Gray Day

The clouds have moved on and we're expecting bright and cold weather for this weekend. Yesterday, the skies were gray and overcast, no doubt made worse by smoke from the California fires. It was hard to see any smoke against the gray skies, but my lungs were feeling it. Sue and I got out for our Friday morning walk. We were glad for dry weather, even if the skies were gray. Here are some things we saw along the way.

We first crossed paths with these two...honking furiously. They were not happy to see us.

Hey! You there! Get away from our fence. I'll kick your @$$!

Their neighbors to the left were also honking furiously, but they were less interested in approaching the fence to yell at us. I kind of like those "tuxedo" geese. And don't you suppose that chicken feels silly penned in with a bunch of foolish honking geese?

And that was the last picture I could take with my point and shoot camera. My battery went dead after that. Oh no! What will I do? Enter the iPhone camera, which I don't usually like for taking pictures of the landscape. They say the best camera is the one you have with you, and so it was my best camera for the morning at least.

When we turned the first corner of our loop walk, we passed by this pyracantha. The ones I've seen growing in California have red berries. Orange is the usual color for these Oregonian ones.

Shortly thereafter, this guy crossed our path. His shell was about the size of a quarter.

In the ditch on the side of the road, we noticed these galls that had fallen from a nearby oak tree. They were about the size of ping pong balls and there were thousands of them.

Walking on...holly berries...not to be out shown by the pyracantha berries. 'Tis the season, after all.

Some apples...well past their prime.

I liked this fence alongside the orange leaves of the tree.

There is a small winery here. Looking out across the valley, we saw this.

Here's someone with just a little too much time on their hands.

And we passed by this pretty fall display of pumpkins.

And there were a surprising number of blooming things still standing.

When I got home, I iced my knee and worked on my slow stitching a little while. I was going to do the French knots a few at a time, but I found myself wanting to see all the colors. Cake sprinkles...that's what I see.

After that, I finished the top-stitching on the latest block for It's Raining Cats and Dogs.

From there, I still needed to do some hand-stitching, but I'd almost forgotten that I was planning an Apple Cobbler for Two for Friday night dessert. This was so good. It isn't hard to make, but it takes just over an hour to put it all together when you add in the baking time. It starts with two Gala apples, cored, peeled, and cut into 1/4-inch chunks. With just two apples, it doesn't take long. They were mixed with some butter, flour, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg and then heaped into two 7-oz. ramekins.

They were tented with foil and then baked in a 400°F for 35 minutes. (I used my toaster oven for this.) When they came out of the oven, I gave them a little stir with a fork, and pressed the apple pieces down below the liquid.

Then, I made the topping, which took about a minute. The directions will tell you to work this with your fingers as if working butter into flour for pie dough. It started out the consistency of paper mache paste, but then became more like a wet dough. I pulled it apart in little clumps and then dropped it over the surface of the ramekins.

Then it was baked another 15 minutes, and voila! It was bubbling when I took it out of the oven.

While I was waiting for those to bake, I was able to finish the hand-stitching on this block. And that there is a finish. One more block to go on this quilt.

We had a dinner of leftovers last night, and then we cued up our little cobblers. They were cool by this time.

Add yourself a small scoop of vanilla ice cream, and you've got yourself one tasty dessert.

You can find the recipe for these right here. I'm totally loving these desserts for two. They satisfy my itch to bake, and my itch for something sweet. And...no leftovers, so they only blow our diet temporarily. Oh yes, and never mind that proclamation from a few weeks back. I knew that was a lost cause from the get-go.

Yesterday, I saw an interesting article about Choosing your Thanksgiving Pie Using your Astrological Sign. And who am I to argue with the stars? So, Mike and I are both Taurus. This is what it said about our best choice for a Thanksgiving Pie:

Pecan Pie! And I just happen to have a recipe for Pecan Pie for Two. I'd say that's a choice written in the stars. Maybe next time around...

So, today I'm back to working on Mulligan Stew. I'll do another five blocks for that, and then I'm not sure what. I might go ahead a fuse the next Chicken Buffet block and just save the top-stitching for when Big Bertha is back in action. No estimates on when that will be, which I'm finding extremely frustrating, but oh well. Nothing I can do but wait.

What's on your agenda for this weekend? I know some of you are buried in snow, so stay warm and dry out there, okay? Oh yes, and stay safe while you're at it.