Fall is Here!!

Turnip and mustard greens are cooking on the stove top, compliments of my farmer lady as they came in my basket. The chili pot has been recovered from its summertime storage bin and there is some whole wheat bread with pecans churning away in the bread machine!

My oh my are the leaves ever changing fast this year!I posted some pictures and I even put a few on Pinterest. Some people I don't even know have already clicked that they liked the pictures of the leaves changing colors.

I have lots to plant while the time is right and everything so far seems to have instructions for planting between now and November. So far, 58 bulbs have gone into the ground and I have another 40 that I bought just yesterday! At the store they had 10 tulip bulbs for $3.00 and the same price on daffodils so what the heck? I'm planning to start lining the driveway as soon as it's warm enough for me to get out there...today, not so much. The high is supposed to be 64 and I just looked at the thermometer and that's exactly what it is! Maybe tomorrow will be better for planting LOL

My chickens are up on the hitching post, the dogs are tied on either porch to keep them off there and Wally's out grading the driveway after last night's storm. I figured I might as well do some cooking and then try to get a post up on the blog.

It's quiet right now and all I can hear is the bread machine. The roosters will probably start their cock-a-doodle-dooing any minute now, they usually do when they get up on the hitching post. They look pretty up there against the gold and orange leaves in the background. A few minutes ago they were on the swing just a swingin... remember the old John Anderson song? hahahahahaha

I don't know if you've heard of it before but I bought a couple of those "Scentsy" things from a friend of mine. I bought a bunch of different melts to go in it but so far I've found I like the one called "Duke" the best. Man that thing smells good!!! If you have the opportunity to buy one of these things, remember to smell that one...the whole house gets permeated with it! Of course the one I picked has a rooster on it! lol but I'm not into collecting things with roosters. Please I have enough of them in the yard...this one just looked like it would match the cabin best. It's tan and brown with a little red and white to make it stand out (and of course a rooster on it). I'll try to remember to get a picture but I'm not Ernie so don't get your hopes up that it'll be very soon LOL!

I was given a gallon size freezer bag packed full of cayenne peppers. I'm planning to make lots of pepper vinegar with them... just when I thought no one would be giving me anymore food, here comes another batch! LOL I love it! I stay pretty busy with all of this stuff, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I will definitely bring him a bottle of the vinegar since he was so generous with the peppers...hope he likes it. Do you?

Meanwhile, I can't remember if I posted this recipe coming up so if it's a duplicate, oh well. It's a good one so it bears repeating... lol! If you're tired of the same old cole slaw then give this cranberry slaw a try. I think you'll find it a refreshing and somewhat addictive change...maybe even a bit healthy!

Here goes:
Cranberry Slaw
1 pkg shredded cabbage (or if you prefer to shred your own, as I do, it'll take a small head or half a medium head)
1 cup dried cranberries (I use the ones called craisins)
1 cup chopped nuts (any kind you like or you can leave them out but I used pecans)
1/2 cup chopped red onion (you can use whatever kind of onion but red is best)

Put all of that into a good size bowl and make the dressing.
Dressing:
1/3 cup sugar (or sugar substitute - it works just as well)
1/3 cup oil (vegetable)
1/2 tsp celery seeds
1/3 cup vinegar (regular)

Stir the dressing and pour over the slaw. Mix it all together! It's best if you let it sit for a while but I can never resist taking a few bites. It's that good!

Let me know if you like it. I made some this morning because there was a huge head of napa cabbage in my CSA basket and I find this cabbage takes well to that dressing. Regular cabbage works well too but why not use what you have, right?

Tonight is chili night...it's cold outside, the chili pot is clean and just begging to be filled with meat, sauce, beans (yes, I like beans in my chili!) and tomatoes. mmmmmm I'll make some jalapeno/cheese cornbread to go with it and dinner will be served. We'll need some warming up after a cold, rainy day like today!

The winter clothes will all be dug out soon but for today, I'm in a thermal shirt, jeans and warm shoes. We taken to wearing sweat pants at night when the temperatures drop into the 30's and 40's. Yes, we've already seen 38 degrees last night and it'll be in the 40's tonight. Next week they say it will stay in the 50's or above so a slight reprieve is all we're going to get.

I like this weather. It's the kind that makes you want to snuggle up in a warm blanket with some hot chocolate or cup a soup. A fire in the fireplace would be nice but the wood is too wet from the rain. We'll get it dried out and covered up before more rains come so we'll have the option should we choose to haul wood from the wood pile to the house. That's when my little red wagon comes in handy!

Turns out I'm a pretty good wood toter LOL Wally can stack it up pretty high before it gets too heavy for me. Most the time he won't let me tote it and he carries it himself but I like to help and don't want to seem like I'm a weeny butt. Besides, toting wood is really good exercise for your arms when you can't be digging in the dirt or hanging clothes on the line. My two favorite past times... :) Hey, I've always said, it may be the life for me but that doesn't mean it's the life for everyone!

I miss my clothesline already! The dryer has been in service now for a week or so because it's been too cold for the clothes to dry out there. My jeans seem so much tighter when they come from the dryer...I know I didn't gain any weight! As a matter of fact, I lost some. I bought some size 14 jeans a few weeks ago and now they are too big. I don't think I've lost a whole bunch but if it's one size, I'm happy with that! Of course Wally has lost about 25 pounds - whatever!!!

So Sydna hooked me up with Pinterest and I've been creating some boards. I've tried to invite people but since I'm not on Facebook, it can't find any of my friends. Feel free to invite me to yours if you have it - then maybe you can see mine too??? I'm clueless but alas that's no surprise!

Fairs, festivals, yard sales and the like are everywhere this time of year and I find myself hard pressed not to attend them all. While Wally was in FL, I went to the banana pudding festival in Centerville. I think this is the third annual  (you can google it, it's on the list of the top 20 things to do in the USA) and it's pretty cool. They have a quilt show, a car show and, of course, the banana pudding festival. They have arts and crafts, food vendors and different live bands throughout the day. They will even shuttle you from one event to the other.

The town is too small to have all the stuff in one place so the shuttle is nice if you don't want to drive around town. It's not that big of a town and Steve knows all the short cuts so we drove ourselves. We opted out of standing in line for banana pudding - the line was too long for me (no patience) and when we saw how much pudding they were getting for the $3.00 it cost to get it, we were glad we opted out. The little cups weren't even as big as the cups used for jello shots! They give you seven cups of different recipes but still...

We ended up getting a ribeye sandwich from the Lion's Club booth and some curly potatoes from another booth. YUMMY! Steve and Sherry went with me since Wally was gone and a really good time was had by all.

Before he left for FL, Wally took me to the Fried Food Festival. I may have written about this already? In any event, it's in Columbia and they have everything fried; twinkies, snickers bars, pickles, even kool-aid. Not sure how they do that and I couldn't see into the booth where they did it. We walked around the square and checked out all the arts and craft vendors. I had some fried pickles that were awesome - salty but oh so good!

We bought a couple things - like the cedar pumpkin you can see in my flickr photos, some strawberry jam (no sugar added), some pickled asparagus and some sweet/hot jalapeno relish. It's hot and sweet and you don't want to stop eating it. I haven't figured out what to put it on but I'm thinking I might try it on my chili tonight! mmm mmm good :)

This weekend there's an arts & crafts festival in Hohenwald that includes a 7 mile long yard sale route. We're going to give it a shot, what the heck, we don't either one need a thing but yard sales always have something you can't live without! You can probably google Hohenwald too...?

I went to a yard sale last weekend and bought a doily for fifty cents. It's one that someone made by hand, I can tell because it's slightly flawed. If I didn't point it out, you might not notice it but the doily is very pretty and has a vase of flowers as the design. Can't go wrong there and for just fifty cents, well, I couldn't resist. I love doilies and I have quite a few of them that were my great grandma's, my grandma's and even a couple that were my mom's. I love that someone knew how to make them and that they have held up so well for all these years.

I don't see me learning how to make them but the potential exists...are doilies embroidery, crewel or what? I have been considering learning how to quilt though. There's a place in Dickson where they teach it. I'll be a challenge for them seeing as how I haven't a clue how to sew. But I have the quilt rack (thank you Ernie!) and I'm ready to learn. Maybe that'll be a good thing to do during the winter when I can't dig in the dirt...I'm gonna miss digging in the dirt.

I've been saving my magazines so I'll have reading material when I can't dig. Okay, I confess, I peaked at the recipes...had to do that for the holidays. I'm also deciding what seed catalogs to order. I buy my seeds at the co-op but it doesn't hurt to know what you want in advance. I may find something the co-op doesn't carry...Burpee was a disappointment. The seeds I ordered from them didn't produce. I planted about 50 beets and got one. I planted about the same number of carrots and got exactly none...they sprouted and that was it. No carrots. Oh well.

I bought some cheap seeds at the Dollar Store that did better than the Burpee seeds. Too bad the chickens liked them as much as I did. LOL!

Well, it's time for me to stop typing for the day. Hope you enjoy the post and the flickr pictures. Let me know if you try to find me on Pinterest...

Plant something would ya?????