At my local book club meeting, we spend the first half hour visiting and enjoying refreshments provided by the hostess. So, I'm going to think of this blog post as our social hour. Since it's autumn at the beginning of A Single Thread, I've got some wassail and pumpkin bread for you!
Wassail
2 quarts apple juice2 cups orange juice
2 cups unsweetened pineapple juice
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
12 whole cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
Mix all ingredients and simmer in a crockpot for 2-3 hours. Before serving, remove cloves and cinnamon sticks with a strainer.
Pumpkin Bread
2/3 cup oil2 cups sugar
4 eggs
16-ounce can pumpkin
2/3 cup water
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
3-1/3 cup flour
2/3 cup chopped nuts
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease two 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pans.3. In a large mixer bowl, mix oil, sugar, and eggs until light and fluffy. Stir in pumpkin and water.
4. Add baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices to flour and stir well to combine. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and stir until smooth. Stir in nuts.
5. Divide batter evenly between the two prepared pans. Bake for 65 to 75 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.
6. Cool in pans for 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from pans; cool on wire racks.
While you enjoy your wassail and pumpkin bread, I'd love for you to share with the group what autumn is like at your house. I'll go first.
At my home in Colorado, autumn is yellow, and brown, and green. We live in an evergreen forest, so the dark green contrasts nicely with the yellow and brown of autumn leaves. Our Rocky Mountain maple leaves turn yellow as do our quaking aspen leaves.
The scrub oak (or Gambel oak) leaves just turn brown and so do the acorns.
The chokecherry leaves turn yellow, and the berries turn from green to red to dark red. If you want to make chokecherry jelly, pick them quick before the bears do!
In the fall, Coloradoans trek higher up into the mountains to see the beautiful yellow aspen leaves contrasting with the dark evergreens. The best time to view the aspens is the last two weeks in September and the first week in October (more or less)! Very few leaves turn red or orange, so it's exciting when we see those colors.
Part of the fun of being in the Quilters' Book Club is learning about other quilters who live in different parts of the United States as well as all over the world. In the comments section, please tell us what autumn is like in your community. If you feel comfortable, let us know what state or country you're from.
You might also enjoy reading my previous blog post:
Love the quilt block pics and especially the scenery photo. I love CO, altho I have only been there once. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, DJ!
DeleteSince coming to Japan, I miss the Ohio autumn with it's beautiful color everywhere you look in such variety. Here in Japan, we have color too but not all at once or in the same place.The first hint of Autumn is smelled before being seen. The "Sweet Olive" perfumes the air beginning in October but you have to look hard to find where it is coming from, There are lots of evergreens here too so you may see one or two bright red maples on a hillside among the Cryptomeria. In town you are more likely to spot one bit of color along the street or peeking over a wall. The last are the gingkos that line the street with bright yellow colums. Zelkovas turn an orangy brown and lose their leaves slowly, persimmons can be seen on hillsides with leaves all gone and decorated with bright orange fruit. Spotted Laurel and Nandina have bright red berries to attract the birds, then, just when you think it is all over, the Camellias begin to bloom in reds and pinks and variegated flowers peeping over the same walls. And, wild birds begin to return for their Winter visit.
ReplyDeleteJulie, I always love hearing your descriptions of Japan and the life you live there. You are a wonderful writer!
DeleteAutumn is our shortest season, sometimes only lasting for a few days before winter snows start to fall; other times we get a week or two of beautiful colour before the cold sets in, the leaves turn a dull brown and blow off the trees and all the beauty of autumn is only a memory. Autumn starts here in August by the way.
ReplyDeleteYou must having a long winter, June, if autumn starts in August. Spring feels like the shortest season where I live in Colorado because we get our heaviest snows then, so it feels like winter is still hanging on. It often feels like we go from winter to summer!
DeleteI live in the Yukon Territory in Canada. Here winter runs from August or September to about April. Spring is mid April through May. Summer is June, July and part of August. Fall can last for a week in August or up to a month. It is a rare year that we haven't had snow by mid-September and the snow is solidly on the ground by October. Even if there isn't snow, the days are getting short and cold and it isn't lovely.
DeleteThanks for giving us this extra information, Janet. I love the fact that book club members live in so many different places!
DeleteOh and I must try the Wassail!
ReplyDeleteAutumn in Connecticut is often ablaze with color from our many maple and oak trees. People decorate with colorful chrysanthemums, pumpkins, indian corn and cornstalks. Crisp fresh apples and fabulous fresh-pressed cider are sold at many local cider mills (that often have homemade pies, jams, apple fritters, etc. for sale.) Generally, we get about 6 weeks of progression of color before we enter grey November. At least there's a fabulous food fest to concentrate on until the snow falls and all is beautiful again. BTW, I think I recognize the town of "New Bern" and love the bistro there. Thomaston, where Marie Bostwick had her mail sent when she wrote A Single Thread, is less than 10 miles from my house in Avon. Wonder if she's still local?! Loved that book. Gobbled it up like potato chips! Susan in CT
ReplyDeleteAutumn in Connecticut sounds beautiful from your description, Susan. I'm so glad you took the time to describe it to us. It makes me want to visit Connecticut in the fall! My parents took a trip to New England to see your fall color and brought back the sassafras leaves and northern red oak leaf I traced around for my quilt. (You'll see these in a future post.) You can read an interesting biography of Marie Bostwick on her website at www.mariebostwick.com. It says she lives in Connecticut.
DeleteI left Pennsylvania at the age of 18 to find my way in the world, spending a good bit of the years away in the South where there is little to no "fall foliage" to speak of. Several years ago I flew back home for a visit in the autumn at peak fall foliage season. When the airplane made its approach to Allentown airport across the Lehigh Valley I looked out the window at the most awesome sight. The whole valley, as far as the eye could see, was awash in yellows, reds and golds. I'll never forget the experience. When my husband and I moved back permanently two years ago, we were both like two tourists driving through the mountains around us to see the autumn trees. I obviously had taken the beauty of Pennsylvania autumns for granted when I was growing up. My husband who grew up in the Maryland suburbs outside of D.C. said he never saw anything like our Pennsylvania mountains in fall. I'm hoping this is the year we take an autumn bus trip to New England, maybe Vermont or Maine.
ReplyDeleteI loved hearing about your Pennsylvania fall color, Bonnie! It's sad but true that we often don't appreciate what we have until it's gone. How fun for you to get to see Pennsylvania autumns with new eyes!
DeleteI love all the descriptions of fall!!! I live in Central Texas and our fall is first noticed with the air/smell. We stay green until November and then colors just begin to fade. But by Thanksgiving the hills which are covered with Shin Oak, Spanish oak, sumac, red buds turn ablaze with many shades of orange and yellow. It is glorious. I'm sure not the same as Colorado (my home state) nor the Northeast, but fall is my very favorite season in Texas! Go to this link (http://donienefullagar.blogspot.com/2012/12/autumn-splendor.html) to see our colors this past fall!!
ReplyDeleteBlessings!!!!
Hello Doniene--I checked out your photos. Very nice indeed. Thanks for sharing them with us. Fall is my favorite season too. Back in the 70's my brother lived in Denver and I had the opportunity to go camping in the Colorado Rockies in the fall. That, too, was an beautifully unforgettable experience. However, I was not prepared for the temperature to go down to 31 degrees at night in early September. We slept two to a sleeping bag just to keep warm.
DeleteI checked out your photos, too, Doniene. Thank you for sharing. And I remember the smell of Texas in the fall!
DeleteHello everyone. I moved back to Virginia from Arizona in Nov. this past year. I truly love the autumn and the fall colors. I can't wait to have a whole season here next year. The magnificent reds, oranges, yellows and even browns are beautiful. Like Bonnie, I hope to take an autumn trip to Vermont, or Maine, or who knows, all the above.
ReplyDeleteI love living in a place that has all four seasons. Fall in Virginia sounds absolutely wonderful, Terry!
DeleteEvery two years, my family has a family reunion in the Ozarks in Arkansas. Lovely! It is my favorite time there, and we spend the next two years looking forward to the next reunion. We drive there, thru Missouri, which is also a lovely state. Just enjoying God's beauty is the best, wherever we are.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was young and living in Kansas, we used to go to the Ozarks in Missouri. It's a beautiful area.
DeleteI live along the shoreline of Lake Erie. It is grape country. Home of Welch Foods and many small wineries. In the fall the lovely aroma is "grape" everywhere. The coastal area is only three miles wide along the lake and the land rises to become the foothils of the Allegheny Mountains. Our leaf show in the fall is as spectacular as New England!
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting autumn you have, with the lovely aroma of grapes everywhere! Reading everyone's descriptions of their fall makes me want to visit every one of these places and see their fall colors. I guess my trips will have to wait until I retire from teaching!
DeleteI grew up in Arizona (Phoenix area) and fall meant that the lawns would be greener - plush like a fluffy green carpet. Fall meant cooling air and wearing a light jacket in November. I never experienced the lovely fall colors until I moved to CO. The seasons in AZ seem opposite of what they are here in CO! Colorado has more fall colors in the mountains as the aspen turn, getting ready for winter hibernation. Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteChar, it seems strange to think that fall would mean greener grass, but that would make sense in Arizona. I love to go into our mountains in Colorado and see the turning aspens. The color is spectacular!
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