The smell of toasting pumpkin seeds... and all things Autumn

[Peregrine]

This has got to be my favorite time of year so I thought I'd start one of those fun, anecdotal threads...

That crisp cool bite in the evenings, the smell of fireplaces, leaves & decaying vegetation mingles in the air. Glowing jack-o-lanterns peeking out through the foggy nights... Alright, I'm getting sappy & poetic. Here's one of the pumpkins I carved today... wait, how do I upload a personal picture on here? dagnabit...

[justdrew]

a "scents only" thread ?



upload the file to http://imageshack.us/
once it's uploaded, copy the text in the "direct link' box, paste it in here and surround the link with the IMG tag by selecting it and hitting the IMG button.

so...

Code: Select all

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8442/autumnnightbyrencg.jpg

then looks like...

Code: Select all

[img]http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8442/autumnnightbyrencg.jpg[/img]

which then appears as...

[barracuda]

Peregrine, just upload the file as an attachment. Just below the submit button there's another area wisely labeled "Upload Attachment" where you hit the "Choose File" buttton to browse your machine, then hit "Add the File" and let the forum work its majick.

Autumn where I live means the oranges and the pomegranites get ripe.

orange tree in back.jpg

[Perelandra]

Good one, P. We're gettin our Samhain on here. Lovely fall weather is making up for the non-existent summer, but I hear rain is on the way.

Mr B, is that citrus sour or sweet?

[Peregrine]

Justdrew, that is gorgeous. You took that? Pere, I hope that it doesn't rain on Haloween, I'm handing out candy & my man is taking the kids around the 'hood for trick-or-treating. Barracuda. One word. Marmalade

Here's one of our pumpkins. More on the way when they're done...

[Peregrine]

The files are huge. Apologies for those with a stretched out page...

[barracuda]

Mr B, is that citrus sour or sweet?

The longer they hang on the branch, the sweeter they get, until you wait too long, and they seem to ferment a bit.

[Peregrine]

heh, you may have some drunk local wildlife if they start eating the fermented stuff. I remember years ago a berry tree with overly ripe & fermented fruit in it. The birds were eating them & they were so noisy & rambunctious, for birds. A few fell out of the tree & had a hard time trying to get back up into the tree. It was quite the show. Birds gone wild.

[justdrew]

Justdrew, that is gorgeous. You took that? Pere, I hope that it doesn't rain on Haloween, I'm handing out candy & my man is taking the kids around the 'hood for trick-or-treating. Barracuda. One word. Marmalade

Here's one of our pumpkins. More on the way when they're done...

no, I wish, just found it on the net, but thought it was perfect.

Awesome pumpkin carving too, very nice
please do put some more up

[Peregrine]

Thanks drew... I will indeed post more. We're going all out this year. I'm carving a pumpkin that will be getting sick on my man's porch, it's hilarious.

On a side note, here's a cool website... www.extremepumpkins.com

[annie aronburg]

Speaking of pumpkins, here are the volunteer squash that grew out of my compost patch this year.

October 2010 144.jpg

I see a lot of squash risotto, tempura, pie, and bread in my future.

Help a sister out with your squash recipes down in the Cheap and Delicious recipes thread.

[barracuda]

^^Luca Brasi sleeps with the squashes.

[norton ash]

Putting the gloves on to walk the dog. The smell of leaf smoke, wood stoves, fireplaces.

Diamond stars on obsidian sky, cold air. Coming home to the World Series on the tube... the bright colours of a stadium night game on the screen, so dark outside, amber light inside, TV volume off and the music on.

Carlton Fisk became the harvest king for some of us. Autumn baseball will forever raise my pulse and break my heart.

[82_28]

Holy crap, Annie! That's an awesome score! None of our squashes made it. They looked like they would produce a bit, but then they gave up.

While I may "somewhat" like the autumn, I'm never ready for the change in seasons. Just as I get used to the summer, it's already over and it's time to adapt again. It happens so fast the further north you go or are. Minutes upon minutes lost and gained per day in this transition.

[Nordic]

Here in La La Land, we don't really have an "autumn" of the variety most people know, or that I myself grew up with.

Instead we have the "Santa Ana''s", which is when the winds change and the hot polluted air blows out across the ocean, and the normally cool and pleasant beach front areas become dry, hot, brittle, and smelly. Then the fires begin, and often get so prolific that smoke fills the sky and the sun turns orange, even in the middle of the day.

It is by far my least favorite time of year here, a time when I would love to go somewhere else, almost anywhere else considering that autumn, elsewhere, is usually wonderful. However, the kids are in school, so nobody's going anywhere.

This year has been very strange. We had almost no real "summer", then we finally had a week of extremely hot weather, with record-breaking heat in a matter of a few days. Then rain. Day after day of clouds and rain, making us feel like we're in Seattle or some place.

Now it's an early winter it seems. "Winter" meaning the rainy season.

I miss autumn, the real one. Last time I experienced any of that was visiting my Dad two years ago in northern Minnesota, where it's fantastic.