sisters

 Somedays they wake up like this.  Goofy, happy, in love with each other. Those are the REALLY GOOD DAYS!!!!! Today it was another pioneer day, born of On the Banks of Plum Creek, which they are listening to together in the mornings. I went to find them for breakfast and they were in this mad tangle. All right by me...

 We started talking about the equinox today, and Ani made some gingerbread cookies with me, in the shapes of leaves and moons and cats, which all felt very autumnal to her.

 This afternoon found us scrounging for material to make rag dolls, like the one Laura cherishes in the story.  (So much of what we do in our days comes from the stories we are reading! Sword fights, packed traveling bags, closets raided for long skirts, sari's wrapped and tucked, rice cooked and eaten, butter made).

 They had such clear ideas about what they wanted.  I always worry about the execution, but I do as much or as little as requested, and it usually turns out so that everyone is happy.

 What used to be Papa's thermal longjohns and an old sheet are now new lovely dollies. What? They have no hair? So picky...yes, we'll get to it! Really, Eliza just wanted a doll that she could make new clothes for! These took us right up to bedtime, so tomorrow...

Pawpaws to the people!

That there's a pawpaw, the official native fruit of the state of Ohio!  I had heard of them before, but only in song (pickin up pawpaws, put 'em in my pocket).  They're peculiar - maybe something like a papaya crossed with a banana? I didn't think I particularly cared for them, but I just recently had a ripe one, fresh on the ground (they're not ripe until they're easily coaxed - or in the case of the mischievous twosome above, WACKED - out of the tree), and it was really quite lovely.   Athens is home to the chief champion of the pawpaw, Chris Chmiel of Integration Acres, who sells his pawpaw popsicles and jam (and goat cheese, spicebush berries, and ramps pesto) at the Farmer's Market, and Chris has provided us with annual entertainment in the form of the PawPaw Festival every September. 

 That's where you would have found us yesterday. (Well, some of us. Others of us were playing Appalachian golf. I promise, there will be a post about that. Someday soon.)

 There was plenty of pawpaw around - pawpaw cooking contests, informational workshops, trees for sale, tastings, and, most pleasantly, pawpaw beer.

I had anticipated the girls wanting to run with a gaggle of children, and was happy to find that at least for a while they were happy to wander with me.  We visited the East of the River Shawnee tribe who had set up a flint-knapping demonstration and a teepee, as well as several booths of beautiful jewelry, clothing, and dreamcatchers.

The local college had brought snakes...we got to visit with a Burmese python and this cute little hognose.

 There was constant activity in the kids' area - an obstacle course (think rope swings and balance beams), jumpy castles and slides (a huge favorite), instrument-making, drumming, painting, fencing, juggling...

The girls and a buddy came to hear the storytellers with me...

Will is a friend of the girls' from market. He tells the same story every time, but we like it anyway...

Enough sitting! Time to run! Eat pawpaw ice cream! Dance! Ride the train!

These two were inseparable. Six-year old best buddies. Sigh.

Eliza on her fourth wagon ride

 Yes, that is a gigantic pawpaw. Do not cross the gigantic pawpaw. Its vision is poor and it is large.

Lost in thought. A bit tired, maybe?

 Eliza's best friend showed up with Dan (after golf), and she trotted alongside the wagon as she arrived. Eliza had had a bit of a hard time during the long afternoon (we might have been there too long...), as we got separated and missed each other a couple of times. Following and looking and waiting are exhausting, aren't they? Live and learn.  She was put back together by the time E. arrived and they were off and running...

The day ended with dinner, a pawpaw beer at last, and quickly-falling dark (have you noticed? We are so close to the equinox...).  Dancing with Dan and a bunch of tiring girls...not a bad way to spend one of the last of summer's evenings.

dragonflies, puffballs and rain

dragonfly, by eliza

 We are having the kind of week I wish we always had, save for the cold going 'round. This time of year is so rich and beautiful, and that juice is filling our week. Yesterday, after being at our friends' farm to visit and assist with processing their chickens (more on that later), we arrived home at dinner time to a swarm of dragonflies outside our door, and down the block. WOW! They were large, fast, and flying in swooping, arcing patterns, sure to collide with one of us (they didn't - I moved slowly and in a way I thought might appear "predictable" to a dragonfly on the move, but I'm sure it was quite unnecessary.) What was going on?? I remember seeing something like it one golden late summer afternoon in Wisconsin, while driving through the countryside past clouds of them, metallic in the low sun.  I had to look up reasons for the swarm, of course, and I came across the The Dragonfly Woman.  She is doing research on this very thing, and has a call out for some citizen science research; when you see a swarm, you can send her a report through the website.   She says that dragonflies swarm for two reasons: to feed (this is called a "static swarm"), and while migrating.  Apparently this past week there have been many reports of swarms across Pennsylvania and Ohio!  She also says that there are about 3 more weeks of dragonfly activity, so if you are lucky enough to witness such a swarm, let her know!

 Weather is changing, but is so fickle right now. It was downright cold today; took out most of the screens in the windows, and located my wool socks...I thought about taking down the hummingbird feeders today; we realized that it's been a week since we last saw them, even though there are still blooms on the scarlet runners and the monarda is blooming again. It makes me sad to have them go. They were such frequent visitors that I got a little lazy in my adulation - I could hear them arrive while I was at the stove, cooking, or sitting at the table - and now...they are gone.

 I was wondering where the bees were on such a chilly morning - they're all in the gourd blossoms, getting drunk and keeping cozy! They were moving sloooowwwly, but seemed quite happy.

 E. is fighting the cold, and it was a perfect day for making a fort on her bed and hunkering in for some listening (The Penderwicks) and book-making.

 One of Eliza's goals for the fall is to do more cooking.  She is picking out a recipe every week and planning for the meal - shopping list, helping find the groceries, cooking. Tonight she chose spinach lasagne...again, perfect in the cold weather. It was delicious.

 My addition to the meal was to cook up some of the giant puffball! I had quizzed my friend on some cooking tips, and had looked online as well.  After dreaming all night about cutting open puffballs to find all sorts of interesting things, including signs that it was not a puffball but a deadly mushroom, I was really anxious to get to it! The texture reminded me of tofu. Or a firm marshmallow. Or foam. But in a good way...it is a firm mushroom, and was really pleasing to cut into (if you like that sort of thing, which I do).  There is a sort of skin that some people finds upsets their stomachs, so I peeled that off - again, a very pleasant experience, as it really peeled off in long strips, so easily.

 There is so much information on the interwebs, and certainly when dealing with wild foods you should know what you are doing, and in particular with mushrooms, so I went a little overboard on researching how you can tell you have an edible puffball. There doesn't seem to be anything else that grows to this size that would be poisonous.  This ball was the size of a softball - well larger than my fist - and they can grow to the size of a soccer ball or much larger (one writer claimed to have found one that weighed 50 pounds!).  Once cut open, it should be very white. No color variations. If there is any sign of gills or stem, throw it away, it isn't a puffball! Steve "Wildman" Brill has more information here.

 Anyway. I sauteed some onions in butter - can you go wrong with mushrooms and butter? - and having heard that puffballs are very absorbent and can get saturated and greasy quickly, I tossed in half of the ball, cut into cubes, and cooked it once the onions were ready. It was so so good!! And I was so tickled to be eating it!!! A puffball for the Week of the Puffballs! We'll see what happens to the other half tomorrow.

And for those of you who have hung in there through this lengthy description of how to eat a mushroom the size of your child's head, here are bonus photos of two other things that made me ridiculously and deeply happy this week...

Can you see it?

Isn't it WONDERFUL? It's a spicebush swallowtail caterpillar...yeah, I was very happy to meet him while following a friend through the woods to see some brilliant orange fungus.

And here is my child, rockin' some crazy awesome fashion. Ani-made t-shirt vest, Ani-made tie belt, single handwarmer...I am lovin' me some of this girl's style.

 Perfect. Perfectly Ani.

beautiful day

 This morning there was a hole in our wall (a long-awaited hole, fixing our water-damaged wall and front door), so after doing some stuff around the house (pancakes, By the Banks of Plum Creek, a spelling bee, a la prairie times), we headed Out.

 "Mama, why does Laura always manage to get into so much trouble?" Like what? "Well, like sliding down the hay bales when her Pa asked her not to..." Well...I imagine it just sounded like so much fun she had to try it anyway...So of course we were in search of some hay bales. Found some...

Yup - fun!  It was such a beautiful day; signs of fall everywhere...grasses going to seed, milkweed pods bursting, butterflies everywhere, leaves turning color...thistles blooming, ironweed losing its bloom...

Berries everywhere - not many that I recognized, but we looked for Autumn Olives and found a few that were not ready yet. I think they're the second flush though; I saw some last week somewhere else and they were delicious and abundant.

Not a bad way to spend a school day, is it?

Eliza brought along her corn cob doll that she made two years ago...

When we got home, there was immediate clothes making for the dolls.

And some lunch somewhere in amongst the fabric and scissors.

Voila! Fancied-up new clothes for all the dolls.

We were having such a good-flow day that even though our living room still looked like this:

We just went on with what we were doing. Happily. Eliza thought destroying a wall looked like so much fun that she mouthed to me (in between asking questions), "I think I want to do this for a living!" 

We had intended on eating something special for dinner tonight...

A giant puffball! A friend gave it to us yesterday when we visited his farm. I would only eat a wild mushroom that I was certain was edible - I'm not much for experimentation in that field - so as his family has been eating these every year for the past few, from the same patch on his farm, I think it's a safe bet.  The construction went on well into the dinner hour, so we walked up the hill and met Dan at the local pub for some dinner. Tomorrow, then, for the puffball.