Autumn Foliage

Thousands of leaves fall

Peppering lawn and walkway

Never enough words

Picklefest 2011

Recent pickling exploits lead to an abundance of, well, pickles.

Honeyed Sunshine Pickles (redubbed Liquid Sunshine)

Spicy Dill Spears

So we invited over some friends and we all shared pickles -- bread and butters, relishes, dill spears, dilly beans, sweet gherkins, pickled eggs, preserved bamboo shoots. We also indulged in a variety of other fermented and leavened products. We were well and properly pickled by the end of the afternoon.

Autumn

Lonely cricket sings
Sunset darkens trees and sky
Folding yukata

Picklemania!

It's pickle season here at the Harvey House. Jars and jars of fresh pickles! Here are the Dilly Green Beans and Bread and Butter Zucchini Chips. Not pictured are the Dill Spears, Sweet Gherkins and "Honeyed Sunshine Pickles," a sweet-and-savory cucumber chip. Can't wait to do more dilly beans later this week.

Got crossbills?

A notice posted on our local birding list tickled my interest:

"Got crossbills? If not, we can share! For the past few weeks we've had continuous numbers of Red Crossbills visiting our sunflower seed feeders. They are present all day and readily seen.... We estimate approximately 20-30 birds."

I informed my ever-patient non-birder husband that we'd be going to see the birds after work on Friday.

We drove to the specified address where the birds were indeed easily seen busying themselves at the feeder in the company of American and lesser goldfinches, house finches and evening grosbeaks. The poster/resident saw us peering with binoculars from the other side of his fence and generously invited us into his yard to get a good look. The birds were relatively unconcerned with us standing only a few feet away just beneath their feeder, and we got great views of several juveniles, females and brick-colored males.