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Four Pillars

Tinking Turtle Raverly

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Last night we opened up the house and turned off the air conditioning.  I left the fan on, and halfway through the night I awoke to turn the fan off; the air circulating through the house was cool enough.  In the wee hours of the morning I woke up again to pull the fleece blanket out over the sheet.  This morning, as I climbed on my bike, I wore long workout pants and a sweatshirt.

Tomorrow the morning will be warmer, and I doubt I’ll need the sweatshirt.  By Wednesday we’ll probably close up the house as the humidity and heat climbs.  But it’s happened – I’ve seen my first glimpse of Fall through the haze of summer.

I’ve talked before how I’ve always been an Autumn Girl.  The smell of hot cider and the curve of a pumpkin reside someplace to the left of my heart.  Halloween is anticipated with the same excitement of a birthday.

Maybe it has something to do with the weather cooling and the hand-knits coming out.  Maybe it has something to do with the start of school, the crisp feel of unlined paper, new school supplies, and a potential for learning.

This upcoming Fall has a special highlight – I’m teaching at Rhinebeck.  There’s so much to do before the date!  I’m working on class samples, and trying to squeeze in the time to make a Rhinebeck Sweater (
which, unfortunately is looking less and less likely).

Finish This: One of the Classes I’m teaching at Rhinebeck

I’m really excited because I’ve been dreaming of teaching at Rhinebeck for several years.  This is where you come in – if you’ve been thinking about taking a class, and haven’t decided yet – you really should!  Many of the classes I teach need to meet minimum enrollments – so if you wait unti
l the last minute you might miss out.  New York in the fall is simply beautiful, and many people I know are making a trip out of going to Rhinebeck, and taking some time to enjoy the Fall foliage!

You can signup here!

https://www.tinkingturtle.com/2014/08/last-night-we-opened-up-house-and/

Do you know why October is my very favorite Month?

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I’ve always been a fall girl, a northern girl, a Yankee.  My favorite fruit is the apple, my favorite tree the sugar maple, and I live for fall foliage.  I like when the weather turns, the nights turn cool, and you put the extra blankets on your bed.  I love when school starts: new backpacks and notepaper and new pens.

October is when Halloween happens: perhaps the best holiday in the US calendar, where you can anything you want to be and you aren’t teased for it.  I love crunching on roasted pumpkin seeds and eating all the types of gourds that come into season now: spaghetti squash, butternut, pumpkin, yum!

Fall is when I pull out my hand knit or crochet socks, sweaters and blankets, and get to cuddle into them.

I start thinking about October sometime at the end of August, and spend most of September trying to persuade people it’s almost October.

This last weekend we went apple picking – already the second venture out of the season.  The first week we spent most of the time making apple sauce, this week we are making apple butter.

an apple, shiny on the tree
This is the fifth fall that we’ve been processing apples (I’ve been doing it many years before then, with my family), and we’ve got it down to a science.  Apples are merely quartered and put into the pot whole, and boiled.  When we run the soft apples through the food mill, the stems, woody bits, and seeds are worked out.

For the apples we dry in the dehydrator we have this nifty machine, pictured above.  Sometimes I’ll just do an extra few apples because it’s so much fun to crank it. 

When we are really going at the applesauce making, we have all four burners going, and nearly every big stockpot in the house.  Pictured above, we have the three burners boiling the apples and the one burner boiling the already canned applesauce.  It’s a good thing the weather is turning cool, because the kitchen gets quite hot!
For me, the smell of apples cooking, and the smell of allspice, cloves and cinnamon altogether embodies fall.
Do you love Fall? Do you have some favorite fall traditions?  I’d love to hear about it on twitter or facebook.

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