I feel as though I redeemed myself a bit today. I’m about to head off to bed, but my stock is bubbling away on the stove and there is apple-pear sauce cooking in the crock-pot so that it will be all ready for me to can in the morning.

I made two huge pans of brussel sprouts this afternoon. We had the most gorgeous brussel sprout harvest from our garden this year! So I made these two large trays, thinking that they would be good for snacking on throughout the week. Only I suppose I forgot to tell my children that. Of the two big pans, there are currently a total of 12 sprouts left!

People always seem suprised when I say that my children love brussel sprouts. I don’t really see why. They are quite good when they are prepaired properly. I think they just got a bad wrap from people cooking them poorly. Our favorite way to prepair them is roasted with garlic and coconut oil, then tossed with lots of sea salt and fresh ground pepper just before serving. Yum.

So, I got a bit of a leg up on the cooking and the playroom has been mostly set right (there will be pictures of that soon!). Of my 5 packages, 3 are totally packed up. Two went out today. The third came back home with me for consideration, once I found out that it was going to cost me $50 to ship it! And I’m finally, finally, finally almost done carding the wool for the pillow I’m making. It’s a bit of progress anyway.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to fit in a full day of homeschooling, can the apple-pear sauce, make a batch of straight apple sauce, get the saurkraut started, and start on dinner, all before heading off to our homeschool group in the afternoon. Oh yes, and I still have to make the black beans and squash that I want to bring with us! Should be another busy morning! Then again, aren’t they all?!? But while we are on the subject of squash, I have some of the decorative kind to share…the results of our Friday night craving!

Iain’s:

Steve’s (lower) and Elijah’s:
And an angle that you very rarely see…When I transfered my pictures, I discovered that one of my children had decided to take their own jack ‘o lantern picture, with a view from the inside out!

Galen’s sweet little glittery pumpkin shines best in the daylight:

Happy Autumn all!