Friday Favourites: Autumn Light and Golden Days

 

Autumn is slowly creeping in. Ravens converse in trees and on rooftops with voices deep and rasping, or smooth and liquid. Trees turn rusty red. Golden light pours over the land. In the morning I'm thankful for a warm jacket. In the afternoon, a t-shirt suffices. 

On a recent walk I gave into my magpie tendencies to collect things and picked up the above assortment. It's given me pleasure to look at these past couple of days. 

I spent much of last weekend lying on the couch. I think influenza season has begun early. There was much drinking of tea, many naps, and little else. Just two days and I was feeling like getting up and doing a few things, and my energy is returning. Now my husband is lying around. Neither of us felt like reading or even watching television. 

The garden called when I started to feel better and I began the clean up. There are still tomatoes to harvest. Since last summer I've weighed and recorded the garden produce. This year, so far, I've harvested over 30 kilograms of tomatoes! (66 pounds) We've eaten many of them. I canned 12 pints of diced tomatoes, and 14 pints of salsa. Some were roasted and tucked into the freezer. I'm not complaining at all!

Hello there! We've noticed three deer, a mama and two young ones, roaming the neighbourhood lately. They would find a feast in our garden, but fortunately it's somewhat hidden from the adjoining properties, and deer won't jump fences if they can't see what's on the other side. If the deer saw my hydrangeas I'm sure they would have been right over. This angle is deceptive, for the deer cannot see over the rather ramshackle fence. I'm quite high above it on our patio. 

It was a warm and pleasant late-September afternoon. Shadows were distancing themselves from the trees, the statues, the people. Elongating. Straining away.

Louise Penny 

Is there anything more lovely than the warmth of autumn sunshine? When I was ill, I sat in a pool of sunshine on our patio and let the warmth soak into my aching body. How lovely it is. 

I'm out of library books so I pulled Louise Penny's All the Devils are Here from my bookshelf and have begun reading. The story begins on a September afternoon in Paris, in a garden. 

Soup season is here, although I will gladly eat soup on any day of the year. Trine Hahnemann, a Danish cook and cookbook author, posted a recipe for Butternut Squash and Tomato Soup on Instagram recently. I welcomed a new way to use up some tomatoes. It's delicious and will definitely be going into my regular rotation of soups. I made with half of a large butternut squash and three tomatoes and have enough for several meals for the two of us. 

Blogger seems to be working as usual once again, after not being able to leave comments and then blog rolls not updating. I've avoided that by use Feedly. It was easy to set up and most people's blogs showed up there despite blogger not updating. 

There's a picnic birthday celebration planned for this weekend as we enjoy the lingering moments of warmth and sunshine. I hope you have something lovely to anticipate, as well. 

Edited: It's not my birthday, but three other family members! Mine is next month.