The past couple of months have been unexpectedly busy, not affording me time for the usual fall/holiday planning and preparations. With things settling down and cooler weather forecasted for the next week (finally!), I've started searching for some new fall recipes to try. Here's what sounded good:

Sweet

• Spiced Apple Upside-Down Bundt Cake
• Sticky Spiked Double-Apple Cake with a Brown Sugar-Brandy Sauce
• Spiced Applesauce Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
• Ricotta Apple Cake with Cider-Maple Glaze
• Nick Malgieri's Chocolate Hazelnut Pound Cake
• Miniature Pumpkin Spice Cakes
• Chai-Spiced Honey Bundt Cake
• Browned Butter Pumpkin Bundt Cake
• Triple Chocolate Pumpkin Pie
• Pumpkin Caramel Cheesecake Turtle Bread
• Clementine-Vanilla Bean Quick Bread
• Salted Fudge Brownies
• Dorie Greenspan's Applesauce Spice Bars
• Pumpkin Spice Scones
• Hazelnut Cookies
• Caramel-Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies
• Maple-Butter Spiced Popcorn
• Vanilla Bean Sugared Cranberries

Savory

• Maple-Roasted Turkey with Sage Butter
• Caramelized Onion and Cornbread Stuffing
• Cranberry-Pecan Stuffing
• Apple and Cheddar Scones
• Spinach, Mushroom and Bacon Cheese Fondue
• Beef Chili + Sour Cream and Cheddar Biscuits
• Cider Brined Grilled Stuffed Pork Chops
• Dorie Greenspan's Cauliflower Bacon Gratin
• Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Bacon and Gorgonzola
• Irish Pumpkin-Cider Soup
• Bacon-Cheddar Biscuits

Beverages

• Pumpkin Spice Latte 
• Hot Rum Cow
• Apple Cider, Cranberry, and Ginger Punch 
• Warm Vanilla Cider

Also, from my newest cookbook, Holiday Fare: Favorite Williamsburg Recipes: Peanut Soup with Cranberry Sauce and Lardoons, Butternut Squash and Pear Pottage, Sugar and Spice Crusted Pork Tenderloins with Red Cabbage and Pear Compote, Gingered Pumpkin Muffins, and Applesauce Buttermilk Biscuits. Yum!

Our garden was SUCH a flop this year, for the first time ever, so needless to say, I can only dream of having a pantry such as the one described below (from The Country Kitchen by Della T. Lutes). It makes me long for those "simpler" times and is an inspiration to do more (and better!) next year.

"Autumn is here. The blue of October sky grows thick, is filmed with grey. The apples are picked and barrelled, to put in bins. Baldwins, selected for long keeping, Northern Spies, Greenings, Jonathans, Seek-No-Furthers, Russets, Gillyflowers, in the bins for more immediate use, or, if the cellar is unsafe in coldest weather, in the apple pit outside. Lovely names, incomparable fruit. Cider and vinegar barrels are full. ---

Cellar and pantry are stocked. There is a barrel of wheat flour in the latter, at least a twenty-five-pound sack of white sugar, with as much of brown, and a sack of buckwheat flour, with another of corn meal. When these are used up we shall go to the mill. There is molasses in a big jug, and coffee, tea, and other groceries on the shelves. And the bean barrel - we must not forget the bean barrel, for it plays no inconsiderable part in the winter diet.

In the cellar, besides the bins of apples and potatoes, the piles of squash, turnips, and cabbage lying on the uncovered ground, there are cupboards and shelves full of canned and preserved fruits. Perhaps a pan of broken honeycomb, for my father always kept a few hives of bees.

My mother (as did all her contemporaries) began this preparation for winter with the strawberry crop. When the best and heaviest pickings were over - those that brought the best price - the preserving began, until there were dozens of glasses standing in back in a dark corner in order that the delicate colour might not fade.

Following the strawberries came raspberries - 'rawsberries,' we called them - black caps, and red, also transmuted into jam to be eaten on freshly baked bread for supper or used in tarts; gooseberries for a 'fool' or to be served with game; currants - many, many glasses of jelly, for this makes the best jelly roll, and is the best accompaniment to the chickens, turkey, or game dinner.

Jars of cherries, plums, pears, peaches, and small stone crocks opulen and fragrant with preserves: citron, quince, gingered pears.

And pickles! No end of pickles. First of all there was a barrel of cucumbers preserved in brine. These would be taken out as needed, freshed in cold water, and then soured in spiced vinegar. There were crocks of sweet pickles, mustard pickles, chowchow, piccalilli, watermelon rind. Bottles of catsup - chili sauce. ---

In the attic were bags of nuts, strings of peppers, and bunches of herbs - sage and savoury, as well as those of medicinal nature. And dried apples in some! Ah how pungent was the air, how teasing at every turn was the odour of this provident brewing during all the days of summer and fall. How infinitely satisfactory to the housewifely eye was this cumulative show of conserved surplus, this prescient gratification of anticipated need, this lavish prospicience to individual and family appetite.

Not the cleverness of a well-turned verse, nor the glut of colour in a glowing canvas, can more fully slake the thirst of creeation that does this rich provision for her family's needs satisfy the true home lover. And as a remedy for boredom, ennui, or a flagging spirit, I can recommend nothing more salutary than a garden for production and a cellar for preservation of its harvest."

This afternoon, while browsing The Well-Trained Mind Forums, I stumbled across a downright *thrilling* discovery. In an old thread, I found a link to this Wired Magazine article about custom-printing public domain books. Now, I'm an avid Google Books user, but *hate* reading books online (as do my kids). I also dislike printing everything out as it results in significant paper/toner usage and just isn't quite as nice as having the actual book in hand. Unfortunately, many of the public domain books that I love are either impossible to find, or prohibitively expensive.

The Espresso Book Machine will turn a digital copy into a library-quality, perfect bound book in just minutes (how magical is that?!), but unfortunately, only a handful of book stores in the U.S. own the machine. Even more distressing is the lack of a shipping option offered. Finally however, I found this: the Harvard Book Store will print and ship books! And better yet, their search system appears to tie into Google Books directly. This really is, in my mind, completely revolutionary and opens a whole new world of possibilities for homeschoolers!
After quick deliberation, I ordered copies of the following (at a mere $8/apiece):

• Handbook Of Nature Study: For Teachers And Pupils In Elementary Schools by Dietrich Lange
• Nature Study in Elementary Schools: A Manual for Teachers by Lucy Langdon Williams Wilson
• In the Child's World: Morning Talks for Kindergartens, Primary Schools and Home by Emilie Poulsson (I adore this book and refer to it often!)
• Nature in Verse: A Poetry Reader for Children by Mary Isabella Lovejoy
• The Child's Fairy Geography, Or, A Merry Trip Round Europe by Forbes Edward Winslow (absolutely delightful and quite informative!)
• Legends of the Middle Ages: Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art by Hélène Adeline Guerber
• Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages by Edward Lewes Cutts (contains some good information not readily available elsewhere)

Already I'm making a list of the books that I'll need to order next (a few, in particular, that I forgot to order today!):

• Sharp Eyes: A Rambler's Calendar of Fifty-Two Weeks Among Insects, Birds, and Flowers by William Hamilton Gibson (referred to often by Emilie Poulsson in the above volume)
• The Book of Nature Myths by Florence Holbrook
• The Fairy Land of Flowers: A Popular Illustrated Botany for the Home and School by Mara Louise Pratt-Chadwick
• The Stories of My Four Friends by Jane Andrews (The "Four Friends" are the four seasons)
• Types of Children's Literature: A Collection of the World's Best Literature for Children by Walter Barnes (a fairly useful anthology)
• Merrie England: Travels, Tales and Historical Sketches and Bonnie Scotland: Tales of Her History, Heroes and Poets by Grace Greenwood (excellent!)
• Chaucer for Schools by Mrs. H.R. Haweis (also excellent!)
• Stories from Old English Poetry by Abby Sage Richardson
• Old Ballads in Prose by Eva March Tappan
• The Open Road: A Little Book for Wayfarers and The Friendly Town: A Little Book for the Urbane by Edward Verrall Lucas
• A Book of Golden Deeds of All Times and All Lands by Charlotte M. Yonge
• English Fairy Tales and More English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs
• Ethics for Young People by Charles Carroll Everett ("A dry subject attractively treated")

For last Friday's nature walk we decided to re-visit Pawnee Prairie Park, since we'd never seen it not flooded. We had a nice but rather uneventful walk...and fortunately we left just in time as yet another thunderstorm was looming!

Last week, three of the kids and I went for an impromptu nature walk at Pawnee Prairie Park, a local nature preserve. Though we've lived in Kansas for nearly eight years now, somehow I'd never heard of this park until a couple of weeks ago. Someone on a local e-mail list had raved about the abundance of sunflowers in bloom there, so I knew we had to check it out!

Unfortunately, my timing could not have been worse. We were hit with excessive amounts of rain for most of last week, and while there was some flooding in town, it never occurred to me that the park might be flooded as well.

Just a few minutes into our walk, we encountered water.

Because it only appeared to be ankle-deep, I wasn't overly alarmed and decided that we should press on...surely dry land was only around the bend, right?

The sunflowers were beautiful...

The twins enjoyed playing in the water entirely too much, while Maddie and I were decidedly less thrilled.

Finally we got to some semi-dry land.

And then just a little further, we came to this...At this point, Maddie and I were begging the boys to turn around so that we could go back to the car. They didn't listen, so we had no choice but to cautiously follow them. The current was fairly strong at one point and it was hard to keep our footing on the concrete path below (a path we couldn't even see!).

This was our view from the bridge (a much swollen Cowskin Creek!):

Once over the bridge, we encountered a meadow - and more flooding. We followed one of the trails for a few yards before I insisted that we turn around and go home. There was water in every direction and at times it was hard to tell where the creek had been originally, it was very disorienting and a little alarming!

On our way out of the park, we saw some fresh deer tracks:

And that was the end of our adventure - one hour, LOTS of water, and three soaked kids later, I was happy to be done with it!

I must say, I cannot wait to get back to the park for another nature walk - the little that we saw was quite beautiful. This time, however, I will be sure to wait until everything has dried out completely!

After our break, we started on the second trail...

The second trail had a lot of spider webs!


They were instructed to observe the logs that we found (looking for signs of life), and in particular, to look for fungi:


Eventually we found a clearing, and the road back to the car...


On the way back, the boys found a mud puddle full of tiny frogs:


And Elon spotted some deer tracks:


Finally, we were happy to return to the car after a very full morning of exploring!

For our first Friday nature walk, we chose a spot close to home. It's a well-hidden area that few people are aware of, which makes it the perfect location to observe nature.

Before hitting the trail, we explored a portion of the beach along the Arkansas River. Elon was quick to spot these badger tracks:

Next we started on the first of two trails through the woods...



We observed bark patterns on trees...


And marveled over these huge hairy vines, which we later found out were poison ivy (the "hairs" being the vines' aerial roots):


We mostly slid down this hill (which is much steeper than it looks!) to get to the beach again...


Maddie collected shells:


And we spotted more animal tracks:


Elon was also thrilled to find a few holey rocks. We climbed back up to the trail and resumed our walk...


I challenged the kids to find some wildflowers (though we couldn't identify these):


Soon we came to a clearing...


And found two more types of wildflower:


We also found this:


We took a quick break before starting on the second trail...


To be continued...