Thanksgiving Monday

The Thanksgiving festivities continued on Monday with a trip to the Applebarn with friends for animals, hayrides, pumpkins, and apple-picking.

Sorry for the excessive amount of pictures--I had trouble narrowing it down.

You can see the trepidation in their faces.

Rock-scrambling

Finally warming up to the goats.

Hayride

Choosing pumpkins

Best friends

They were really excited about the concept of "teamwork"

3-year old conversations are the best to listen in on

Some more teamwork going on.

The things we do for the perfect apple.

Thanksgiving

O Thou who has given us so much,
mercifully grant us one thing more-
a grateful heart.
-George Herbert

I couldn't let October pass by without recording the very best part of that very best month: Thanksgiving weekend. Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving--appropriately as my farmer friends add--at harvest. And where better to celebrate than on a farm, surrounded by the autumnal color and bounty . We've taken care to stay as close as possible to our food sources this year, buying local and in season, and growing some of our own. So, riding our bikes down to the UBC farm and being fed a feast of freshly picked beets, carrots, potatoes, chard, cabbage, applesauce and pumpkins, completed with stuffing made from home-baked bread and a free-range turkey, made this Thanksgiving seem more fitting, more true to its original purpose than any before, as a day for praise to the Creator for the provision of our daily food--a much more obscure truth when you pluck a box off the grocery store shelf.

It was a pleasant day, so we ate out in the greenhouse.

November charms

I have been bemoaning the passing of October, decidedly the best month. But November is not all sogginess and bone-chilling wind and shockingly early darkness and runny noses (though there is a lot of that around here already.) It has its own charms. Perfect toadstools, remaining bits of blazing color amidst the bounty of browns, relatively mild fall afternoons for backyard play, and early candlelit dinners of stew, chili, pumpkin soup, and more stew.

Cora's favorite outdoor pastime is making "stew"

BTW: that one tooth has been around since she was 3 1/2 months. I thought she was an early teether, but she's almost 9 months now and no more have poked through. Apparently it's just the unruly rogue.

Cora's hand-me-down coat from the Alpharetta neighbors. Thank goodness we had another girl for this precious stuff.

Backyard play with friends.

Such blue eyes, just like her daddy.