Back in Ann Arbor we had many little Carolina Wrens about the yard and I loved their perky demeanor and tidy little stick nests. They were particularly cute hopping upside down the trunk in the white birch right outside my office window. Now I know just one Wren in Ann Arbor but she is pretty perky, too and brings a lot to the birders in our blog neighborhood.

Nice weekend, with some time away from felting. I did spend yesterday rendering some of that carload of squash and pumpkins I hauled back from North Carolina into edible ingredients. I had picked out quite an assortment, gave a bunch away to friends here and used the rest for Halloween decor, minus carving. I decided if I roast 4 or 5 a weekend we’ll go through all of them, although heaven only knows what I’ll do with 50# of assorted squash/pumpkin puree in freezer bags…Send in your favorite recipes now, please. Because I had picked up some unusually attractive heirloom varieties I’m also seed saving so there are little paper towels covered with various seeds drying out around the house.

Here are two of my favorite recipes for squash soup- one with a bite and one without. And you can also use pumpkin or a mix thereof.

Roasted Hazelnut and squash soup

1 med. butternut squash (acorn squash or fresh pumpkin)
1 sm. onion, chopped
1 tbsp. butter
1/2 c. whole roasted hazelnuts (almonds, walnuts, or pecans. I used Georgia pecans we bought on our trip home.)
1 qt. chicken broth
1 c. whipping cream
White pepper
Salt
Fresh grated nutmeg
1 c. dairy sour cream
1/4 c. coarsely chopped roasted nuts

Halve squash lengthwise; remove seeds. Place cut side up in shallow baking dish. Bake in 400 degree oven about 1 hour or until soft. Don’t add water. Scoop out pulp; set aside. In a large saucepan, cook onion in butter until tender. Stir in squash and 1/2 cup nuts. Stir in broth. Cook over medium low heat for 30 minutes. Transfer about 1/4 of soup to blender container. Cover; blend smooth. Repeat with remaining soup. Return to saucepan. Stir in cream and season with some white pepper, nutmeg and salt. Bring just to boiling. Remove from heat. Season to taste. Ladle into bowls, topping with a dollop of sour cream and some of remaining nuts. 8 to 10 servings.

And here’s one with some kick to it- yum!

Curried squash soup

2 2-pound butternut squash, halved lengthwise, seeded

2 teaspoons olive oil

2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped carrots

1/2 cup chopped peeled apple

2 teaspoons Thai red curry paste*

2 14-ounce cans low-salt chicken broth

2 bay leaves

1/4 cup whipping cream

2 tablespoons honey

6 tablespoons sour cream, stirred to loosen

Chopped fresh cilantro

Preheat oven to 375°F. Brush cut side of squash with oil; place squash, cut side down, on large rimmed baking sheet. Roast until tender, about 1 hour. Cool slightly. Scoop squash out into large bowl. Measure 3 cups squash (reserve any remaining squash for another use).

Melt butter in large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrots, and apple; sauté 5 minutes. Add curry paste; stir 2 minutes. Add chicken broth, bay leaves, and 3 cups squash. Bring to boil; reduce heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered 1 hour. Discard bay leaves. Working in batches, puree soup in blender until smooth. Return to same pot. Stir in cream and honey. Season with salt and pepper. Rewarm over medium-high heat.

Divide soup among bowls. Drizzle with sour cream; sprinkle with cilantro.

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Rich played golf and one of his buddies got this phone picture of Rich discussing his next shot with this golfer gopher tortoise. I love these guys so I was a little jealous not to see him but it puts me in a mind to take out the tram next time I’m down at Boyd Hill and toodle around to the place where all the gophers nest. Maybe I’ll get some good photos.

We ended the weekend with another seasonal meal at our neighbor friends, Rich and Marion. They are also transplants from the north; here in Florida you’re either a native Cracker, a Snowbird or one of a large crowd that just seems to have slid downhill to the bottom of the country. (To wit, this digression: Abby overhead this conversation at the zoo here recently: “Is that a min-key?” “Nah, looks like a ‘coon.” “Lemme try and read this sign. It says it’s a Rang Tail LaMar!”) Marion is first generation so she made Polish Kapusta (sauerkraut) with shredded pork and polish sausage. It had simmered away for a whole day and then been held over for one more for the flavor to fully develop. My Rich thought he was on his way to heaven, as this dish was a childhood memory of his favorite foods. We got into a discussion about classic family dishes that were served when autumn rolled around.(We’re pretending it’s autumn here in St. Petersburg.) I remembered New England Boiled Dinner and Marion’s Rich remembered Toucan Supper, which consisted of these two items:

Toucans. Get it? Then we all started to remember Spam with brown sugar and it was a downhill slide from there until Marion served homemade pumpkin pie. Guess where the pumpkin came from?

…and, despite a huge crisis of confidence, turned it all in. Just as I was packing my boxes I got an email from my friend in Minnesota who is going to Camp PluckyFluff next weekend to do some extreme fiber spinning. By then I was so over the top that we got to laughing hard about Camp FucknFelt here at my house and agreed that this time next year we could be running the BCMA camp from a base in Asheville. I dropped off my work at the gallery and we got it all barcoded and they seemed very pleased with it and asked me to help them with the holiday windows.

And then I fed the hawk. She (Shadow) took her sweet ass time because it was mouse day and she really savours those long stringy innards. She’s a big bird and so, although I start out with her on the glove at a good social distance for the two of us, by the end of mouse day my arm has dropped and we’re practically beak to nose as she dines in leisurely fashion. If she shakes her head to clear her beak I’m in precisely the right spot to get it on my glasses. And then she gives me that sidelong look as though to say, “You have mess on your face.”

Then I cleaned the house. Yes, I did. And yesterday morning, bright and early, I headed down to the EarthBox Research Center and bought the seedlings for my winter garden and some new covers and fertilizer and came home and got those planted up. Blake Whisenant, EarthBox inventor, was still there, still planting and we said hello and laughed about surviving another summer. This is really perverse; where I come from everyone comes outdoors on April 1st and smiles about surviving another winter. Then I stopped at the bead store briefly. Soon we had hundreds of little goblins and witches on the doorstep for trick or treat. Halloween is huge in St. Petersburg, especially here in the Old Northeast, where streets get closed off and the houses decorated beyond your wildest imagination. They are themed (Harry Potter, Wizard of Oz and this year an incredible Thriller display that included Jackson rising from the dead in a graveyard and  a huge video screen playing the original Michael Jackson music video. News crews come out from all over, there are contests and children are brought in by the busloads from other parts of town to enjoy the sights and sounds. After bedtime, the adults take over with rolling golf cart bars, giant porch parties and a live music stage. It’s basically the scariest, spookiest and biggest block party ever. After we handed out candy we walked around with the neighbors for about an hour and then I was done. Have I mentioned that it seems to be hot down here? We hit 91 Friday and yesterday evening was still extremely muggy and hot.

(Burial versus cremation? )

These are both news photos. The streets were so crowded and wild that I didn’t carry my camera. Rich estimates that t one point there were a couple thousand people out in our three block area.

(This looked REALLY scary at night. Just saying.)

Hot or not, nevertheless. It is November 1st and I’m planning to use my extra hour to bake down some of these Halloween pumpkin and squash for soup, freezing and later use. I’ve had two delicious soups from squash recently and that’s saying a lot for someone who grew up hating squash. It’s definitely one of those veggies that’s good for the times; you can get a lot of bang for the buck. Recipes tomorrow. (You think I’m kidding, right? I’m not. I’ve decided to rejoin the neighborhood in my usual starts and fits manner and make-another-attempt to get up at least a few posts a week.)

Haven’t seen much of you lately. At 230 this afternoon, the art that is lost in this mess moves to the Florida Craftsman Gallery and I’ll head down to feed the hawks and owls. And then, I hope to begin the road back to the real (clean and tidy) world. Somewhere in there are some pumpkins to be carved or baked or both.(“Retire! Get a hobby!” he said. Here’s Rich, happily reading the morning paper with his cup of coffee. )

(McCloud is the guardian of felted Christmas ornaments. At night, they turn into wild birds that need to be subdued…)

See you soon!

(The view from our back door. I think we’ll make it the front door.)

Rich and I drove to Asheville for the weekend. This is the second birthday in a row that I have been in the place where we will live, in Sugar Hollow atop our own little mountain just south of Asheville. We met with our contractor and draftsman on Thursday to see what they had made of  my plans for the kitchen and seeing the drawings made me want to have it done, now. We took our lovely tenants out for dinner in Biltmore Village. We went to the WNC Farm market and filled the back of the car with apples and pumpkins. On Friday Rich was more patient than I had dared to hope, tagging along behind me while I gathered up wool and silk and books and yarns and ribbons at the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair. Business expense, don’t you know. We pet the bunnies but the alpaca and sheep weren’t in yet; they were being judged today but we had set aside today for getting more familiar with our terrain.

As birthdays go, this one puts me pretty much in the autumn of my years but I can’t remember feeling healthier or happier or more  excited about the next decade of my life. This is most likely a mood and I’ll find myself in some funk or other soon enough but at the moment, every little thing pleases me.See how delighted I was to discover Rose Finn fingerling potatoes at the tailgate farm market this morning? So easy to please! Behind me is Annie of Flying Cloud Farm which is the organic farm located right smack at the foot of our road. They have a nice website with a blog and they also have very nice pastured pigs.I really hate to think of this darling fellow as the tenderloin roast on our table next year, and yet…

And lest this weekend be all about me, we went off in search of golf. Rich found this beautiful course about 20 miles from our home and while we admired the view we chatted with a serious golfing type guy who told Rich about all the possibilities, including many for something called “winter golf”. Winter golf???The icing on the cake for Rich was discovering that Tiger Woods is building his first American golf course practically in our backyard. Rich is at this moment on Google Earth looking at the topographical map and calculating a path one mile over the mountain- a sort of as-the-crow-flies approach to the development called The Cliffs, home to Tiger’s golf course. I don’t get golf but I’m happy for Rich and pleased to know he’ll have places to go and things to do while I make a garden.

After we went ‘looking for golf’ we drove back to our house one last time for this year. We are trying not to be so overtly gleeful about our future prospects as to distress our tenants unduly. They have been loving the house and would gladly stay on and we do feel badly that we’re there planning our future which means they have to pack up and move at the end of the year. Still, part of the plan for this weekend included finding the right trees for the bat house and the owl box. Rosario and his brother take care of the lawn for us (we collect rent, pay property management. taxes and Rosario and it all just about equals out. Ah, me.) and today I showed him where I thought they should go. Rich says I look very determined when I’m executing a plan of action, but it was important to me to get these up now so our bats have the opportunity to relocate prior to renovations that will force them from the attic vents where they happily reside. Yeesh. It’s like we’re evicting everybody.

While we were there I took a picture of our black walnut tree and looked around for saplings.I have a friend in Florida who would like them and I was considering dropping them by on our way south tomorrow. I found 4 or 5 that are several feet tall that I was pretty sure are black walnuts but they’ve dropped their leaves already and I realized there was a possibility that they could be hickory trees. We have lots of mature hickory and oak trees about the place, too, and I couldn’t discern with certainty. Nor did I have a shovel or pots. Poor planning. So, FC, if you would still like some, please be patient. I’ll get them for you first trip back in the Spring.

The garden is original to the house and is bordered by a beautiful picket fence. We are about the same age, the fence and I, give or take a year and the fence has held up nicely, even with wisteria overgrown on one side. Someone made it out of hardwood that shows no sign of rot or decay. The garden is a bit of  a dilemma; I think I probably need to rototill the whole thing and start anew but there are remnants of day lilies and roses.

As I was considering what was growing inside the garden I noticed this beautiful lichen growing on the pickets. It’s as though an entire miniature forest, with little red-topped trees, is growing and thriving there. Amazing.

Did I mention that it was a glorious day? As I was growing up my grandmother always said that the weather was “just excellent” on my birthday. I tend to keep track and it does seem as though on October 24th, the weather is usually beautiful, at least in my neck of the woods.

The car is packed full with produce and fleece and it smells wonderful in there. Tomorrow we drive south to our home for the winter; the cats are expecting us. It is the autumn of my life and the view from here is pretty special.

Around here I play a variation of the David Letterman game,’Will It Float?’ It’s called,”Will It Felt?” Take this piece for example, which didn’t photograph for beans. But as a diversion from producing felted fruit and angels at a high rate of speed for upcoming holiday shows, I’ve been working on this ‘Sedona’ piece that is large and hopefully, good and frame-able. It has a staggering amount of effort into it, not to mention a lot of mulling it over time. There’s an underlying wool pre-felt in shades of golds and browns. There is a massive run of raw silk hand-dyed in reds, oranges and yellows. There are hand-dyed silk cocoon hankies accented with purples, blues and oranges. And there is wool from some hapless Corriedale that’s been dyed in blue/gray tones and some of same dyed orange. After all that there are hours of layout, rearranging, moving, tweaking, poking, pulling. Finally, we come to the question: Will It Felt? Not everything does and a lot of what does, doesn’t do it the way you think it might. I’m afraid to start; once you add soap and water that could be the kiss of death. It’s one thing to trash a bowl with several hours work and 8.00 worth of materials; it’s another to wad up something like this and throw it in the trash. Or give it to the cat for a cat blanket. McCloud has been eye-balling it constantly because it’s on his glass top coffee table. I believe he thinks I’m doing this all for him. At night, I put crinkly plastic and tin foil strips around it to keep him off but it’s only  matter of time…Anyway, this is taking my mind off not winning the Wolf/SubZero 50,000 kitchen sweepstakes. Sort of. But then I think: “If only I had that 10 ft run of Cambria stone countertop with the giant farmstyle Kohler sink at the end, this thing would be a lot easier to tackle.”

Anyway, I’m busy and I still have to run over and feed the birds and then the neighborhood annual Halloween porch party is tonight. I’m wearing a tiara, long gown and a giant satin sash that reads, “Miss Understood.” I think I’ll carry a bouquet of coontie fronds with Mexican sunflowers. Have a great weekend!

(This didn’t photograph well. That patch up in the upper right doesn’t really look like bovine intestines.)

The mountains are beautiful.

The pumpkins are ready. Jimmy the calf lives right down the road, along with wrestling young pigs.

I might get a chicken tractor.

I got a lot accomplished in short order in Asheville, meeting with the draftsman, the contractor, the kitchen guy. Apparently I didn’t win the Wolf/SubZero Dream Kitchen Sweepstakes this year so I’m taming my hopes and expectations a bit but it is still very exciting. The best part? I hadn’t been back there in almost a year and I was worried that, in my imagination, I had transformed the place into more than it is in that time. I hadn’t. It is more than I imagined. The couple renting the house- a musician and a woman not altogether unlike myself- have made a beautiful temporary home for themselves there this year and are caring for the house in the best of fashion. It’s the same spectacular vista. And the garden is just waiting.

Okay. I have to go back to felting. I met the deadline for turning in my inventory list last week; now I need to finish the inventory. Happy Monday!

I know that I have been absent, conspicuously or not, but I meant to give a final followup on the Mohs surgery. I had thought about that because FC commented that his brother was having same and he was sending him over here. The Mohs surgery posts consistently receive the most hits and I think that’s because lots of folks are worried/curious/concerned about what’s involved.

I will say that for the first weeks following, although I took you right through the procedure, I didn’t feel much like putting a photo of myself up. To me, the incision was as clear as the nose on my face- in fact, it felt as though it was the whole of the nose on my face. Now it’s sort of settling into becoming just another small battle scar in the course of day-to-day life. For me, these BS carcinomas crop up all together too often but there are certainly many worse things in life.

I’m heading up to Asheville later this week to see the house, start to plan for kitchen renovation next February and consider the garden. I may rototill it this autumn and throw a few things in as part of the happy anticipation. I’ll take some photos and try to get a few posts up. I’ll be away from the wool that’s clogging up the works around here so that might leave a bit of time for writing.

Here then is an unretouched- sans makeup, complete with bad haircut- photo. I still have a nose. Dr. Spencer said it could take up to a year to fully resolve and I’m busy applying something called Kelocote, a kind of silicone sticky mess that aids in healing and reduces scar formation. But, if you look closely, you can see the white scars from previous surgeries: one right in the middle of my forehead coming onto the bridge of my nose (that one was huge, a full inch diameter down to the bone, and one on my left upper lip (right side in the photo) that was also very deep. The point is, they heal. And I can get these all touched up surgically, if I’m so inclined, which I’m not. And so, if you’re getting ready for Mohs and worried about it, there you go. If you have a spot and you haven’t tended to it, get to the dermatologist. It will all be okay. FC, how’s your brother doing?

When my father was still alive he would call on Sundays and every conversation opened like this: “Hey there, it’s your dad! How are you?”  And I would say, “Hi, Dad. I’m fine, just always busy with the kids and a full work schedule.” And he would say, with total sincerity, “Well, aren’t you lucky?” He was so right.

I’m still busy, with a crazy deadline of Oct. 1 for all things Christmas and holiday. At this point I do relatively little besides lay out felt at night, wet felt in the morning, go feed the hawk in the pouring rain (and she took her time, thank you very much, pulling out the mouse guts as sheets of rain left me looking like Girls Gone Wild in wet t-shirts, age 58. Not pretty.) and go back to laying out felt at night. I’m sorry. For the time being, I’m the blog neighborhood deadhead. And I really miss you all. But hey! The work of Christmas is over by Halloween.  I’ll be around. I hope you are all well and happy.

I finished this piece yesterday- it’s been a challenge to do large vessels because I don’t use any artificial stiffeners and they start to collapse under their own weight while wet. This one is 14 inches in diameter, pure merino wool and bombyx (mulberry) silk and I like the sparkle. I was inspired by some of the Hubble photographs, even though I know those are photoshopped on the color end. This one is not and it definitely reminds me of the night sky up at Lost Loon Lodge. It’s called Northern Lights and is going into the Florida Craftsman Gallery the beginning of October.

Take care, be well.

I think I’m about to hit the sack here, before 8pm. That’s kind of embarrassing but it’s been a fiendish week, work wise. I’m trying to remember how I used to run a fulltime private practice, raise two children, take care of a home, half acre yard and garden, see friends, go out to Wit’s End and mind the cottage duties there. This week I began teaching regular classes at Morian Art Center, taught a workshop yesterday, tended the owls, hawks, vultures and eagle, exercised and went to yoga, spent some time with friends and daughter, felted pumpkins and penquins, began design on a major piece. (The art gallery wants one focal item that no one can necessarily afford but catches attention and I’ve been wanting to work on a door size panel in any case.) The house went to hell in a handbasket- that goes for pretty much everything in the yard as well.

Nevertheless, Rich and I had set aside today for each other and a Sunday drive around. He was on the road for business this week too so we were just passing in the night more than usual. (We do this literally, as we take turns using the bathroom at 3 am. We mutter, “uum uv oo ni” at each other and that’s bout it.) So before we turn into one of those couples who have nothing to say to each other, we took off early, had a beautiful day and talked a lot. We drove north to Crystal River and then over to Rainbow Springs, where we went swimming and hiked around.

Then we drove over to just north of Ocala to Rosas Farm to see what was new; they opened up especially for us around 430. We found a couple of delectable cheeses plus some enormous wild caught whole shrimp- they’re about 6 inches long and fat with googly eyes still on. On the way home we stopped at the Blue Samurai in Tampa and had sushi and sake. Then we drove home, got out of the car, gathered our belongings, stood up and there was this sky. The one at the top of the post. And now I’m going to bed before I wake up from such a dreamy day. Good night.