Last weekend.  Thanksgiving.  I’m completely incapable of posting things in a timely manner at the moment.  We had our first big snow of the season.  I think the final reading on Galen’s snow gauge was 17″.  The day before the storm we brought in all the leeks from the garden and made a snack of the last of the baby carrots.  I’m still not ready to let the garden go for the year.  And actually the snow has melted enough now and some of the plants are tall enough that I’ve managed to chip away enough ice to wrench the garden gate open to gather frozen leaves of kale and collards.

I’ve just finished reading Wigwam in the City to see if and how it would fit into our studies.  The woodcut illustrations by Gil Miret partially inspired some of our recent wood block carving and printing experiments.  We made gratitude prayer flags in preparation for Thanksgiving, featuring apple prints, potato prints and yes, some woodcuts as well.  These were some early attempts.  After a good bit of playing the boys are starting to get more satisfying results.

I’m now reading Inkheart at Iain’s request.  We like to share the books we love with one another whenever possible.  Both Iain and Elijah are big Cornelia Funke fans, so I’ve read several of her books already.

Knitting wise, top secret knitting project #1 is in need of buttons.  Top secret knitting project #2 is completely done.  Top secret knitting project #3 is just absurd.  Casting on to size 3 needles, with lace weight yarn, at the end of November absurd.  Let’s put it this way, it might be wise of my sister to call and remind me how very much I love her.  I’m not even going to specify which sister.  After-all, I figure I should be getting something out of this.

Baby girl had her first solid food at Thanksgiving dinner.  I’ve been putting her off because we have so many issues with food allergies and sensitivities that I wanted to wait until gut permeability was less of an issue.  She turned 8 month old the day before and Galen had his heart set on sharing our feast with her.  To celebrate she had her first taste of our home-grown butternut squash.  The yell pictured above was one of excitement, not distress.  This girl makes me laugh.  She has since tried some of the spice free applesauce that Galen lovingly made especially for her and some of the aforementioned garden greens pureed with yet more squash.

We found what we believe to be wolf tracks crossing our driveway Thanksgiving morning!  There have been rumors of there possibly being some in the area, but up until now we hadn’t seen any convincing evidence that they were so very close to our home.  So very close.  We measured print and gait.  Much too big for coyotes and fresh too, they appeared within a couple hours of our driveway being plowed.

I can’t believe we’re almost a week into Advent already!