with yellows and golds after some pretty chilly nights and frosty mornings.

In our greenhouse where sunflowers volunteer

Pinks are part of the picture too this time of year

 and the ice blue of end of season asters

 Our tiny little guest cabin that awaits installation of an equally tiny wood heater we picked up earlier this summer. There's a sleeping loft and room for two at a small kitchen table...maybe a mandolin and a sketchbook ~ that's about it. I love it!

  The foot bridge and the old pump house...

 our beautiful antique hay rake...

 close up of the old corral gate

 and a brand new swallow 

the day before they all left the meadow for this year.

 

  The colours!! The quiet!! 

and last 

but certainly not least; 

those awesome Aspens

  Here it is in a nutshell from an informative article found on www.nature.com: 

"Aspen form individual patches comprised of numerous stems, termed ramets, each with its own trunk, branches, leaves and a shared root system. All of these structures arose from a single aspen seed, often in the very distant past; while these patches remain connected via root systems, they comprise a single clone.

If the root system between patches is severed, the patches form physiologically separate entities but are generally still considered part of the same clone given that they are composed of genetically identical patches and parts, having been produced vegetatively.

The boundaries of different clones stand out most clearly in the early spring when flowering and leafing-out occur (in that order). Aspen occur as males and females separately, unlike the majority of tree species, which support both male and female reproductive parts on each individual."   And on it goes.  If you have a patch of aspen near you, do you notice the branching habits of each tree are similar and that the trees flower, leaf out and change colour at the same time, the same rate."

Cool, hey?! 

To read the whole article visit  http://goo.gl/MhIxA0 

and as always, thanks so much for dropping by!  

Happy Fall.

August Days on the meadow

 Haying!  Well and swiftly done.

  We have about 25 acres of hay on our 48 acre homestead.

  

Here the bales are being loaded up into the pit (high and dry) ... 40 ton this year.  The bulk of it will be fed to our neighbors cows through the winter. 

The best part of haying is always the day we can say ... "It's done!"

 And ...

The last of our youngun's are getting ready to be on their way.

 

The Evening Grosbeaks and Swallows and a family of Red Winged blackbirds are tending their young and teaching them the ropes. We'll miss them and always look forward to their return.

 

It's been a busy and productive month.  We dealt with some seriously smokey days from nearby wildfires and some beautiful late summer weather too, which came just when we needed it to get the haying done.  

Now we see Fall tiptoeing about with her paintbrush and watercolours. 

...and Life is Good.