Autumnail Sketches

[Phalon]

I know, Joxie - I can't remember ever seeing it - at least not that many - either. It was like two seasons at once.

Today, the snow almost all melted, though. I'm ready, with rake in hand.....tomorrow looks like it'll be the only clear day this upcoming week.

[Scrappy Amazon]

PSSST.........SIREN!!!!!



Awww...shoulda ducked a little faster *snicker*

[Siren]

Oh yeah? You best remember, Scrappy, that Santa is making note of who's nice and who's naughty. And naughty includes causing trouble! *wagging finger*

[Scrappy Amazon]

OOOH...I'm not escared of you! Ok...maybe a little.....*snort*

[Siren]

It's about time for our family to embark on the great Christmas tree hunt. We have used a very nice artificial tree the last couple of years. But my youngest niece, who suffers most from having a cedar tree in the house, is insisting that we have a real tree this year.

Anyone here have a real Christmas tree? Do you cut one, or buy one? If you have an artificial tree, is it the pre-lit kind? Pre-lit is almost like cheating, to me. I mean, what's Christmas without Dad losing his temper, sitting in the living room floor, trying to untangle the Christmas lights?

[Scrappy Amazon]

For the last several years we've had fake trees. The air here is so dry and it's usually too warm to keep a real one for very long at all. But this year I think Mom really wants a real one. And when we do we ALWAYS get Noble Firs.

[Phalon]

Live cut trees turn both me and LX into wheezy mess. We've put up an artificial tree since LX was two years old; it was then, at Christmas time, we discovered she has asthma - the live tree sent her to the hospital for a week.

Ours is a pretty tree though; guests are often fooled into thinking it's real. It's not pre-lighted, (I'm sure pre-strung lights weren't even a twinkle in the retailers eyes back when we bought it). And yes, Siren - that would be cheating. What's decorating the tree if you don't have strands of lights strung through the house, from one end to the other it seems, making sure they all work before getting them on the tree.

We do cheat though. The tree is nothing less than a b!tch to put together - each branch in its place, and each twig on each branch fluffed out and bent into position. You know those huge tree bags that people use to cover their live tree when hauling it through the house and out to the curb after Christmas? After our tree is undecorated, each ornament placed back in its box, and the strands of lights wadded into a ball after we swore this was the year we'd wind them neatly before putting them away, we cover the tree, fully assembled, with one of those bags, and struggle to get it down the narrow basement stairs - it's a tight squeeze similar to those scenes where Santa stuffs the tree down the chimney in cartoons. And I'm sure it would be quite cartoonishly comical to watch Hubs and I carry it downstairs.

And maybe sometime this week - back upstairs.

Did you get yours yet? I've often thought while driving along the highway, that the red cedars I see along the way would make perfect Christmas trees....and even picked which one I'd choose out of the clump of them as I drove by.

We've got white cedars, and red cedars here....and neither are actually cedars; true cedar doesn't grow here at all. White cedar is arborvitae, and red cedar is juniper. From your description, it sounds like red cedar is the one your family chooses for your Christmas tree; junipers have the blue berries. Kind of an interesting bit of information: When the berries turn blue they are ripe; it takes two years for them to ripen. It's these berries that are used to make gin. Birds love them, and I'm not sure if it's true, but I've both heard and read stories of the birds actually flying erratically, and almost drunkenly after eating them. I guess after two years on the tree, there is a certain amount of fermentation that occurs.

And all this talk of Christmas trees, snowball fights, and fruitcake rightfully being tossed, I guess it's time to put this thread to bed for the year.

The raking is done, and the leaf-sucker has sucked the last leaf until next Autumn.

[vox]

Love the picture Phalon, can you come a rake our leaves up please? tho pleased that we don't get quite as many as you! As for pre-lit christmas Trees I got fed up threading the lights through the tree last year, so bought a fibre-optic one that changes colour every few seconds, it's quite pretty when decorated.



By the way, as the instigator, this is for you!

"Click Me"

[Phalon]

Me? An insti-gator? Just add water; I am gator, hear me roar. A Pot Stirrer maybe....no, no that was Gabbin; I don't cook either.

I am though, now the possessor of one lovingly petrified, manorly big-ass fruitcake, (isn't everything bigger in Texass, where the thing originated. It's nice our fruitcake is classy enough for a title, I think). Kind of you, Vox, and I thank you, but I've had my fill and now it's time to pass it on.........

[Siren]

Always a bit poignant, watching the last leaves fall. I hate the dead, bare-branch days of winter. But thank goodness that we have the holidays to ease us into it, distract us for awhile.

Gams, before you pass that fruitcake along, you might look to see if it has any initials and dates scratched into it, like a stone at a historical site. We might be amazed to know how long that thing's been floating around.

[Scrappy Amazon]

Um....I doubt it floats anymore. Or maybe it's like petrified wood......

[Phalon]

Siren, that is poignant in itself - "the dead, bare-branch days of winter". I like winter....as soon as I get myself acclimated to the cold, which is often an ACK-I-gotta-do-it-I-can-do-it-OMG-it's-cold-it's-cold-it's-cold process, kinda like jumping into Lake Michigan - no such thing as easing in; it just prolongs the agony.

Or at least that's what Hubs and the girls tell me, as I hop around in the water creeping in inch by inch, submerged body parts numb, until the family gets tired of waiting for me and drag, pull, and push me all the way under. I've always been a cold-water easer, even when I was on the swim team in high-school. Cold water at 5:30 in the morning was not my idea of a great start to the day, but I sure was wide awake by the time classes began.

Working on the winter acclimation, I've forced myself out into the cold to roller-ski a few times this past week. I'm not there yet - it still feels damned cold.

[Siren]

I'm a semi-easer, Gams. I'll wade in to about waist deep, then dive in.

I find the scenery of winter depresses me a bit. I get that from my mom. My dad built her a sunny room for her plants last year, so she can have plants year-round. Before that, he'd been known to buy her flowers just to lift her spirits in winter's starkest days.

[Phalon]

I understand the scenery of winter depresses a lot of people, Siren - the grayness of it all and the lack of sun. It always seems so dark here in winter; I know people who hole themselves up in their houses, and only come out if it's absolutely necessary - my Marathong friend is like that. I'm the opposite. I get wishy-washy and stir-crazy if couped up for any length of time, (usually I can only last a day). Cross-country skiing, a stroll downtown to window shop, or a walk on the beach keeps me sane.....or as close to sane as I get anyway.

How sweet of your dad to bring your mom flowers to cheers her winter moods. I love flowers inside the house, and wish I could convince Hubs to do it more often. Though he's never uttered the following, this is more his flower-giving mentality:

"Why do people give each other flowers? To celebrate various important occasions, they're killing living creatures? Why restrict it to plants? "Sweetheart, let's make up. Have this deceased squirrel." ~The Washington Post

I love that quote; it cracks me up because it reminds me of a co-worker this past summer. She's involved in a long-distance love-affair, and her boyfriend took a few weeks off work to come visit. It's a typical cultural clash of North Meets South; he's from Kentucky.

Because Hubs is originally from the South, she'd come into work and want commiseration comfort from me each morning. "Do you know what he cooked for dinner last night? Deep fried this, and deep fried that; I can feel my arteries hardening just standing here. Even the vegetables were fried." I tried to be helpful - at least you don't have to make dinner when you get home tired, hot, and dirty, I offered. But the list of things that he did not to her satisfaction went on and on, until the love birds were beginning to be sorry he migrated north for the summer. They got into an argument over what she found in her refrigerator when she got home from work one day.

Squirrels. Seems boyfriend was watching the squirrels dig in her vegetable garden and thought he'd save her vegetables by shooting the squirrels with a BB gun he'd just bought her young son, (the BB-gun; another bone of contention). And since he now had a couple of dead squirrels, why not fry them up for dinner?

The next morning she came in grumbling about how hungry she was because she'd skipped the fried squirrel dinner. Again, trying to be ever-so-helpful, I repeated the "deceased squirrel" quote, and told her he was just trying to make amends from the argument they'd had.

She was not amused.

[Phalon]

ACK! It’s the fifth day of autumn! I can’t believe I let even a day of my most favorite of seasons go by without some kind of mention.

We started autumn a day early with a couple of traditional fall activities – we went apple picking, and worked on Halloween costumes on Sunday.

The first week of autumn has been a truly beautiful one; you couldn't ask for more gorgeous weather. Cool nights followed by cool mornings, but sunny, warm days - the weather is stuck somewhere between summer and fall, and that's fine with me.

Some autumn color is starting to show, and leaves are starting to drop. In shorts and a t-shirt, I walked to Xena-Sis's house the other evening, and had only a few lonely goosebumps on my legs. It was dark when I walked home, and I couldn't see them, but I could hear the crunching. I love the sound of crunching leaves.

Ah....the sounds, smells, and sights of autumn!!! Everyone seems to be outside working in their yards, enjoying these early days of fall. Wednesday, the Town Cross-Dresser was fixing his lawnmower.....dressed in only pink silk panties and black heels.

Some of the sights I could do without.

[Phalon]

I've been working in my gardens the last couple of evenings. I always wonder how this happens: I look and there are things I could do, but think "oh, it doesn't look too bad....actually, it looks pretty good". The little things I could do, but don't, add up and then one day, "BAM!", I look again and everything has seemed to go to hell overnight.

Working out there in the evenings, busy pulling this, and chopping back that, until suddenly, I realize I can't see what I'm pulling or chopping anymore. The days are getting shorter; it gets dark so early now.

After it got too dark for pulling and chopping last night, we went over Xena-Sis's. She'd been making homemade apple sauce and canning cooked apples all day. I've never really cared for cooked apples, and don't like apple sauce, (it's a texture thing), but dang, her kitchen smelled wonderful. Mmmmmm. Apple and cinnamonly good.

[vox]

Mmmm! love the smell of cinnamon! my air freshner in the lounge lets out a burst of cinnamon every 36 minutes!

[Siren]

Gams said: " Everyone seems to be outside working in their yards, enjoying these early days of fall. Wednesday, the Town Cross-Dresser was fixing his lawnmower.....dressed in only pink silk panties and black heels."

LOL!! What a vivid mental picture that is! Tell him that it's a bit late in the year for pink panties. It's time for the fall colors - orange, brown, gold, etc - if you please.

[Scrappy Amazon]

A few years back we made homemade outdoor ornaments using applesauce and tons of cinnemon. I know sound gross but damn they smelled GREAT and surprisingly never got moldy.

[Phalon]

LOL!! What a vivid mental picture that is! Tell him that it's a bit late in the year for pink panties. It's time for the fall colors - orange, brown, gold, etc - if you please

I don't think it would help, Siren. He's been arrested by the fashion police a few times in the past.....wearing a g-string after Labor Day; it was white, for Pete's Sake! Claiming his right to freedom of expression, and a billboard decorates his lawn telling everyone so. It's the kind of sign that has those "Take One" slotty things filled with pamphlets, though I've never stopped to take one to see what Our Lady/Man in pink has to say....not wanting to tie up traffic. He's on one of the main drags, (there's a pun in there somewhere), into town, and he's not what I'd think a traffic stopper - ugly legs.

A few years back we made homemade outdoor ornaments using applesauce and tons of cinnemon. I know sound gross but damn they smelled GREAT and surprisingly never got moldy.

Scrappy, I'm having a hard time picturing ornaments made from applesauce. Wouldn't they be drippy, and attract apple-sauce loving critters? What critters eat apple-sauce? Your neighbors, maybe? Please explain a bit more - the ornaments sound wonderful smelling.

[Phalon]

Brrrr. It's been a chilly week. Cold rain and gloom up until Friday, when it turned into bright sun, and cold. Frost in the mornings, and I'm thankful that for once I remembered to get the houseplants inside before they got nipped.

Home-coming was Friday. Funny thing about small town football games - everyone attends. Where I grew up, only the parents of players, and the high-school student body went. Here, it's a whole-town event. Xena-Sis, who lives across the street from the football field, always puts out a nice spread - chili and hot-dogs, munchies, coffee and hot chocolate. Friends just stop in to grab a bite to eat, or a hot drink to warm up, (and it was certainly needed Friday; the temperature outside during the game dipped into the low forties). It's kind of funny, some of the people who drop in and out, I only see once a year.....I know them only from meeting at these spreads in Xena-Sis's garage, a kind of homecoming in itself, and we all greet each other like long-lost friends.

Another cold one last night, and we spent it outside too. An Oktober Fest was held north of here, and we went with friends who live half-way in-between. Because I worked yesterday, we showed up only for the last couple of hours of the all-day event, and wanting to get rid of the food and drink they had left, we were plied with free brats and sauerkraut....they ate sauerkraut; I can't stand the stuff....and drank beer for free. I was able to scrounge out some coffee, and downed a couple of cups that, I'm sure, had been brewing for hours; it was probably stronger than the sauerkraut. But ahhhh, so warmingly good.

With all this coffee served this weekend, I've definately had my fill......but could use another cup right now. It's only thirty-six degrees outside!

[Scrappy Amazon]

Oct 2, 2008 5:57:42 GMT -6 Phalon said:

Scrappy, I'm having a hard time picturing ornaments made from applesauce. Wouldn't they be drippy, and attract apple-sauce loving critters? What critters eat apple-sauce? Your neighbors, maybe? Please explain a bit more - the ornaments sound wonderful smelling.

Hmmm..hard to explain. I'll see if I can dig up the recipe. But basically you end up using so much cinnamon that it makes a sort of dough. Then you punch out shapes using cookie cutters and let them dry. And wala...you have omg smelling ornaments that can be hung anywhere even inside as long as it's not a terribly humid environment. I don't reccomend the snowflake shapes. They end up being too brittle and fragile.

[Phalon]

If you can find the recipe, Scrappy, I'd like to have it. Since it's not something the someone has to actually eat, I think I can handle it, and it sounds like a fun kid project. BP would love it.

She and I had loads of fun yesterday. It warmed up to a nice and sunny sixty degrees and we walked downtown to see the scarecrows; the merchants put them up in front of their stores, and there is a contest to see who has the most original.

Along the way, she had to pick up colored leaves - "ooooh"ing and "aaah"ing over each one until my purse was so full it wouldn't hold anymore - I admit, I added my share too. It was kind of hard to find my wallet in there with all the leaves; making a purchase, leaves fell all over the floor in front of the sales counter, and we gathered them again.

We sat in the gazebo at the small park, and collected acorns fallen from the oak there. Oaks are sacred in many cultures, and it is thought that acorns bring good luck. We found two acorns attached together at the stems. We decided this was double the good luck, broke them apart wishbone style, and each put one in our pockets to carry the luck with us.

The scarecrows were fun. A lot of them were traditional pumpkin-head types, but some were quite unique. The hardware store’s was made from a rake, tools, and barbeque grill parts. One of the restaurants had a mannequin dressed in a 50’s style waitress’s uniform – she was quite pretty, but badly needed to shave her legs – straw-hair stuck through her stockings. The winner this year was the hair salon were I get my hair cut. A mannequin hair-stylist held giant scissors. In a barber’s chair was another mannequin, with it’s fake-bloody head in it’s lap. A sign described the scene, “You said you wanted a little off the top.” Ah…you have to love those with a sense of the macabre, and if you wondered why I call my hairstylist the Demon Hairstylist of Center Street, you now have your answer.

My favorite was the Headless Horseman in front of the same store that had my favorite from last year – Poe’s Raven in human-sized form.




It’s beginning to look like autumn.

[Siren]

Lovely photos, Gams! Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed hearing about your day w/ BP. I'm sure she loved having you all to herself. Those times are precious for parent and child. I liked this part, particularly:

"We found two acorns attached together at the stems. We decided this was double the good luck, broke them apart wishbone style, and each put one in our pockets to carry the luck with us."

That is sweet! You know, it would be cool to plant both those acorns relatively near each other. As the trees grow, it would be fun remembering, years from now, where those acorns came from. And think of all the luck you'd get from the future acorns!

Yesterday we attended a softball game that featured the seniors from area schools, including my oldest niece. She had a very good time, and even got a hit off a girl she said was a "real you-know-what". I can assure you, she didn't mean that as a compliment! It was a poignant event for some families - watching their daughters in their last official game as students. We're lucky, because Jo's team's season will last a little longer; they're headed to the state play-offs next week. And she plans to play slow-pitch softball in the spring. She is in love with the sport, but even more in love with her teammates. Jo has always been a loner. It's only now, in her senior year, that she has discovered the joy of camaraderie with friends and teammates. And she realizes now what she has missed out on, a painful realization.

[Phalon]

Aw, poor Jo! I remember after the swim team awards banquet at the end of the season my senior year of high school, I came home and cried because it was all over. You get so close to your teammates when you play any type of sport, that there is a kind of hole left when it ends. Your teammates may have a different circle of friends, and you may rarely see them outside of the team, but when you're all together practicing and competing, they are your sisters.

And good luck to her at the state play-offs!

[Phalon]

Thanks, Scrappy! Now if I can only remember to make them around Christmas time - it seems so far away now.

[Scrappy Amazon]

OH! And one more thing. Depending on the cutter you use some might have a tendancy to curl around the edges. So we use another cookie sheet on top to prevent that.

[Phalon]

Wait! You can't leave now....you remember who you're explaining kitchen procedures to, yes? Get back in here, Scrappy.

I have to buy cookie cutters, don't I?

No, no - just kidding; I know that part. But my cookie sheets have sides. I put them bottom-to-bottom, or lip-to-lip? Oooo, there could be a little heat in the kitchen with that lip-to-lip action....or bottom-to-bottom for that matter. Actually, this kitchen stuff is starting to sound kinda fun. No wonder why they say 'where there's heat, there's fire'.

Wait! I have to buy a fire extinguisher too, don't I?

[Scrappy Amazon]

If you don't already have a fire extiguisher you need the fire department on standby. As for the cookie sheets, put the ornaments in a sheet like you're baking cookies then place another one over it like you're stacking them for storage. One inside the other. But don't squish down.

[Siren]

Fall means high school sports - some just beginning, some just ending. My niece's high school softball season ended yesterday, just short of her goal; they came in second in the state play-offs. She, a senior, was heartbroken, and sobbed on my shoulder after the game. One of her teammates, another senior, is the team's leader and motivator. She, too, cried after the game. Then, she valiantly composed herself, and put on a happy face. But tears continued to stream down her cheeks, nonetheless.

I can remember my last high school game vividly. I wasn't skilled enough to play basketball. So, I got on the cheerleading squad instead. Really loved it, too. Most of the other cheerleaders were little divas who got on my nerves. But it was worth it to get to travel on the bus with the team. Great times with good friends. But that last game was a heartbreaker. I can still see the locker room, and the players scattered around, many of them sitting in the floor. And almost all of them were sobbing. I patted some shoulders and murmured some comforting words. And I waited till I left the locker room to do my crying. I didn't want to make them feel worse. It took us a couple of hours to get home. When I arrived, I found a copy of Scandal's debut lp lying on my bed. I had been playing their song on my record player 45 for weeks. My middle sis, having heard that we'd lost, bought the album for me to try and make me feel better.

It would take a lot to make the Sooner nation feel better today. OU football lost to Texas yesterday. Texas! Oh, the agony!