Happy Autumn!

I know fall doesn't officially start for another 48 hours, but today we went for a hike around Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was snowing. And the aspens clearly think fall has arrived. Fall has definitely come to the mountains.

Last Weekend of Summer

Today's farmer's market was the last for the summer of '09. Tuesday is the equinox, the first day of fall. I can't believe another summer has slipped away. It's always sad to say goodbye to summer.

Of course there's still a whole lot of good stuff to be had at the market, and autumn really is my favorite time of year. More pumpkins are starting to fill the booths, as well as winter squashes and an abundance of potatoes, onions, garlic and other fall crops. The Garlic Queen has returned this year. She's a wonderful, friendly woman who sells nothing but garlic. Dozens of varieties fill her booth for every use from cooking and canning to eating raw, to varieties that will store all the way through spring. Her garlic now fills a nook in my storage pantry. New to the market this year, one farm started braiding their onions into traditional hanging ornaments for winter storage. They look beautiful hanging in the kitchen, and whenever you need onion you just cut one off the braid. They should last through the depths of winter. Pears are also in season, and they are second only to the pumpkin as being a symbolic fruit of autumn and the start of the holiday season. They are always a very welcome but short lived autumn treat. And of course there's also a little bite in the morning air now, and people are starting to wear light sweaters and long sleeves in the early morning hours. Even the aspens have started to slip into their golden autumn wardrobe, and mountainsides are starting to shimmer. Autumn is knocking on the door.

This morning I ate the first fresh apple I've had since last fall. Lordy it was a feast for the senses. Never in my life have I enjoyed an apple so much. They're just coming fully into season, and when I saw those crates full of them my mouth started watering. I selected an organic Gala with a full round body and no blemishes. It was a bright, sunny morning but the apples were still cold from last night. That first bite - oh my - I wish I could put it into words. It was so crisp, so sweet and juicy and chilled. It was nothing like those flavorless cardboard apples from the grocery store. It just tasted so - appley. It may sound odd if you haven't experienced it, but it gave me a slight buzz. I savored every incredible bite, then sat there stretched out in the cool grass looking at the sky for a long time being deeply grateful for moments like this.

Fall?

I don't want to jump the gun, but lately daytime temps have barely cracked 80 and we've had some nights in the upper 40's. The forecast shows more of the same. I'm not exactly ready for winter, but fall is really my favorite time of the year. Always has been, and fall in Colorado makes it even more true. It's even starting to smell like autumn.

On the menu tonight:

• Seared grass-fed lamb loin chops
• Fresh corn off-the-cob sauteed with summer squash, onion, garlic, oregano & butter
• Sauteed fresh broccoli with butter
• Fresh baked whole wheat bread with home churned raw butter
• For dessert, hot crabapple pie with a tall glass of raw milk

Ready for Winter

This weekend was the last farmer's market of the season. Actually they're doing another day right before Thanksgiving and again right before Christmas, but the official market is over and only the vendors with crafts, meat and other things that don't require summer weather will be selling. So officially, it's over. I've been stocking up over the last few weeks. Longer if you count all the canning. I think I've got enough to get the two of us through the winter, plus feed the family at Christmas and accommodate any other occasional dinner guests along the way.

This weekend my favorite farm, Jay Hill Farm, sold me a 15 pound Cinderella pumpkin. What a beauty. It yielded at least 8 pies worth of rich pumpkin puree, most of which I froze for later. I put up a couple dozen jars of whole tomatoes, apple butter and pumpkin butter which, I must say, is probably the tastiest confection ever to dance on my taste buds. After stocking those things away along with a few other items, I stepped back for a quick inventory. In the sweets department we have crab apple jelly, peach butter, apple butter and pumpkin butter. In the freezer there are enough peaches, apple slices and pumpkin puree to make a dozen pies. In the realm of tomatoes we have whole tomatoes, pasta sauce, ketchup and salsa. In the pickled category we have dills and pickled hot peppers. I've also got at least a year's worth of honey and popcorn, and enough horseradish to get through to next summer. I've also got a stockpile of onions, potatoes, raw cheese still in the rind and winter squash, plus a freezer full of chickens, elk and bison. I'll have access to fresh eggs, milk and meat all winter long. I think I have enough sugar left to last two years, including next year's canning. (If I wanted Colorado sugar I had to buy it in a 50 pound bag!) And every bit of everything listed above, with the exception of a few spices, was grown in Colorado, most of it near Boulder.

I also made the first pumpkin pie of the season, pictured above, and found time to go to a "Dia de los Muertos Halloween After Party" at a fabulous house in Denver Saturday night. It was perfect. Laid back, casual, catered. Lots of really nice people and great conversation. They even had a Dia de los Muertos shrine set up where people could place photos of their deceased loved ones, make an offering and say a prayer. Other than Gerard I didn't see any hispanic genes in the place.

Now that the "harvest" is in, the garden is slumbering and our Indian Summer is going to be blown away by tomorrow's snow, I'm looking forward to kicking back and enjoying the holidays. Let the parties begin!

The Weekend

More perfect autumn weather I could not ask for. Seriously, this is amazing. Even people who have been here for decades are saying they cannot recall a more perfect fall. Day after day of sunshine, crisp air and fall foliage.

This weekend we picked up our new bedroom furniture and took the opportunity to do a little fall cleaning. We donated a box of clothing, scrubbed floors and beat the rugs. I really love the way the house feels right after a good cleaning. Plus we've got it all decked out in fall decor using almost nothing but local, natural materials. I've got a big centerpiece on the dining room table made of colorful squashes, indian corn and cut grain stalks. I've got the mantlepiece and the living room decked out much the same way, but with some beautiful lighted jack-o-lantern gourds thrown in the mix. We also collected and dried fallen leaves which made an excellent addition to the whole thing. After digging out my old Halloween stuff last month, I found myself turned off by bright orange plastic. There is so much natural beauty this time of year, and it was that natural beauty that inspired all those orange plastic substitutes. So this year I went back to the source. That was yesterday.

Today we took things a little easier. We collected about 50 pounds of walnuts from the tree by the garden, though we haven't started processing them yet. Tonight for dinner I made cast iron skillet bison meatloaf with gravy, roasted brussels sprouts and mashed purple potatoes. I followed that by making the first apple pie of the season! Hot apple pie on a chilly Sunday night. What a perfect way to end the weekend. I am so grateful for my life.

Joys of Autumn

We in Boulder did end up getting our first snowfall of the season last weekend.  It happened Sunday night.  It was very light and the ground is still so warm that it only stuck in the trees and on the mountains.  It was completely gone by mid morning but it sure made the work commute nice what with the mountains being dusted.

Since then we've had picture perfect fall weather.

Gerard and I started the weekend Saturday morning with a raid on the the farmer's market there are only two left this season), ran into some friends, loaded up for the week and on items to be canned, and then headed up the Peak to Peak Highway to Rocky Mountain National Park for our annual aspen and elk rut viewing.  We were a little late this year and missed peak season.  The elk weren't putting on much of a show so we headed to the shops in Estes Park.  We scored much better there.  We bought an amazing bedroom set all hand made from old barn wood by a craftsman in Wyoming.  I sold what little bedroom furniture I had when I moved to Colorado almost 2 years ago, so I was ready to get the mattress off the floor and my clothes in a real chest of drawers.  

This morning we got up early and tended our garden.  It was the beginning of the fall clean up.  We harvested most of what's left in the garden: purple potatoes, carrots and a whole lot of tomatillos.  That's me plucking tomatillos and pulling up spent plants.

I spent the afternoon canning the 25 pounds of tomatoes from yesterday's farmer's market and baking four loaves of bread.  This was a prelude to cooking dinner and preparing lunches for tomorrow.  It still strikes me as odd to think of this as "fun," but it is.  As many good times as I've had over the years partying, I can't say any of it ever felt as rewarding as my free time does now.  Not that I regret the past.  I don't.  I think I just got burnt out on urbania.  It started to feel so empty and pointless and unsustainable to me.  I guess it felt more like a distraction than my actual life.  I don't at all regret the past, but I wouldn't trade the present for anything.  There's nothing quite like direct provider of your own food, from seed to table, from season to season, and in resuming some role, even if only at the margins, in the cycle of life as nature designed it.  

As a special treat to end the weekend, just before sunset I spotted a hornet nest hidden away in a tree by the river.  Everywhere I am surrounded by the wonders of nature, big and small.

 

Winter's First Kiss

This weekend we lit up the fireplace for the first time this season.  We had some chilly, wet nights, though it wasn't quite cold enough for snow.  

Last night was the coldest yet, and Nederland did get a few inches.  We got up early this morning and headed up to Ned because I was eager for snow.  Driving up the  mountain, we entered the snow clouds, a cold and foggy world where golden aspens, dark green pines and massive boulders emerge silently from the mist.  At the top we again drove out of the snow clouds and into sunshine bathing a snow-kissed landscape.  Looking back down toward the Boulder Valley it looked like it had been filled a half mile deep with whipped cream. 

 

There's a little grocery store up there called Mountain People's Co-Op that bakes muffins fresh every morning.  It's kinda like going into grandma's kitchen, if grandma were a mountain woman.  We stopped in and I peeked my head into the kitchen to ask when the muffins would be up.  A cute 

young girl (definitely no grandma) opened the oven, poked a muffin with her finger and said, "Any minute!  You want me to bring you out a couple when they're done?" 

 

And so we had hot muffins, fresh coffee and our first walk in the snow.

Anticipation

When I was a kid, there was one morning every year that my mom would wake me up at some unbelievable hour in the morning so I could come to the back door and feel the cool night air.  It was the coming of fall and I don't think a year went by when we didn't do this.  I'd always go right back to bed, but it always excited me.  Fall always was my favorite time of year.

I still get up extra early this time of year just to peek outside into the darkness and test the coolness of the air.  But my ritual since moving to Colorado has taken a new form: I now check the weather report multiple times per day until that first report of possible snow appears.  Today was that day.

According to the forecast, we here in Boulder may get our first snowfall of the year Saturday night.  Am I stoked?  Oh yeah.

Comfort Food

One of the many things I love about Colorado are all the opportunities for comfort and small pleasures.  I think it's because this is a land of extremes: extreme beauty, extreme weather and extreme landscape to name a few.  It's often said that you can't know light without dark, or good without bad.  Maybe it's true of comfort, too.  I know from personal experience that the hard times make the easy times all the more wonderful.  I also know that too many easy times without enough hard times kinda makes you spoiled, and you quickly start to lose appreciation for just how good you have it if you don't have that reminder every now and then.

I remember one particular day as a kid working my butt in the ground tearing down an old building with my parents.  We slaved, because it had to be done that day.  It was so hot, and later in the day it started to rain.  We worked through the rain.  By day's end, I was exhausted.  I was filthy, soaked to the bone and every muscle was hurting.  But the project was done.  To this day I remember how awesome that hot shower felt and how luxurious my clean clothes felt.  Yet there was nothing special about the clothes or the shower.  I had them every day.  But on this day I had been given a reminder of just how wonderful they were.  But it wasn't just that.  I also felt a sense of power.  I felt strong for having accomplished so much.  I felt confident, yet peaceful.  I've never forgotten it, nor many of the other similar experiences I've had in life.  Sometimes you have to love the pain, because it brings good things.

My weekends at the horse rescue farm has given me a taste of that particular flavor of suffering and subsequent pleasure.  A day of throwing hay bales in the sun is not something I had ever done before the horse farm.  It's hard work.  If you don't wear gloves, your hands get a thousand tiny cuts and pokes, some will bleed, but they all burn like fire the first time you wash in hot water.  Your nasal passages turn black with dust.  You get itchy bits of hay all down your shirt, manure on your boots and jeans, straw in your hair, dust and sweat in your eyes, and at the end of the day your muscles are stiff from head to toe.  And yet, I love it.  The work is so honest.  So primal.  So real.  It makes me feel alive.  It makes the shower at the end of the day feel amazing.  It makes the softness of my bed indescribably wonderful.  It fills me with a great sense of accomplishment that I carry all week long.  I helped an old lady who can't do the work.  I helped a bunch of injured or unwanted horses who can't help themselves.  I helped myself in a way that no book or counsel or potion ever could. 

I was home from work by 5PM today.  It was a beautiful day, sunny, cool and dry, just the most perfect Autumn day.  Tonight it will be cold and clear.  We're supposed to get our first frost of the season, as it'll be the first night below 40 degrees.  I wanted something warm for dinner, so I put a chicken on to boil. When it was nice and tender I pulled it from the pot to cool, and boiled down the broth with some salt & pepper and oregano from the garden.  I mixed up a batch of dough with Colorado flour, butter, salt and water.  I kneaded it with my hands.  I rolled it out flat with my old wooden rolling pin and cut it into 1 inch squares.  I picked the meat off the chicken and tossed it back into the broth.  When the broth reached a rolling boil I tossed in the dough squares and boiled it for ten minutes.  I set the table and lit the handmade beeswax candles in the centerpiece which I created from fresh pumpkins, winter squash, dried sunflowers from the garden, broomcorn, sorghum and other harvest grain stalks I got from the farmer's market.  I served up two steaming bowls of the best chicken 'n dumplin's I've had since mom's.  For dessert, we savored the last of the plum cake I made over the weekend, which was made from the last of the summer's italian plums.  

I suppose I could have just gone out to eat or picked up something from the hot case at Whole Foods.  It would have saved a whole lot of time.  But I got something much more valuable by doing what I did.  Yes it was a lot of work, but the food was phenomenal.  No chef in this world could make my food taste better than when I pour my love and effort into it.  And maybe that's what my food obsession and my cowboy obsession are really all about.  "Easier" or "faster" doesn't equate to "better."  Spending two hours cooking up the freshest seasonal ingredients to produce a hot bowl of chicken & dumplin's gives me comfort food on a cold, starry night.  Toiling in the field gives me comfort food when I take a hot shower at the end of the day and put on my favorite snuggly pajama bottoms.  There are some things, some comforts or pleasures, that can only be earned.

Autumn

Autumn is definitely my favorite time of year.  The farmer's market is overflowing with pumpkins and winter squash, the leaves are changing, and the air is crisp.  The elk bulls are starting to bugle as they begin their mating rituals.  And the weather guys issued the first winter warning of the season.  The report says that this weekend the high country will get up to a foot of snow.  Boulder won't be getting any snow just yet, but Nederland, which is only 15 miles away but 3,000 feet higher, will get some.  I may get the Jeep and go up there for breakfast tomorrow.  I'm itchin' for snow.