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Thanks to another Jessie for sending me this. It doesn't quite fit here, but close enough.

In which the Pumpkin Queen praises the harvest and updates the shop

First, I'd like to thank you for the many kind words you sent in Larry's memory. He was a peacock that will be remembered.

Next, let's talk pumpkins.

I am now the Pumpkin Queen.

I wear the crown of pumpkin because my last post may have kicked off an entire pie-baking movement across cyberspace. If nothing else, it provoked a lot of questions along the lines of "What kind of pumpkins do you use?" and "How do you cook them?"

So, with the fanfare befitting Her Royal Orangeness, we shall now share our recently acquired understanding of fresh pumpkin pie. With pictures.

These are the pumpkins:

Do not use Jack-o-lanterns! Blech. They are stringy and watery and tasteless. Go for the small, round pumpkins called "pie pumpkins," "sweet pumpkins," or "baking pumpkins." Various kinds of squash will also make a fine "pumpkin" pie, but we're the Pumpkin Queen. Go ask the Squash Queen. Our farmstand sells these pumpkins for $2 apiece and from the four pumpkins above we got filling for 5 pies.

Halve them. Scoop out the guts (give to your chickens or bake the seeds and eat). Place the pumpkins face-down on a preheated baking pan. A hot pan is supposed to keep the flesh from sticking. When we have it, we use parchment paper (love that stuff). Bake until very tender.

When done, the pumpkins should be brown and soft and the skin should come off easily. Use a knife to pare off whatever sticks:

Puree (or hand mash) the pumpkin and then measure off into 1-3/4 cup portions (roughly), the standard amount for one pie and freeze whatever you're not using today.


Voila. Pie!


We admit we're so taken with the flavor of this pie that we now have 8 portions in the freezer and still 3 pumpkins left to bake. That should get us through the holidays.

Off the throne, and back to real life:

I know a few of you have been wondering about the pigs. Yes, the Big Pig Day came on Saturday. The two smaller pigs (260 pounds live weight) got a visit from The Guy and we had our first slaughtering event. The good news is that the process was quick and clean and not nearly as awful as I had expected. It took less than an hour and a half start to finish and both my daughter and I watched the basic processing (though not The Deed) with interest. The meat is now at the butcher's being cut up and smoked and we'll have 192 pounds of pork in the freezer in 2 or 3 weeks. (We took one pig; my sister-in-law took the other.)

The bad news is that Sassy didn't like it (surprise, surprise). She was out of sight for the actual slaughtering but she seemed nervous and lonely and kept trying to look for the other pigs. Since she couldn't find them in the barnyard, she lifted the gate off the hinges and went looking for them in our neighbor's front yard. Twice in one day.

Fortunately, she comes when she's called so we were able to lead her back home without much trouble. My husband felt terribly guilty about her being all alone and he fretted all night. It's pretty pathetic when you feel worse for the pig that lived than the ones that didn't.

Lonely Sassy:

On the bright side, we did plan on having Sassy bred, and she happened to be in heat this weekend (part of the reason she was so agitated; it's a hormone thing every 3 weeks that gets her all riled up). We got a loaner boar, who we are calling Fudd, for reasons I don't know. He is a sweetie.

Sassy and Fudd got busy within 5 minutes of meeting, and although I did take pictures of the event, my good taste fortunately got the better of me and I decided to leave them off the blog. So Sassy's happy again (although she torments poor, exhausted Fudd with booty calls all day long, the hussy).

We also got two new piglets, Fudd's offspring:

I guess we're really a homestead now.

I updated A Piece of Vermont with superwash sock yarn in two skein sizes. I have Hey, Good Lookin' and Stroke of Midnight in the regular 4-ounce sizes:


I also have Don't Fence Me In, November Evening, and Chance of Rain in 6.2 ounce skeins:



The first two are actually 6.5 ounces (705 yards) but are priced the same as Chance of Rain (a colorway I absolutely LOVE), which is 6.2 ounces and 672 yards. I figured sometimes people need more than 4 ounces for extra-large socks or stockings or even a scarf. We'll find out if I'm right. (ETA: Yes, I'm right. Don't Fence Me In and Chance of Rain are SOLD.)

I've been plugging away at Rogue. I am determined to finish it before I get back to gift knitting. I'm almost to the hood and the sleeves are done. I started the neck on Saturday:

Knitting Daily recently published the results of their poll on why people have unfinished objects. People said, among other things, that they got stuck on endless stretches of stockinette and that they get overwhelmed by too much complicated knitting. I think Rogue is a great balance of the two, which is maybe why I am not putting it down.

I finally got a giant plying bobbin for spinning and I've done a little. But since I'm currently being faithful to Rogue, I've been happy just to enable others, like my friend Jenn,

who has discovered spinning's stress-relieving qualities.

I have so much more to blog about (applesauce! sheep!) but not enough time to get to it today. Instead, I, the Pumpkin Queen, bid you to go forth and bake a real pumpkin pie.

Or just take a nap.

"The lion shall lie down with the lamb...

...but the lamb won't get much sleep." ---Woody Allen

What you see there is a very contented Milo taking a brief respite from evil, and a very nervous little poodle. The cat has suddenly decided that he likes to cuddle with us every morning. Sophie's not too hot on the idea, because she knows at any moment, Milo could extend his claws into her back. It's a reasonable fear, although it didn't come true on this particular morning.

This post is light on pictures, which is a shame because the fall foliage is finally starting to turn and just about everywhere you look is beautiful. All I have is this morning shot, and I'm not even sure why I took it:

In knitting news, I am cruising on Rogue. If I didn't mention it in my last post, I have started a Rogue Knitalong on Ravelry. We have over 50 members already, so that's pretty cool. And it is keeping me faithful to one project. Pictures are too boring, but I have the sleeves, the lower body, and the back done. I'm now working on the front neck and then I'll have the hood. Hoods use 4,000 yards of yarn and take 2 years to knit. Even baby hoods. Have you noticed that?

On a sad note: RIP Larry. Yes, our fabulous blue peacock, who graced two local newspapers with his plumage and who made us grace the newspaper police log for his insistence on standing in the middle of the road, was--surprise, surprise--hit by a car.

Do not mourn, blog reader, for Larry. For the past year, he has been living a life of complete freedom and blessing us with his glorious displays, and playing (ironically) chicken with the traffic. We knew he would someday burn out, not fade away. And the alternative, to have kept him in a covered pen, would have been no life for a free spirit like Larry.

But we'll miss him.

Moving on.

This is what I'm all about lately:

I didn't grow these. They came from the local farmstand. I have now made 2 pumpkin pies from scratch (using little pie pumpkins, not jack o' lanterns). In a word: WOW. I blame Barbara Kingsolver and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for reminding me that pumpkins don't actually grow in a can. The difference is remarkable. My poor, sheltered tastebuds never knew.

Yesterday I also made soup using my own vegetable stock, since the stuff I was about to buy, while organic, was shipped from 3,000 miles away. I supported local farmers, ate organic, and did an environmentally conscious thing, and it tasted fantastic. Yes, I'm bragging.

I shouldn't add that I also made a loaf of crusty bread from LOCAL, organic, stoneground wheat, but I did and it was delicious and nutty and full of texture and again, supports the local farmer. Next year, as an experiment, I want to grow some wheat myself. My husband is all over this as he just put us further into debt bought a new tractor and wants to Work the Land. I'm sure the sight of me flailing and threshing wheat in the yard will be worth a few photographs. I just want to know what people used to go through to make a loaf of bread before it came in plastic bags.

Okay, let me step off the soapbox now, before I get pushed off or pegged with a ripe, organic, local tomato, and leave you with this: Fresh food tastes damn good. I want more. (And two related observations: 1. I love fall and the chilly weather that makes baking bread and making soup so compelling. 2. Have you ever noticed how people who are really fired up about something have almost no sense of humor? Yeah.)

Look for a shop update tomorrow at the latest.

Larry the Peacock. (2003? - October 15, 2007)

The fog lifts

Over the weekend, there was fog every morning. Spooky, beautiful, fog.

On Tuesday, however, the early morning mists gave way to this:

This is more like October, in my opinion.

There was no shop update this week because I didn't dye anything this week. Nope, I spent one whole day shopping for jeans that don't fit me (I might have to go the Norma route) and most of the rest of the week catching up on long-neglected bookkeeping and paperwork. You don't know what my desk normally looks like because I don't take pictures of it. Imagine a windstorm in Staples. With dust bunnies. Much better now.

Here's what's up for the week:

• I am giving Gmail and Google Reader a try this week. Any opinions on these? My poor little brain is accustomed to Outlook and Bloglines, so I'm having a hard time adjusting. It's like suddenly deciding to speak French all the time. It slows you down and makes your head hurt when your automatic motions have to be retrained.
• Epiphany: I can knit without looking at my hands! The question of how to do this came up in a Ravelry forum and the universal answer was to Just Do It. I discovered that I knit better when I'm not looking, oddly enough, although only in stockinette. I was able to lie on the couch all weekend (what a cold I had), knit, and actually WATCH movies. Hot Fuzz. See it.
• I worked on Rogue.

Since this photo was taken yesterday, I have knit in the top of the kangaroo pocket. The sleeves are already done and I'm cruising up to the armholes. This may be the most fun I've ever had knitting a sweater. I have no idea why.

• Have you seen the Knitty October Surprise? This is actually a bit disturbing. I like it.
• Milo can be nice.

• Our dogs are spoiled (in case you hadn't guessed).

• I won a contest! My very humiliating birthday-party experience was so compelling to Amanda over at Bulldog Knits that she awarded me the prize outright, instead of picking the winner randomly. This is a true story . I haven't spoken of it much, for obvious reasons.
• I made a fun sheep discovery: Our new Border Leicester Sophie likes a good scritching on her head, neck, and back. She has a spot on her neck that, if you scritch it just right, makes her back leg kick just like a dog's. I get a huge thrill from this. Yeah, pathetic.

Last but not least: Have you signed up for Ravelry yet???? I know the rate of signups is getting faster all the time. Even if you don't have any need for some of the features (for instance, I have no interest in cataloguing my stash), that site has the coolest interface of just about any website I've ever seen. It's constantly being tweaked and almost every day there's a new feature. If it's your birthday, your avatar gets a little cake icon in the corner. If you type in something about coffee, a little coffee cup icon appears in your post. (Works with tea, beer, and martinis, too.)

Now there's a tab called Radar. If you click on it, it shows all the posts from all the forums in real time. They scroll down your screen automatically (no mouse clicking required) as they are posted so you can "eavesdrop" on every forum.

Okay, that's all cutesie stuff that has nothing to do with the real functionality of the site, which blows me away. Everything--yarns, patterns, people--are linked and tagged so there are databases and cross-referencing and who knows what else for everything. For instance, I have a pattern page, where I have posted some of the things I've finished or am working on. Each pattern is linked to the pattern source, the designer, the LYS where i bought the yarn, the yarn itself, etc. These all come in handy when you are looking for a certain pattern or yarn or a certain criterion (e.g., hoodie).

Now I just discovered "neighbors," a list (with avatars) of people who have made the same patterns I have. You can click on any person, neighbor or not, to see their patterns and also their blog, if they have one.

Look at me, I'm gushing. Enough already.

Sliding into the weekend (with a shop update)

The mornings here in Vermont have dawned beautiful and misty.

It does not help, however, that I have come down with a killer head cold that makes me see everything as if through a slight fog. Today I feel rotten. Tomorrow I will feel fine, as long as I carry a jumbo box of Puffs wherever I go.

This did not prevent me from updating A Piece of Vermont. Today's theme appears to be primarily  "Christmas socks for Hubby/Grandpa/Dad/Son/BF" although that's just a suggestion.

I have the usual, Colonial Superwash fingering yarn, in three colorways

Then, by request, I present Panda Superwash (60/30/10 wool/bamboo/nylon) in five colorways. Three are standard skeins:

But two are huge, 6.8 ounces, over 700 yards apiece. I thought maybe someone might want to do a scarf or a pair of stockings or something bigger than your average socks.

(I only have one skein each of those last two, the biggies, so if you like them, hurry.)

Next week, I have appointments most of the day Monday, and a column to write Tuesday, so I doubt I'll be updating the shop until Friday at the earliest.

Now I will retire to the couch (missing the local high school homecoming football game) and nurse my stuffy head with hot tea and bad TV. I'll leave you with two things: One is a link to Derby and String. Libby, having recently reentered the dating scene, has been recounting some of her more colorful adventures in the world of dating. Yesterday morning she described a Date from Hell I doubt anyone could top, unless you too have gone on a date with a superhero.

Then, when you've recovered from the giggles (and the cringing on Libby's behalf) and are feeling better about your own track record in the romance department, take in some early-morning pictures from my back yard:

Not as exciting as dating a superhero, but this is Vermont, not L.A.

When worlds collide

(Get ready for a very long, photo-filled post featuring animals, food, a shop update, and a lot of words you can just skim over.)

The newcomers on the left are Sophie (another Sophie!) and J.J., the two most recent acquisitions at the Raymonds' Home for Surplus Farm Animals. Snowy and Lucy were somewhat concerned. This photo shows it better:

The sheep arrived on Sunday and the re-establishing of the livestock social hierarchy began. Trooper comes out on top, as always:

What the sheep have in greater girth, they lack in assertiveness. But things are settling down to mutual wariness, which is fine for now.

As for breeds, Sophie is Border Leicester and J.J. is still a mystery, although I'm leaning toward Hampshire, based not only on his coloring but also on the dense, spongy quality of his fiber (more on that in a moment):

My husband tried to win the sheep over:

But they're still skittish. The goats, however, never miss an opportunity for a little scritch on the head:

Or a kiss on the nose:

All the animals were out in force on Sunday, seeing as it was a beautiful fall day:

Roy and Lars:

Ed and Trixie hanging with the big boys:

Larry fast-walking:

The girls, led by BigFatDaisy, enjoying a cantaloupe (from my garden! forgotten in the vegetable crisper!):

Overall, the weekend was fanstastic. The weather was great. We had relatives from out of town for the day on Saturday, and Sunday I actually did some weeding (two heaping wheelbarrows full) for the first time since June, I think. The garden is yielding some goodies in addition to many tomatoes. Butternut squash and peppers:

Most exciting of all, Friday afternoon I picked apples from our very own neglected apple trees way out back. We have three varieties (four trees). One kind, probably Rhode Island greenings, are still on the tree and in great shape. Hardly any blemishes even though the tree has never been sprayed or pruned or anything. Very tart and firm. The other two had kind of gone by, so I only got one apple on one tree and the ones I got off the other tree were small and looked terrible and scabby on the outside. Fortunately, they were sweet and juicy on the inside. I just wished we'd had more.

My daughter and I brought these in the house:

If you look closely at the two in the lower right corner, you will see they are suffering from a condition known as "goat bites." The goats went with me to pick apples and turned up their noses at the hundreds of apples already on the ground, preferring the ones I had just plucked off the tree. Dumb old goats.

Then we did this:

And the next morning I made this:

I would love to say it was the tastiest pie I ever made, but it wasn't. The fact that I made it not from store-bought apples, not even from pick-your-own apples, but from pick-OUR-own apples turned it into the best pie ever, even if it was a bit on the tart side. Next year I'll get out there earlier and get more of the sweeter apples. Still, it didn't last long:

Now, about fiber stuff.

I finally started spinning Opus 2007. I failed to get pictures of my singles, but the story is that I wanted a two-color tweedy yarn. I plied brown to white (J.J.'s very own fiber!) and got this:

This is very cool, and yet I think I would get a headache if I had to look at my husband wearing something like this in sweater form. Too busy. So I tried a little overdyeing:

This turned out too dark, but better than the above. It's overspun, too. But it's the right bulky weight for the heavy sweater I have in mind and I'm continuing with the spinning. When I'm done, I'm going to overdye it in some shade of blue/gray but not so dark that I lose all the contrast. I'm very excited about this project. And bulky yarn spins up fast!

Last, I have updated A Piece of Vermont with both sock yarn and superwash merino top. Here are Frosted Berry and Balsam (some of which sold already):

And the spinning fiber:

I just received an order of Ashland Bay Panda Superwash, so after a bit more wool/nylon sock yarn, you'll be seeing some wool/bamboo/nylon, as requested.

Of course, no post would be complete without a Milo shot. Here's Sophie expressing concern with the new dynamic:

Note her stunning resemblance to the pile of carded wool in the foreground:

Much better:

   

It's amazing how jazzed I get once the temperatures start to get downright autumnal. I hear it's going to get hot again for awhile, but it doesn't matter. I'm in Fall Mode. My favorite mode, actually.

Roy and Larry like it, too.

(Those little pumpkins? They're from the farm stand down the road. After reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I decided canned, long-distance, anonymous pumpkin was just not an option for this year's pies. Next year, I'll grow my own.)