It's really fall now

In case you hadn't noticed, it's getting colder:

We've had two hard frosts and we are now enjoying classic fall weather. The foliage has been beyond spectacular and this weekend is just as colorful as the last one. I don't remember when we've had a more fabulous or long-lasting fall, in terms of color. I'm not even a tourist and even I took a bunch of pictures from the car the other day. Our neighbors' house:

The woods down the road from our house:

At the crossroads:

This is in our yard. The white of the birches against of blue of the sky, with the leaves and all. Well, I'm impressed.

The backyard early yesterday morning, complete with frosty ground and apple trees:

When the temperatures drop, a lot of this kind of thing appears at our house:

That's Semolina Bread, from Nick Malgieri's must-have book, How to Bake. It was okay but no better than any of the other breads I make from that book all the time. The semolina does give it a nice golden color, but no noticeable flavor. And it occurs to me that I have no idea what semolina even is.

Then, there are the nuts.

They are black walnuts, and they came from a tree in our yard. My husband and brother-in-law want to dry the nuts for eating. I wanted to dye fiber. We're both happy.

I read all kinds of things about the near-impossibility of getting the husks off the nuts. After hearing you could hit them with a hammer, or drive over them in your driveway, I chose to cut them open like an avocado: I used a paring knife to cut through the husk down to the hard shell in the middle, then made the cut all the way around the husk, then turned each half in opposite directions. I'm not sure why it was so easy for me. I was probably doing it wrong or have used the nuts too soon or too late. In any case, voila:

Here are the nuts, uncleaned and in their very hard shells, just before being set on a rack to dry for a couple of weeks:

And here are the empty husks, just before being boiled on the stove:

I didn't get any interim shots of the dark brown dye being simmered, cooled, or strained. But I did get a picture of the Blue-Faced Leicester top I dyed with the liquid:

Awesome. This was great fun, and I dyed two portions, one to keep and one to sell. I have plenty of dye left over so there may be more for sale. It's wonderful. Another view out of direct sunlight:

I was warned not to get any on my fingers because the dye is very permanent. I did okay except for my left thumb. It should disappear in a couple of months...

There has been knitting. I finished the first outside part of my daughter's fingerless gloves:

Palm:

That white line across the palm is temporary. Eventually, I'll take it out for the opening. I'll rib the top part and make glove fingers from the bottom part. It took me a looong week to finish this first one. Fortunately, I'm half done the second one and I didn't start it until yesterday. I don't know if I'm getting better at my stranded knitting or I'm feeling the pressure of the imminent winter. Must. Knit. Faster.

I felt I had to throw in some gratuitous animal photos, which always seem to make people happy. I don't have any of Milo, but if you just imagine a gray-and-white ball of fur being held down by my husband while I go in with tweezers and remove a tick or two each morning and night, you'll have the idea of Milo lately. He is a tick magnet. And he's beginning to hate the sight of tweezers.

Here's Sophie with her dad:

 

And piggies!

 

 

 

Cow-cows:

And poultry:

Today we picked the last of the apples from our very sparse trees. Next year, when the trees have recovered from their severe pruning, we should get more. We've got a few batches of applesauce and maybe a half-dozen bags of pie filling in the freezer. We got about 2 bushels today, maybe a bit less, which should be enough to make a few gallons of cider, presuming my husband finishes building the cider press today. That will be in its own post shortly. I hope.

I almost forgot there was a shop update a few days ago. Still available are some yummy Blue-Faced Leicester top:

Some bamboo-blend sock yarn:

And the new introduction in fabulous fall colors, Sugar Hill Lace yarn!

Not to keep harping on this, but there was more available a couple of days ago. If you want to get a chance at the stuff that sells out the fastest, I recommend you sign up for A Piece of Vermont's mailing list for early email notification. I don't sell your address or anything and you can un-sub any time.

Now, I'm going to sneak in a few more rows of knitting before my family notices I haven't been outside in a while.

Daisy hopes you enjoy what's left of your weekend...

 

Comments

[Elizabeth]

I am in the process of making hair dye with the walnut hulls. I'll blog about it later in the week when it has fully steeped. Btw, I used the hammer method.

[Valerie]

I have 2 favorite black walnut foods: Black walnut fudge, and black walnut cake with butter cream frosting.
For the fudge, the nuts just go into the regular fudge recipe.

There are a bunch of the cake recipes online.

Ah...autumn in Michigan is nice, but autumn in Vermont is sublime! Thanks for the lovely photo shoot

[Hanna]

How do you dye fabric with walnuts? I have something I want to dye brown, and we have a few trees with walnuts in our yard...

[SpiderWomanKnits]

We have the same thermometer outside our kitchen window :-) I hate to say that I've missed almost the entirety of this Fall, it's very depressing. But today I finally got outside to rake, tuck in our flower beds and just take in what's left of this season. It truly is just outstanding.

I used to do a great deal of primitive arts/living and would use black walnut to smoke brain tanned deer hides. It would produce such a rich, golden color. I love the way your yarn turned out.

Love the mittens, BTW!

[Carrie]

Beautiful foliage pictures. It's still in the 90s down here, so I'm jealous.
They make something called a tick spoon, which is just a plastic spoon with a notch in it. Works great on the ticks and you don't run the worry of popping them, cuz YUCK. Maybe if you alternate that with the tweezers Milo won't catch on.
Is it just me, or do those fingerless gloves look a lot like mittens?

[Sylvia]

There's a nice short article on wikipedia about semolina.

My dad's been experimenting with adding a bit of polenta to his loaves and it is wonderful!

Love your photos.

[Marcia]

The best semolina bread I've ever tasted is the Altamura bread recipe in Daniel Leader's "Local Breads". It's one of the few in the book that I can honestly rave over, but it's divine. Peter Reinhart has a few in Bread Baker's Apprentice, too. Great pictures and I do have a mental image of Milo with the tweezers!

[(formerly) no-blog-rachel]

Love the walnut dye! And I envy your cold snap (though come February I probably won't). I had to check this week's weather before I went shopping for the ingredients for chili. I didn't want to eat it all week if it was going to be too warm. It's October, damnit, it should be cold.

[Ramona]

When it comes to pigs, I think Daisy is about as cute as it gets.

[donna lee]

This has been a spectacular year for weather. First a wonderful Aug/Sept and now a beautiful October. What have we done to deserve this? My brother has a black walnut tree and he pays people to take the walnuts away. I just found out about this! I'll take them away for free! I love black walnuts.

[AnnaMarie]

I've been loving the leaves, so nice to have a variety of color out my windows. The roving looks like a Cocoa Latte! Great Dye Job.

I'm cooking dinner on the woodstove tonight for the first time, life is so good here!

[Kristen]

I am so impressed with the walnut dyeing!

[Susan]

Oh I love that walnut BFL. I'll have to avoid your store until it's gone because I'm gonna have to buy a water heater. :(

Our trees haven't turned yet but we are supposed to get much cooler this week so maybe they'll get the idea soon.

[missscurious]

The colors and weather on this side of the mountains have been equally gorgeous. It's been a great chance to get the serotonin up before the vitamin deficiency kicks in. We were invited by a friend to help glean an orchard and are now in possession of about 500 apples. We have apple sauce, bread, soup, and more to come. At least we won't need any fiber supplements. Your yarn and fiber both look beautiful. The pigs are getting so big. Enjoy the cozy knitting weather.

[lindy]

Sophie and her dad are always sooooo cute!

[Carole]

I have lots and lots of black walnuts on the ground in the backyard. I think I'm too lazy to do anything with them, though.

[gayle]

I can remember my grandparents needing walnuts hulled when I was a child. They put them in gunny sacks, gathered the grandchildren (all of us wearing hard-soled shoes), and told us to start stomping! It was a lot of fun! Grandma told us that when there weren't any kids handy, they'd drive over the bags with a car...
Walnut hull dye is the very best thing for baskets. My brother gives me a bag of walnuts occasionally for my basket-making. Nowadays, I've been using the hammer method, too.
As usual, your roving makes me drool... But since I've currently got 2.5 whole wool fleeces and 2 alpaca fleeces on hand, not to mention a small mountain of various-sized bumps of this and that, I'm trying to keep myself under control. (When I first started spinning, I made a homemade spindle and bought 1 ounce of roving, just in case it turned out I didn't like spinning... How silly, eh?)
Oh, but you tempt me...

[Mia]

I would have gladly sent you all of the black walnuts from my tree. Except that the squirrels got to them early this year. There are only one or two laying about on the ground compared to the normals hundreds. Wonder what that means for winter?

I like the brown the shells created. And poor Milo and tweezer mommy.

[Teyani]

love your foliage shots.
How very awesome to dye with the black walnuts!! and your new yarn and fiber looks gorgeous

Frontline makes a really good flea/tic application for cats (and yes, it works) While I normally hate applying things like this to animals, I draw the line at ticks (since they can fall off in the house and get on us) One application lasts about a month.

[kitkatknit]

Your photo of the low light on the frost and golden orange trees is lovely! I just gave you an award. Go check out my blog to see what it is. (it's the rules)

[Beate]

Hi Jessie.those treas are just breathtaking- I love fall.just love when the colors changes, its getting colder and so on. The piggies seems to enjoy life.

[Andrea (noricum)]

Semolina is a high-gluten type of wheat flour, and is usually used to make pasta.

*Gorgeous* fiber!!! Adorable animals. :)