An autumn craft

Saturday afternoon and evening we enjoyed some seasonal pleasures, gathering to watch football games and have chili. Since I don't watch football in great detail, so to speak, I found a project that had been in my craft basket for a very long time... beeswax candle kits. You just roll sheets of beeswax snugly around a wick. They're simple, quick to make, and of course, practical. Long before the final touchdown, I had a dozen new candles.

...her candle goeth not out by night.
Proverbs 31:18b

Our harvest

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Genesis 8:22

We've been blessed with a really large pear tree in our backyard. It's beautiful... it blooms heavily in the spring...

Most years, it produces abundantly. Sadly, though, we haven't thought that they made great "eating" pears, but with preparation, they make good cooking pears.

The harvest is a little smaller than average this year, but we brought in a few handfuls of pears this week, and this afternoon, my mother prepared a pear cake (a variation of a fresh apple cake) that we love. And, Jon decided to experiment with our dehydrator, so the kitchen is now filled with the lingering scents of warm pear cake... and softly sweet wafts of drying pear slices.

(The pears pictured by the cake are now in the dehydrator.)

And, this is a chance to display another "lovely thing"... my mother's "cake" doily.

Recipe for "Apple-Dapple Cake" (we substitute pears :))

Mix well:
1 1/2 cups oil
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tblsp. vanilla

Add and mix well:
3 cups flour

1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. soda

Fold in:

3 cups finely chopped tart apples (or pears!)

1 1/2 cups black walnuts (or other nut)

Bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour in a bundt pan.

Working in the wood

... the two of them were working together, Mr. Redmay wielding the saw and Louisa feeding him the branches, to be reduced, in a matter of seconds, to piles of logs. The air was filled with the scent of sawdust. James thought they looked both businesslike and companionable... Louisa seemed tired, but she leaned against James's shoulder and said with great satisfaction, "Just look at it all. Could you believe we'd have got so many logs off just a few branches?"
By Rosamunde Pilcher in "Home for the Day"

A large oak limb had fallen at my aunt & uncle's house, and since we're hoping to hook up our wood stove for this winter, Jon and I headed over there three days this week to cut it up for firewood. Jon ran the chainsaw, and I tried to be a useful assistant. We enjoyed nearly perfect weather, picnic lunches, time to just talk... and the truly satisfying feeling of real productivity!

The first workday he de-limbed it and started on some of the smaller branches.

Here's the limb at the beginning of the second work day...

And here's what it looked like by the end of the third...

We still have to transport the wood to our house, and it still has to be split, but what a blessing that downed limb will be for us. The wood is dense and heavy... I found even these wheels hard to roll, and some of the cuts with the chainsaw took more than 5 minutes for the saw to make it through the thickness of the log. We think it will burn beautifully!

And, oh my, does a girl sleep good when she's worked in the wood! :)

She is not afraid of the snow for her household: ...

Proverbs 31:21a

The mercies of the Lord

I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.
Psalm 89:1