Fiber Fool

I think I can sum it up in one word - indulgence. Okay, maybe two - companionship. A great birthday may go a little something like this:

1. Sleep in a bit and have something fun and inappropriate for breakfast.
2. Get a full body massage.
3. Knit in a favorite place with a great audiobook or DVD.
4. Have lunch with your best girlfriends.
5. Take a nice and picturesque walk with your camera.
6. Knit some more!
7. Have a nice dinner with your mate.
8. Indulge in a special dessert.
9. Take in a movie, play or concert.
10. Fall into bed exhausted and with a smile on your face!

Crafty:

• Have you heard about the 6.5 pounds spinning wheel that fits in a shopping bag? It’s called a Pocket Wheel and seems like a great solution for those really tight on space or who travel frequently.
• Check out these paper mache animal models. My paper mache never looked anywhere near as good and I got a rash…
• This homemade fire pit is something I’d *love* to have!
• For other multi-faceted creatives out there, have you heard of the new e-mag, Joie: The Art of Joyful Living? There is a smattering of topics and it looks pretty good, though I must confess to not having perused it fully just yet.
• For me, crochet is painfully slow and I’ve enough of my plate that getting faster anytime soon is not in the cards. But I *love* this crochet rick rack! Wouldn’t it be cute around the bottom of some pajama bottoms?

Photography:

• I spent an enormous amount of time watching these Photoshop Action video tutorials and can feel the money draining from my PayPal account as I ponder all the sets of actions I *need*… But oh the time those actions could save me in post-processing!
• Want to improve your flash photography? Stop using Auto and see what a difference it makes! Kind of scary, but a good concept to explore.
• Autumn is often a time of unsettled and highly variable weather around these parts. DPS has two posts on embracing weather in your photography that are worth checking out.

Foodie:

• These chewy lemon sugar cookies sound like a great option for gift baskets! I can’t wait to give them a try.
• Okay, you know I couldn’t pass up this recipe for Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls which then lead me to Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal!
• Thanks to Jodi for pointing me to a pumpkin cream cheese muffin recipe which she has a few suggested mods on.
• We’ve had some of the most delicious Gala apples this week and I think I’ll be harvesting some today from our tree so this list of 25 apple recipes sounds like a good resource for the coming week!
• Perhaps these quick breakfast recipes will stop me from skipping it (and/or lunch too, I’ve been really bad lately).
• Need more food inspiration? Have you heard of the new community built food site, Tasteologie? It’s a lot like Tastespotting if you are familiar with that site.

Miscellaneous:

• Have you ever seen a sheep ride a motorcycle?
• As a former Minnesotan and lover of Garrison Keillor I had to laugh when reading this excerpt from The Zombies from Lake Woebegotten by Harrison Geillor. (Thanks for the much needed laugh, Chris!)
• For god lovers, check out Pioneer Woman’s Charlie Retrospective. It’ll make you smile, I promise! (Especially if you are of the Basset Hound-loving persuasion.)

Well, that’s all for this week. When I started I thought it was going to be a relatively short post this week as I didn’t think I had been terribly inspired last week, but I guess I was wrong. That is not too shabby of a list.

Here is to another great autumn (is 90+ degree weather autumn?) week!

It can be hard to believe that autumn has arrived when you walk across campus at 2 in the afternoon and perspiration begins to bead on your forehead. Nevertheless if you take in your surroundings with open eyes signs are all around.

You may need to search into the central depths of a tree.

The extremities of others may have been lightly stroked by autumn’s paintbrush.

Likewise, some may have a slight golden glow about them.

Others show no hints of color change yet, but their branches are laden with seed…

and a carpet of hopes for new life in the spring lie at their feet.

The most exciting part to me is the quality of the light. The lower angles of the sun combine with particles in the air from harvesting and late summer forest fires casting everything in warmer, softer light.

I hope you have some plans to live in the moment this weekend and find some signs of season’s change around you. Happy Friday! Have a great weekend!

Thanks to Deb and her daughter’s CSA share and our own I was able to get 2 free tickets to attend Grant Family Farm’s Harvestival on Sunday afternoon. The lovely Kathryn stopped by and picked me up along the way (and gave us a jar of homemade apple butter!) and we spent several sunny hours on the farm.

We were greeted by these two rather tall individuals just outside the gate to the paid section of the festival which included two stages where musicians and sustainability-minded speakers could be seen.

Sunday afternoon was chosen to attend because Joel Salatin, featured heavily in The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Food, Inc. was speaking. He was an interesting speaker, if a tad rambly. With the audience I suspect mostly comprised of CSA members who got tickets as part of their shares he was obviously preaching to the choir :-)

I did manage to spot a bit of fiber arts in the wild…

After the talk we quickly sought out food. We opted for the Grant Family Farm Grill where they were selling bison burgers and brats and well as a smattering of other locally raised foods. Then we wandered one booth south for some homemade root beer (which was less photogenic than the burger).

While it did cost $20 on Saturday or $30 on Sunday to get into the area with the speakers and most of the musical acts and food and vendor booths, there was across the road a free area with a mini farmer’s market and lots of kid friendly activities.

Seeing a watermelon flinged across an empty field via trebuchet was probably the most popular amongst all the ages.

Since the egg recalls, Grant Family Farms has gotten a fair bit of press about their approach to raising chickens. They had two of their chicken buses on display and some boxes of lower grade produce that visitors could feed to the chickens. The converted school buses are driven around to various areas of the farm so the chickens fertilize the soil and graze, then the buses are moved to the next area before overgrazing occurs. They are also locked up inside at night to keep them safe from the coyotes and other predators.

There was a meandering self-guided walking farm tour where you could take in the sights of the orchards and fields and learn some interesting tidbits along the way…

I couldn’t believe this factoid so had to capture it! If I stop and think about it, it makes sense. Grant Farms delivers CSA shares as far south as Colorado Springs each week and they are a major supplier of fresh produce for many of Fort Collin’s restaurants and I suspect many all along the front range.

At the end of the farm tour loop we checked out more of the free section. There were many animals for kids to see. The following is only small sampling.

Okay, you knew I’d take a picture of sheep! The llama and alpaca were in more enclosed pens that made getting fence-free images impossible so you’ll just have to envision those yourself.

Can you name this one?

There were also pigs and a pony and a cow.

And I can’t forget the ducklings (though they were in a different area of the free side). Too cute! I had forgotten how cute they were as it has been decades since I lived on the farm and we hatched any mallards from nests exposed to predators when the alfalfa was cut.

There was also a section with all kinds of fun games, such as the straw pile above. There was a straw maze and what looked like pumpkin bowling (though it was late in the afternoon and no longer being manned). I think there was also a booth where kids could paint and plant a small pot as well as one where they could combine various vegetables into imaginative creatures. There was also a small stage that was frequented by a magician and some smaller musical acts.

I have to say the free side of Harvestival did a really good job of catering to the kids. I think it would totally be worth the 14 mile drive north of town to take preschool and early elementary aged children to the festival in future years.

You can see a few more photos and non-mosaic versions of those appearing in mosaics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/designedlykristi/sets/72157624842183179/detail/

I had the best of intentions to have a recipe to share to knock your socks off. However, it isn’t quite ready yet. It is good, but not as good as it could be.

As you know doubt are aware if you’ve been following me for any length of time I adore anything pumpkin - bread, muffins, butter, donuts, milkshakes, blizzards, soup, even just the color. Thus I am also hopelessly addicted to Starbuck’s Pumpkin Spice Latte which returned at the beginning of the month. Since I’ve been making my own chai concentrate and have made a few other flavored syrups for coffee and Italian sodas I thought it was time to try replicate this $4+ drink at home for much less.

I have the espresso machine (thanks Sarah for the great deal!). We have wonderfully fresh and local milk. We have a fantastic food co-op which saves us *tons* of money on the spices and raw sugar that goes into it and it is all organic! I did some research and there are many recipes out there on how to make a pumpkin spice latte at home. Most are a one time, one or two latte deal. But Sugarcrafter has a recipe for syrup which can be stored in the fridge was more in the direction I was wishing to go. So I used that as a jumping off point.

To try keep “grit” to a minimum I opted to go for more whole spices, using whole cloves and all spice, cinnamon chips, plus slices of fresh ginger and a small nub of nutmeg that our nutmeg grinder can’t grate. I also opted to use some of last year’s pumpkin butter in place of the plain pumpkin puree just for ease. All my pumpkin puree is currently in the frozen state and I was unable to liberate just a small amount. I used raw sugar to add the slight hint of molasses and to keep the sugar refinement down.

Ultimately, the end result is good, but very subtle. It made a nice afternoon fika when paired with a slice of pumpkin chocolate chip bread. I think with the whole spices I need to approach it much more like I do my chai concentrate, heating the spices and water up without the sugar and letting them simmer and steep for much longer. Fortunately I did not make a huge batch so I should be able to give it another go by next week I think. I may find I went a little light on the syrup on the first latte too. We’ll have to see.