Autumn Came, With Wind and Gold...

Autumn is here and the girls and I have been taking every opportunity we can to soak in all of the beautiful colors, sights, activities and abundance this time of year offers us. I try to take them apple picking each year together and it has become a fun tradition for us that we look forward to as Fall approaches.

I love walking around our property when the seasons change like this and capturing as much of it as I can in photos. The colors of the trees are in full change right now in Connecticut and we have acorns, hickory nuts, pinecones and so many leaves on the ground.  

Our local farmer's market is just wonderful this month too. I've been volunteering my time a little bit to help manage it and it feels so good to support local farmers. We hope to grow the market as the years go by and I'm excited about the possibilities.   

I love that the weather is getting more crisp and we can put on our woodstove and bundle up when we go outside. It's cozy and awesome knitting and reading weather. 

We went to a fun corn maze and picked our own pumpkin. It was the first time we actually went to a place where you cut the pumpkin off the vine and it was a fun experience.  It was hard to find a good pumpkin though as the field was pretty much picked over but we found an area that was blocked off and one big, perfect pumpkin was there just waiting for us.  It weighed 11 lbs and we can't wait to carve it. Our garden hasn't done as well this year as it has in previous years so we did not grow our own pumpkin in our garden but we did grow other veggies - and we just started picking our carrots. The children in my program loved helping harvest carrots from the garden... 

And the chickens loved the carrots too! 

Little Classes in My Home and Our Backyard Farm

Last week began a series of little classes I am offering in my old daycare space to children in town and in my neighborhood.  Nature Detectives is VERY full and each week we focus on a new subject of learning about nature.  Last week was The Sun and Sundials to celebrate the Summer Solstice. It was so nice to have neighborhood children walking to my house and friends of mine dropping off their children to spend the morning learning with us.

 We made pretty woven suns in miniature format from the tutorial in our Midsummer Festival E-Book (by the way, there is a SALE right now for only two more days!)

We also played fun nature games and made pocket sundials.

 The class is so big I employed my teenager to help as well as my friend who does the outdoor programs with me through Park and Rec.  It is so nice to have such a big response so soon... but it was also a lot of prepping and difficult to find enough activities to keep the children engaged for the full two hours.

 We also made simple paper plate sundials and tested them outdoors.  

My little Nature Detectives!  It's so funny how big my own daughters are compared to these children now. They are still willing participants in all of my classes but it's pretty obvious they are growing up and away from our Little Acorn days. 

 I also held my first Learn to Crochet class with a small group of girls last week.

Crochet is NOT easy to teach but once they mastered how to hold the yarn and hook, they were able to learn the chain stitch and made a VERY long chain that we turned into necklaces and belts. 

Tomorrow is week two of both classes.  I worked hard tonight preparing in advance and hope it goes ok.  

I also have a Mommy and Me Learn to Crochet Class starting on Thursday night. That should be really fun.  

In between, I've been working in the garden a lot.  

The chicks are getting SO big and they LOVE it when I take them into the garden to free range.  I let the bunny out too and it's so cute to see them all in there together. 

I think I may have two roosters though. They are still too young to know for sure but their combs are huge compared to their same breed sister and it's pretty obvious there is a distinct difference in the way they look, their size and also the noise they make. We will have to see how it all works out but I won't be keeping roosters... so we may be down to only 6 chickens. I knew I should have gotten more!