The woods around here are pure magic right now. That perfect combination of eerie foggy, damp and drizzly. The best part is the incredible amount of mushrooms! The boys and I bundled up in our mudboots and fleeces and made our way into the woods on a search for mushrooms and hopes of spotting a wiley gnome out making mischief.
Kai refuses to be put in my ergo backback these days and with his one lazy eye his depth perception isn’t the greatest. So he spends alot of time pushing himself back up to standing only to topple over a second later. Hopefully this will be remedied soon with an eyepatch and a tincture of billberry.
He was content to let me hold him after I picked him an apple on our way out the backyard gate into the field and onwards to the forest. He munched contentedly as Caleb and I strolled along, chatting about mushrooms, deciduous trees and changing leaves, the dying garden and how hard mudboots are to run in.
Since I was holding Kai, I couldn’t quite hold my camera too, which is a shame. The woods were beautiful, although I know any pictures I took wouldn’t have done them justice. Especially cause you have to smell the earthy dank-ness to fully appreciate what we experienced today.
We found so many mushrooms! Huge flat brown ones, bulbous fat smooth ones, wood fungus and tiny little parasols that were most likely very poisonous. Purple and red ones, brown, orange, and completely ghostly white ones. We managed to make it home with 3 of our favorites so we could try to identify them. If any of you are mushroom experts please take a stab at identifying them for us, as we aren’t certain still what we found!
Have you been out on a rainy walk this season?
In other around the house news, I went and harvested walnuts on the top of a bluff overlooking a small town. The fog was just starting to clear and the brilliant oranges and yellows stood out against the grey. It was chilly and perfect and I came home with a bucket of black slime covered walnuts, which I washed and placed in a box to dry. Then my littlest house imp came and took each walnut out of the box and placed them in a line on a little table. I fought the urge to stop him, and instead let him enjoy the fun of the harvest.
A few days ago my lovely neighbor went and collected pure grade B, amish-farmed maple syrup from a guy that flew across the country to disperse the goods to the west coast. We enjoyed it over pancakes, and if you’ve not had the real deal, then you haven’t tasted real maple syrup. It has a slight woodsy flavor to it, but it’s bold and full flavored and wonderfully sweet. Not sticky thick like the cheap knock off stuff. The boys think it’s a real treat to get squash drizzled with syrup. Caleb calls it his ‘besert’ translated: desert. The jug in the picture was saved from my last maple syrup purchase and used to fill with this recent purchase. We liked our last maple syrup provider too!
At the yarn store I came across a lot of wool bulky yarn that was half off it’s already reasonable price and in a dark charcoal color. What to do with 1100 yards of yarn?!!! I’m sure I’ll find a use 
Maybe a hoodie for the Mr. ?
I’ve been knitting gifts and essentials every night and I’m enjoying the learning process. Recently I finished up this fun hat for my lovely sis-in-law, and I’m tempted to knit one for myself!
It’s the Minty pattern on Knitty, if you’re interested in trying it yourself.
Next, I’ll be working on some knit overalls for Kai, a sweater for Caleb and some fingerless gloves for the hubby. But sitting next to me is some lovely Noro yarn in teals, golds and charcoal that is begging to be turned into some stylish socks! I think I’m going to take the plunge!
Tomorrow, I’ll be pressure canning squash after having successfully canned chanterelles, moving some bark chips to the area we’ll be putting our chicken coup and hopefully spending some time learning how to use my treadle. (EEEEE!!!!) Did I tell you that it came with the original manual, needles and accessories?!!
But for now, I’m enjoying my hard Cider, and some knitting before taking to my warm sheets… which I hope to replace soon with flannels…. cause polar fleece-ish sheets dont breathe. Just so ya know.
