Firewood

A cord of firewood was delivered today.  And just in the nick of time!  We had a freeze last night, and I have to say, it has gotten chilly at Little Bird Farm!  The leaves on the giant, old Cottonwood trees have turned golden nearly overnight, and are falling fast.  After I stacked the firewood (not quite in the precisions stacking manner the Commander would have done), I raked many leaves and wheel-barrowed them to our compost heap.  I am reminded as I rake leaves, of the leaf raking we did when we lived in North Carolina!  This is nothing like that!!! (Go get em', Josh and Paige, Debbi & Tommy!)  Raking leaves is one of life's joys - the fragrance of it, watching a little mound grow into an enormous pile.  In North Carolina, Tim learned that if you run the lawnmower over a stack of leaves several times, you can get a LOT more leaves in a lawn bag!  Otherwise, you are filling 50-60 lawn bags!!  This is not our problem here in New Mexico.  There are just enough leaves to fill the compost pile, and maybe two fillings of the trash bin.  Sheer pleasure!  I love every moment of it.  

I have friends who want me to go to the gym with them.  When I can garden, rake leaves, stack firewood, and generally, keep up with all the work that needs doing at Little Bird Farm, I can not begin to entertain the notion of going to a gym!  That would be a waste of perfectly good energy!  And if I used my energy in a gym, we would not be able to fully live out this crazy dream we have of our Little Bird Farm.   

 

October, Wedding Anniversary Month

So it is October - nearly a week in.  This is our favorite month.  It's a strange time of year to actually leave New Mexico, especially at Balloon Fiesta time!  The air all over New Mexico is wafting that indescribably inspiring aroma of green chiles roasting, and the brilliant red ristras hang at street corners and vegetable markets all over town.  Nevertheless, I boarded a plane and headed to Oakland, to visit the Commander, spend two lovely weeks together, and celebrate our 14th anniversary.  The Bay area has so many farmer's markets and in the course of 3 days, we have visited one each day.  They are fantastic!  And it is pumpkin time.  Something about pumpkins, especially multiple pumpkins, causes me to smile.  We have been smiling together all over Oakland and San Francisco.  

And we have been smiling in Wine Country - Sonoma and Napa.  As lovely as New Mexico is in October, I must say that Northern California's Wine Country is equally lovely.  Maybe not as enigmatically so, however.  We went to a wonderful Harvest Festival at Cline Cellars in Sonoma, an event we have eagerly anticipated for several months.  It was a blast - music, wine, delicious food, and friendly people.  This little family-owned winery sits in a picture-perfect spot in Sonoma.  It's one of our favorites, and we return there again and again.  Also a favorite of ours in Sonoma, is the Oak Hill Farm, where we feel right at home!  Little Bird Farm will be a better place because of our stops at Oak Hill Farm.  The spirit and flavor of this place is just right!  We drove on into Napa also, and had a bite to eat at Taylor's Refresher in St Helena. The bacon-blue cheese burger and Coffee Bean shake we shared there tasted fantastic, especially because we consumed it while sitting at a big picnic table under a shade tree out back.  

Pumpkins, harvest festivals, delicious meals at picnic tables.....sounds like October to me!