Fall nature

I don't do well with the cold. Although I truly love all four seasons and am thankful to live in a state that provides a good sampling of each, I prefer to spend the coldest days snuggled under a blanket with a good book and a hot toddy. Until those days arrive, though, we try to get as much outdoor time as possible, hiking in the brisk weather before its frigid sister wind arrives. 

So when today dawned bright and warm, and delightful 60 degrees and sunny, we decided to take school to the park: our favorite local birding park. We hiked the trails said hi to some of our favorite winter bird species, and enjoyed the first dawning of brilliant fall colors. 

Fall at home

Next to "Michigan strawberries" (that being the middle half of June), fall is my favorite season. It's another one of the reasons that I love our state so very much, because not much beats the richness of colored leaves reflected in lake water, and we have a lot of colored leaves, and a lot of lakes. 

Fall in our house is many things. It is Jon's birthday month. It is the month of Halloween, my second favorite holiday. It is a month of putting gardens to bed, and switching meals from simply grilled to oven savory. We live our seasons as fully as we can. We eschew the air conditioning in summer, and only reluctantly shut the house to fall cold snaps and the blustery weather that follows. We eat foods that are in season, or at least seasonally in style, switching to fall squash when the summer squash is done. 

Fall is also tailgates, and the first days of indoor homeschool group and a new semester of classes there. It is always magical to me how, as the earth cools and the frigid winds come, our homes and our lives get warmer in color, in cooking, and in habit. And just as I love the shedding of layers in spring, I love the adding of them in the fall. 

The everything there is a season.

November recap

Good books, good times

We went to the Audubon lands at Waterloo to watch the migration of the Sandhill Cranes.

We voted

We did science

We tailgated, sometimes with the Boychoir

Pumpkin beers were taking over, and so were giant bears

Calvin and I ran the turkey trot

Iris learned to help with the dishes

We spent a lovely weekend with my family at a lodge in middle of nowhere. And it snowed.

It snowed even more at home

But it melted before Thanksgiving

MST3K Thanksgiving marathon

The last game of the year, the last disappointment (we hope)

Leaves in November

This is not what I meant...

...when I said I wanted to freeze some extra pumpkin to use over the winter.