Fleeting Summer Days

Longing for Spring

Anyone else?

Zippy!

That's the best way to describe the Curried Apple Chutney I made yesterday. It's the most amazing recipe of apples, raisin, brown sugar, curry and other spices. But to keep it from being basically a baked apple, it also has vinegar, onion, and sweet peppers. Oh my! I am so looking forward to trying more than just a sample spoon.

The original recipe called for hot pepper and garlic which I omitted due to personal preferences here. Oddly enough the yield should have been five pints, but I barely had two and a half pints. Canning recipes and yields can be so odd. I also put up another five and a half quarts of pickles from the garden cucumbers. Cause we needed more pickles. If they was ever an emergency situation, my family would be surviving on bread and jam and pickles. Of course, we'd be able to eat these for weeks on end!

I got a pot of applesauce simmering on the stove waiting to be finishing and put into the jars. I kept all the cores and peels I've been making and am planning on running them all through the press I have. It'll all probably only amount to one cup of juice and a big mess, but since I have everything on hand I might as well try and it will mean they'll be almost no waste. I suppose I could keep the leftovers from making cider for cider vinegar. Maybe next year.

I did try to run the peels and cores through the mill I was given so as to make apple butter from the leftovers. That was just an exercise in frustration and mess just like the peach experiment. Glad it was free. I'll probably try it again with tomatoes since they are soft, but if that doesn't work it will need to find a new home. Grumble.

It certainly feels like autumn around here! The spice applesauce simmering on the stove, the pumpkin spice waffles cooking in the waffles iron, & the pumpkin candle burning. Even my coffee tastes like autumn as I mixed together brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves and tucked them into a jar on the counter for oatmeal mornings.

I discovered the mix is delightful in my coffee as well. Much cheaper than a Pumpkin Spice Latte and easier to get around here. Though I do love those lattes! It must be a family thing as my sister in California mentioned having one the other day--over ice. By mixing the spices in the sugar I am able to stir it all evenly into the coffee without the spices just floating on the top as they do when I just sprinkle them in.

I've still got another twenty pounds of apples on hand. I'll probably make more of everything and some apple butter as well. So yummy! I do love all the foods that are in season this time of year, don't you?

I used up the rest of the pureed squash I had frozen last fall for the waffles this morning and I'm down to one Hubbard squash from last year's garden. It's a big one, but I think I'll need to try and find some more. They are such good keepers and I use them in any recipe that calls for pumpkins or squashes. I didn't get any planted this year, but will make it a priority for next year's garden.

Well, I need to go and stir the applesauce and scrub down the cider press as I've not used it before. I'll let you know how it goes!

March

I love March. I do. It's a special month to me, a bit of brightness as winter heads to spring. That it contains my birthday, I'm sure had nothing to do with it!

I love to change the decor around with the changing months and seasons. Am I the only one? Maybe it's the former schoolteacher in me. How I loved to change the classroom bulletin boards, decor and calendars! It always freshens things up to me. Now that I'm at home, I am able to do these little things with all sorts of treasures we have.

After the Christmas decorations are packed away, bits and pieces of pink and red add bright spots to our home for Valentines. With the passing of that, I find little bits of green adding touches of spring here and there. A bit of ivy, a shamrock coffeepot, vintage postcards all find their ways to new places to shine. It cheers up cleaning as well as I take an extra moment to find the perfect home for a little treasure.

Side Note: An early Birthday gift from Sweetheart. A 1915 edition of Little Women illustrated by Jessie Wilcox Smith, on of my favorite artists.

This makes my heart sing!

I just finished reading a copy from the library last week and this arrived yesterday.

Here's a peek inside at some of the illustrations.

I rarely buy things for specific holidays, preferring to just use what we have. Though I do find an occasionally new spool of ribbon can really add a lot in a simple way. Bits of fluff and fancy move all around the house all year long. I love finding natural treasures, too. Squash from the gardens, flowers, seed pods, nests, pine cones, and what-all are used in abundance.

Things move around even within a season as squash are used for dinner, seed pods are played with to the point of destruction, and sometimes just because I decide I don't like how I put something out the first time. I took a few picture a couple of days ago, and have since switched teapots around and added some bits of ribbon other places. This to me is one of the joys of homemaking.

Of course, so is finding gorgeous plates for five dollars while out with my Sweetheart! So lovely.

Here's closeup of the copy I bought of Pilgrim's Progress for Sweetheart a few years ago. As it was such a huge part of Little Women, I decided I should be reading it a bit each morning as the girls did throughout the story. I'd better get back to reading it!

What do you like to do to brighten your home?