Harvest Season

Our harvest season has had a very slow start. We did not have much to harvest as a friendly gopher reaped most of the benefits of our garden. Unfortunately, we did not make it apple picking. Our visit to the pumpkin patch was pretty much a bust.

Thank goodness we are in the season of change as our season turned and we are now harvesting crafts and a bit of food.

I saw this idea over here http://ahandmadechildhood.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-to-make-pumpkin-garland.html and decided we were going to make one of our own.
My kids did a few stitches here and there, my littlest did almost all of the stuffing, and my son had a blast cutting out the Jack o' Lantern faces. The picture above is from the inside of our entrance/ shoe room. The picture below is from the outside view of our house. We decided to go two sided.
I really loved the idea of making these, http://gardenmama.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/10/my-entry-2.html
We cut out pumpkins and brought out the watercolors one morning. To the dismay of all of us my kiddos found the newspaper and watercolors to be enemies. So, we tried coloring a few with markers and decided hanging them as is was best for us this year. Maybe next year we will have more patience to give the water coloring another try as it does look quite spectacular.

My son is in love with anything that he deems scary at this time. "Bats are symbolic of scary," he had declared and wanted to make bats to hang around the house in the spirit of Halloween. We used an old egg carton, paint, yarn, and a glue gun to create these very scary bats.

This wreath is a favorite of mine! Lillitha constructed this last year with me. She placed every flower, pinecone, and cat tail in its location and than allowed me to glue it with her closely watching over me. I hope it will last for many more years as it brings a smile to my face each time I pass by it.

Here are our sugar pumpkins ready to be roasted in the oven. The smell of these pumpkins today brought this Fall Season alive for me. Today is this first day I have felt like yes, it is indeed Fall. I generally love this season and try to drink in all I can of it.Things are different this year, I did not have that warm fuzzy feeling that has followed me in past fall seasons.

Things change and dipping my fingers in the warm water to separate seed from gunk, I began to feel Fall settle into my being.

Our pumpkins line the porch stairs and greet visitors and us alike into our humble abode.

Zari is helping mash the pumpkin so we can freeze our puree to be used in a requested May birthday Pumpkin Pie.

Lillitha thoroughly enjoyed all of the tactile activities making pumpkin puree entailed.

And here is what we reaped from four small sugar pumpkins a whooping 11 cups of puree. Hurray!!!

Our seeds waiting to be salted and roasted or separated to become sprinkled as toppings.

Yummy!!!

Although our season started off rather drab, tonight I sit and relish that things are in full force. Our home is decorated and it smells of fall cooking. Yet there is still much to do and much time to do it in.