a love letter to fall~

in case you've missed a few posts, you may not know

that my hubbie is on sabbatical (what we're reverently

calling this time off) this fall and he's been up north.

i've been mostly home in the city.

it may seem weird to some people, but it works for us.

he loves to be at the lodge.... so much so that he would

sell this city house in the blink of an eye and have us living there. 

we grew up in the same teeny tiny town in western minnesota.

he was always on a farm and i was for a good part of my

growing up years as well. what i'm trying to say is that i don't consider

myself to be a snob about county living- far from it really.

i do however have almost no desire to live sooo far out in the wilderness

that you have to drive for miles and miles to buy a bath towel or

a new pair of underwear. that's what it's like to be at our cabin.

we are 45 minutes from any town big enough for anything but the

bare essentials and i just can't wrap my head around being 

that isolated from society every single day. i'm more of a people person than lars

(even though i require a lot of alone time to be content too).

so for now- this works for us. he's there, i'm here, we talk or text

daily and then every couple of weeks we see each other.

last weekend i was up north.

he lured me with apple pies.

really! he did.

he made two of them and made them

so pretty they begged to have their picture taken. 

: )

these two pictures show how beautiful the driveway in is~

the growing season is wrapping up, but the squash and pumpkins didn't seem

quite ready to be picked. i did a little research and found out you should

pick them when the stems are brown and the curly q's are dried up.

not there yet.

this old "thing-a-majig" is growing in a tree

lars had brought these sweet little acorns in for me cause he knows i like them.

we worked together and dug the potatoes and carrots.

we didn't get very many potatoes- but wow are they ever cool.

i bought an heirloom or organic brand of potato sets and have you ever seen

or grown this burgundy kind? i haven't. they are still white inside.

i guess we planted everbearing strawberries because they are still

blooming and setting on fruit.

all the kids were there for the weekend too and so i ran out to pick some flowers

for the cabin before adria got there. i decided to bring my vases outside- something i've never

done in all my years of growing flowers- and arranged them at the game cleaning table.

the morning glories were all twisted around some of the cosmos i was

using and i loved how they just draped down from the vase.

we celebrated chris and adria's birthdays and cole surprised his sister by

picking out and buying her a present all by himself. (an itunes card and

a candle.) i heard her tell him she had goosebumps she thought

 it was so nice. 

*man it's fun to see your kids grow up and be people who care

about each other.

birthday supper for the engaged kiddos. they'd all been out hunting most of the

day. chris got the lone game for the weekend. a grouse.

here are those potatoes fresh from the garden, ready to bake in the oven.

i tried a new recipe that was olive oil, thyme, parsley, garlic, fresh parmesan, salt

and pepper. you just tossed it all together and then baked them on a shallow pan in the oven.

yumm. (and just so pretty too.)

as far as i'm concerned fall can come as early as it wants and stay as long as

she wants. i never want it to end and when it gets cool i immediately start

thinking of soup and fresh bread.

made my first kettle of it this week.

(before it turned back to warm summer like temps).

the weatherman said it's peak leaf season in many parts of the state right now

 and

i think i'll head out with my camera and just soak

up as much of it as i possibly can this weekend.

i'm also going to finish scraping and repainting the

white wood rocking chairs from the front yard, and start putting away

some of my garden art and replacing it with pumpkins etc. 
maybe dig out some yarn and plan a project.
maybe bake pumpkin muffins?
keep harvesting seeds from my zinnias, cosmos and
prairie coneflowers.
start editing a newborn baby session i'm shooting tomorrow.
 get a photo order in.
listen to good music.
drink iced vanilla coffee.
put some summer clothes in storage,
and sit on the swing and read-
and watch the leaves fall.

fall,

i dig you. 

a lot.

xo, beth