Falling Into Fall, The Ontario Version: Party Gnomes & Pumpkin Patches.

There is no doubt about it. I love fall. Dean thinks I'm a loon--he readily tells me so--when I openly confess every October that pumpkin is one of my favorite words. I love how your lips have to gently pat together twice to muster out the two essential consonants. And, I could rap myself up in all of the cozies that it conjures up in my mind--nutmeg scented candles, steaming mugs of cider and woolen socks warming nippy toes. I must admit that I missed it all so ever sorely in Los Angeles. The month of October still came and went in 31 days, but thick socks and apple cider never quite found their way into our 70 degree weather.

While I am still not London, Ontario's, biggest fan, I am simply swooning over the autumnal bliss recently experienced during short jaunts out into the countryside--it's lovely. Nature is aflutter here as it prepares for imminent hibernation. The trees are shedding their spring and summer bounty creating deeply hued carpets for the squirrels to feverishly hide their winter nibbles beneath. The birds and butterflies are making way slowly down to destinations where the sun will shine a little bit warmer in the months to come. The pear and apple trees, which only a few weeks ago were yielding vibrantly ripened fruit, are browning and thinning as they, too, prepare for winter's slumber.

It has been so long since I have experienced real, true, changing of seasons, such as I have this past year, that I had almost forgotten the comfort that seasonal rhythms bring--carrying you through the course of a year in very orderly and distinctly unique separations. And the four seasons of the year are further punctuated with each of their own set of surprises--bulbs peeking in colors from beneath the late season snow and the tapping of maple trees for sweet amber syrup in the spring, to the asparagus and berries of summer, to the apples, pears and squashes of fall. Each ends as quickly as they began. You blink and the dawn of the next is on the horizon. But, their fleeting availability only sweetens the time you have to spend with each.

As such, we are getting out and soaking in each moment of this season that I can. The rain clouds parted this weekend just in time for us to squeeze in the last bits of dwindling warmth--and fall fun. We attended a woodland-themed birthday party yesterday. There was no shortage of radish toadstools, pixie punch and garden gnomes. Noah and little Fern donned felt gnome hats that I sewed especially for the occasion. I hope that they still fit for months to come because nothing would please me more than to see their chubby little faces tied within its soft and jingly confines while engaged in imaginative play.

Today was spent away on a farm just 30 minutes outside of town. During the summer months it hosts acres of waist-high bushes heavy with plump ripe blueberries. We picked over 20 pounds of them back in July and while we just finished of the last of our frozen stash this past week, we'll have jam to last us throughout the winter months. This time of the year, however, the fields are abound with pumpkins of all shapes and sizes, as well, a zip line, hay bale tower, goats, chickens, pigs, corn cob cannons, pumpkin catapults and a tractor-pulled wagon ride to the farm's outskirts and the coolest corn maze I have ever seen.

To be honest, I am not sure that I am anticipating winter as much as I did fall, but I know that it has just as much to offer. It only may take a little digging beneath the snow to find its surprises.

Holding On.

Chilly weather, winds and rain have moved in and our little Indian summer is over, it seems, and surprisingly I am at peace with the dissipating warmth. I'm somewhat ready for the next season to carry us through the rest of this year. But as another year slowly creeps towards a close, gone are more moments that will never return. Ever since Dean celebrated his 36th birthday last week, I have been seriously waxing nostalgic. I climbed into bed with my sleeping Noah that night and cried. Having kids, and most notably a second, has unexpectedly turned me into a mushy, gushy, kissy, huggy, sentimental wreck. I can see, literally see, Noah and little Fern growing in their sleep. Every morning they are bigger, taller, more clever than the day before. The minutes and weeks and months and years are passing all too quickly and as I laid crumpled up in his little toddler bed, I saw Dean and myself 5, 10, 20, 30 years from now--grey, old and begging the kids to come home for Thanksgiving. We will have been together for 11 years on the 29th of this month. And the last 11 years have felt like a blink of the eye, a fleeting second buzzing past at lightening speed. How fast will this time ahead of us pass? Looking through our wedding photos tonight in an effort to finally put together an album--nearly 5 years post nuptials--has only compounded the urgency of my anxiety. We are dated. We are not really wiser. But we ARE older.

The husband of a mommy acquaintance of mine back in Los Angeles died a week ago this past weekend of a brain tumor. They have a 3 year old son and a 1 month old baby girl. When I learned of his passing, I was cooking dinner. Simultaneously I felt sick to my stomach and suddenly the task of preparing food for my family somehow seemed irrelevant. Time is so fleeting, so fragile, so frail, so frank. It is not nostalgic. It just passes without hesitation. It is an efficient and unsympathetic employee of life.

I have five grandparents, so the weight of the inevitable is growing heavy. Now that I have reached my 30's and have begun looking outside of those self-possessed 20's to notice those around me aging, I can't stop from looking ahead to all of the pending heartbreaks. I know that growing, aging, change and even death can sometimes be beautiful--at least in the sense that it is a natural progression of time's passing--organic--unstoppable--unavoidable. But now that I have arrived to a place of visceral awareness, I don't like it one bit. I want to fire time, or at least teach it some manners--encourage it to go about things a little bit slower, kinder, gentler--like a Southerner sipping sweet tea on a sweaty front porch. In the least, I am hoping that this sob way of viewing forthcoming birthdays and the arrival of 2012 is as fleeting as the time that I curse, or otherwise I need get better at living in the moment regardless of what the future holds because if I screw up the now, the then will really suck!

Apples, Pumpkins & Turkeys, Oh My: Part II--Happy Canadian Thanksgiving.

Our first Canadian Thanksgiving proved to be a fabulous feast. We dined with our dear sweet friends and neighbors on turkey and all the fixins'. I contributed cranberry orange relish, an apple & rosemary rustic tart (with apples picked fresh from the orchard last week), roasted asparagus with brown butter and pecorino and rosemary garlic buttermilk biscuits to the scrumptious spread. Following an amazingly educational and enjoyable day at the Pioneer Village (see Part I), yesterday was restful as we lollied in the park most of the afternoon soaking up any and all of the rest of this fabulous Indian summer.

 

 

Apples, Pumpkins & Turkeys, Oh My: Part I.

As the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend kicks into full swing, we are bracing ourselves for overloads of free range stuffed bird and all the fixins'. A three-day holiday is part of the festivities and this 70+ degree weather has resulted in outdoor fever. Bouts of backyard leaf hopping were plentiful and visits to all of the local outdoor markets we could muster to gobble up the last few weeks of farm fresh Ontario produce. We also ventured apple and pumpkin picking this past week and to Fall on the Farm at Fanshawe Conservancy's Pioneer Village today. Both were delightfully sunny and beautiful days spent soaking in the season's last rays of warmth.

The outskirts of the city is ablaze with crimsons, golds and ambers--the maples and oaks are especially breath taking--one just must tread lightly beneath the walnut trees as they drop their hard and heavy ammo without warning.

This Ontario fall just might just be lovely enough to make the forthcoming Ontario winter bearable.

All In A Good Day's Play: Scenes From The Day.

The joys never end when twenty little fingers and twenty little toes reside under one little roof. Some days are more productive than others--those that aren't, are all-day in your pajamas kind of days and those that are, are get out of bed and seize the day kind of days. Today was a pleasant hybrid of both--little peaks of productivity followed by silly, giggly valleys of lolly and gagging.

Several clothes changes and spinning tops later, we made it to sunset where rest and another day awaits us.

She & Him.

Little, Fern Adele, 4 months old.

Noah Finn, 2 3/4 years old.

How fast the days go, how quickly these two little people grow.

All For Fall.

Pumpkins before roasting, fallen maple leaves, freshly jarred homemade roasted pepper salsa.

Pinecone & sunflower butter bird-feeder that Noey and I made one afternoon.

Lentil soup with chicken and kale, wholewheat sunflower buns and homemade apple butter.


Powwow & Harvest Fest at the Ontario Museum of Archeology.

Fall is upon us. Real fall. The kind of fall that nibbles the tip of your nose with the quick flitting breeze that rustles leaves from their branch perch and sends squirrels into a nut hiding frenzy. It's been overcast, cool and rainy--the kind of autumn that I haven't felt for over a decade. I must be honest, it's nice--fall always was my favorite time of year. It never did feel quite right putting mums on the stoop in Los Angeles' 70 degree temperatures.

So, in light of the season, we pulled out our fuzzy sweaters and rain boots and dove right in. Decorative gourds fill a basket on the coffee table, leaves are raked into big puffy nests for jumping fests, pumpkins continually roast in the oven while loaves of hearty, seedy bread rise under warm towels on the kitchen counter. We've crafted pine cone bird feeders and leaf rubbings and stewed and jarred homemade apple butter, peach chutney, ketchup and roasted pepper salsa for the winter--all fresh from either the farmer's market or a neighbor's garden.

Yes, both the joys and bounties of fall are plenty. With Dean's birthday mid-week and Canadian Thanksgiving just around the bend, I am sure that there will only be more of them to follow.

Happy October and Happy Fall to All!

WWW.DaddyDean.

So, Dean's finally jiggy with the new millennium. Late, but better late than never (i.e. his Canadian schedule has afforded him time that his Cali one never did). He's got himself a website, a blog, as such. For work, of course. Pass it on: http://deanalannelson.blogspot.com/

O'Canada: Lamentations On Life In London.

Don't be blue little Canuck, it'll get better, eh?

Even if 8 months of winter are upon us.

Okay.

I have made a deal with myself to find the beauty in our everyday, here, in London, Ontario.

The truth is--and any local who reads this may be more than a little upset at my admission of this--I don't like London. I haven't written much to this fact on this blog. I wanted to give spring and summer a chance before I aired my dirty laundry about the place. But the real truth of the matter is, I'm not a fan and I am not sure that I will ever be. What can I say, eight months of winter just doesn't tickle my fancy.

Honestly, any place following in the wake of a decade's living in Southern California and Malibu to boot, truly has tough competition--let's be fair. It's hard to move an inch without oozing with inspiration over everything in eye shot--turquoise seafoam, surf urchin, glistening sea rock, desert-flowered cliffs, sea lions and dolphins dancing with bronzed surfers, golden pacific sunsets, trannies on unicycles--eye candy is plentiful. It wasn't hard to find something unarguably beautiful everyday.

Aside from the aesthetics, London just hasn't opened up for me in the ways that L.A. and its closest shores had for me as a new arrival. And as every season passes too drastically here (summer too hot, spring too rainy, and fall too short) on to the one that lasts the longest--winter--more than half of the year long--I yearn for the hum drum melancholy of Southern California's perpetual spring--where the sun shines everyday and flowers are always in bloom. Not everyone may be a fan--I get that. But I was smitten with the place and it's memory in my fond heart only goldens as the distance and time between us widens. Will we go back? We are definitely planning on it. But in the meantime, to make the most of this Californian hiatus, I must stop longing for what was and embrace what is.

Therefore, going forward, I'll try as I might to make London not just a place of residence, but a place that I enjoy living. I must. For we will be homesteading here yet another few years, I fear. So, I vow at this moment to make a conscience, concerted effort to look only ahead--never back--and find the beauty in our everyday, even here, in London, Ontario. It will just take a little work and a sharp eye. But I am finally willing to put in the time. Let's see what I can find.

The Summer That Was: Babies, Roadtrips & Poutine.

Home Sweet Home.

One nervous meltdown, four toll booths, one rain-drenched car interior (don't ask), and 2,000+ miles of roadway later, w e a r e h o m e and I am woefully late blogging about it. We've been home for several weeks now, but getting back into the swing of things has taken longer than I anticipated.

For starters, we had our dear friend, Gabe (of the band, bikos--check them out here and here!), out for a visit from Los Angeles. Every time friends visit us from the sunny southwest, I ache for it's golden shores even more--I m i s s home. His visit passed with a blur (time flies when you're having fun!) and ended with heaps of potine--a Canadian, or should I say, a Montreal-ian delicacy, that Dean and I had been putting off trying until that perfect moment--and so, with Gabe, on a rainy and chilly Sunday evening it was to be tried for the first time. I hate to say it, but it was sinfully delicious. Who could resist fries topped with cheese curd, gravy and any other heart clogging topping one could dream of?

Gabe & Noah--boys, being boys.

But now that summer has halted abruptly into 50 and 60 degree temperatures this week, I must reflect back on the summer that was . . .

Summer 2011 brought with it sweltering heat, drenching humidity, a new baby girl and a three-week road trip from Canada to North Carolina and back. Are we crazy? Perhaps. Nuts even? I am sure of it. If not before this trip, than certainly after. Traveling with a nearly 3-year old toddler and a nearly 3-month old baby was harrowing, confusing, exhausting, hilarious and downright completely insane.

Here was our harrowing road trip route: Niagara Falls, Baltimore, Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, Raleigh, Greenville, Emerald Isle and Fayetteville in North Carolina, D.C., West Virginia, Pennsylvania, upstate New York--and a few more little stops in between. We went to pools, beaches, mountains, museums, a baseball game (which we sadly do not have any pictures of) and visited more family in more places than you can shake a stick at (pictures of the roadtrip warriors here).

All-in-all it was a fantastic trip--a vacation, not so much. But that kind of goes without saying when traveling with kids. The drive from Carolina to Canada was actually somewhat pleasurable. We had finally mastered the stop and go rhythm needed for naps, playtime and drive times to coincide happily. Therefore, you may have noticed that there are many more picture collages on the back side of the vacation travels for just that reason. On the front side there are very few--and the reason is simple--it was worth forgetting.

Since we've been back, I've been one crafting mama. Thanks to the incredible Lotta Jansdotter simple sewing book for babies and toddlers given as a gift from my sweet friend Cyndy, I've been one bib, drool kerchief and giraffe rattle making lady! And, so much so that I have been derelict on my task of getting to work on Halloween costumes.

Fernie Drool Kercheifs.

With our Parent & Child Program at Waldorf resuming and Dean returning to a teaching schedule this week, I hope to also gain a bit of normalcy in my routine with the kids. Since Dean has had only a partial schedule since the birth of Fern in May, this will be my first stint entirely on my own with the two maniacs. How I will fare is yet to be seen. Especially with winter just around the bend. Winter, in London, Ontario, uugghh, uugghh, uugghh.

In the meantime, we'll harvest our pole beans and frolic outdoors as long as Father Fall permits!