Tilly chose Dolly for a ride at the Rock Bottom Ranch Harvest Festival today. The horse was so beautiful and Tilly beamed the whole time she was up there. The festival itself was just fabulous – with pumpkin carving, lunch, music and maybe the most beautiful fall day ever…
Tag Archives: autumn
pumpkins
i think i might have the most beautiful pumpkins. it only took three pumpkins patches (maybe four) to find some non-traditional orange pumpkins. with heirloom tomatoes so much in vogue i thought finding 'other' pumpkins would be easy. we did buy 3 'regular' pumpkins – plus the two we already had. and then we picked out a 'cinderella', a 'lumina' and a 'jarrahdale' – the blue one – my favorite!
fabulous fall day
it was windy and grey today with a winter storm warning in effect (there's about 2" on the deck right now). there's something about spending all day outside 2 miles from your car with the weather blowing and spinning around you that makes you feel like you got away with something when you get home and you're still dry and you had a great time.
we wanted to go to a pumpkin festival at Rock Bottom Ranch in Leon (Basalt). they have very little parking so we drove our car, with bikes on the back, to Catherine Store. then we rode the Rio Grande Trail to the little eco ranch.
We carved pumpkins, helped make apple cider, had a great lunch, tilly rode a giant horse with her cubs hat on and best of all chased chickens. tilly's so great and gentle though that she got to pet the chickens and the giant turkey.
fall walk
we had tilly's best friend over this afternoon. i took the girls for a walk – which meant dressing up of course. they looked fabulous out in the sun on this gorgeous fall day.
they love each other so much. it's fun to be able to watch two little humans become such good friends and the ways the play.
the leaves fell off the trees this week.
i see that i haven't posted in a while. suddenly the fall is moving fast – and it's been a beautiful long warm fall. around here though we are waiting for the snow.
usually its quiet here in the off season. not this year though. i think the warm weather has kept everyone moving.
autumn baking
so the eat local challenge is done. we did pretty well. i think everything we ate in our house over the course of the month was from within about 100 miles of where we live. we enjoyed lots of local wine, cheese and tortillas. items we will definitely keep around. all local veggies, fruit and trout. those fresh items are slowly becoming harder to get as the choice at farmer's market gets smaller every week.
i know as the month progressed it felt like i ate more lunches out. eating out wasn't held to the same standard. in general, i was hungrier without all the bread and pasta in my diet. eating was more fun in some ways – i was more appreciative of interesting flavors and required a lot less sweet to fill that dessert space.
with the month over i was excited to bake – with flour and all. we still went to the trouble of making a homemade pumpkin pie – with an actual sugar pumpkin we roasted and pureed. it was well worth it. i mostly followed the recipe from cook's illustrated. i used their filling ingredients and their crust recipe. i believe it is the best pumpkin pie we've ever had. i made homemade whip cream last night and tonight. so yummy!
fall festivals
we love fall festivals. always have, always will. it's such a beautiful time of year to be outside (although we think every day is perfect here in paradise).
this weekend we took Tilly and a friend to Grand Junction for an apple festival at a historic farm there. they had a wonderful day – riding the kiddie train, petting the pigs and cows, chasing the chickens, helping make apple cider, and playing tons of kids games.
the best had to be the 'apple bobbing'. they have a version there with apples hanging on strings. the kids try to grab the apple in their mouth without using their hands. it's so funny and charming and perfectly fall.
we did end up eating chuck e cheese pizza for lunch which was a little sad for us adults but the girls had the best time!