Reinvigorate

It's been two years and two days since my last post, and it's possible that everyone who used to read my blog at that time has forgotten that this little thing exists--but it's alive! Recently, I upgraded my phone to a smart phone and I have been getting back to taking photos and decided I finally needed to put some on here again.

Over the last two years I was swamped with balancing school and work, so taking photos--let alone sharing them--was a really low priority for me. In May, however, I completed my MLIS from UW-Madison, so I have had a lot more free time in which to take photos, knit, kayak, write, paint, and read. I would imagine that some people would think that getting a Masters in Library and Information Science would include lots of pleasure reading, but au contraire! And yes, there was a lot of reading, but for me, I read a lot of technical books and articles which is not always the as pleasurable as, say, reading Seveneves or ridiculous amounts of graphic novels. Though, I'll be completely honest, I genuinely enjoy learning new information science non-fiction, it just happens to stimulate a different part of my brain than science fiction (or any other fiction for that matter).

So without further ado, some lovely fall photos. We can pretend this is exactly where I left off two years ago and I'm picking it all back up again.

My parents visited a couple weeks ago just as the leaves were starting to turn. We went for a walk at Winton Woods at which, up until then, I had only kayaked on the lake. So it was nice to see a different part of a park that I'm very familiar with from the waterside.

And with the advent of fall I have been able to sink my teeth into the mycological side of Ohio and Kentucky, both literally and figuratively. Recently, I was given a rather massive piece of Chicken of the Woods but I didn't take any photos of it before it was turned into mushroom soup.

I'm fairly certain that this is an old reishi (also known as Linzhi, or Ling Chi).

I'm still not sure what these are.

As you may also note, even after two years of hiatus, my propensity for photographing small things and mushrooms has not diminished. I don't know how regularly I will update my blog but if any of you are still reading this, even after all this time, you are one patient individual.

I ran out of clever.

I haven't been taking a whole lot of photos as of recently which is largely why I haven't been posting. But I'm finally taking some time to post what has been happening since Halloween.

On the eighth of this month Joel and I celebrated our one year anniversary of being married! We've certainly done a lot and had a lot of changes happen (moved across the country, started and quit a couple jobs, started school, got a cat and chickens, moved in with lots of friends, etc.) and its been a really wonderful time. So on the eighth Joel and I went on a drive in Northwestern Oregon. Originally we had intended to go on a hike but it was really rainy and cold (big surprise, Oregon) so we just drove and had a picnic overlooking a duck-speckled lake and enjoyed each others' company and talked the afternoon away in the car.






On our way back down from Vernonia (where the lake was, it might have even been called Vernonia Lake) I spotted an apple tree along the side of the road so we stopped and I walked around on the slippery sloping side of the road and picked two apples that looked not too bad. I ate one a couple days later and it was very delicious -- crisp, tart and sweet.




Then after we came home we went out to have Mexican food and that was pretty much the day. It was a good quiet anniversary.

A couple days after that I felt the impulse to autumn-ize our garden. I actually should have pulled everything and treated the soil much earlier but, thats the way it goes sometimes. I pulled the tomatoes out.







Weeded the radish and beet patches





And let the chickens run wild and pick up after me for a bit.








Yesterday we hosted a pre-thanksgiving dinner because a lot of our friends were going to be gone for the actual day and we still wanted to celebrate together. So Kelley made us a beautiful bird, Clara and I did the veggie dishes and I made a pumpkin pie from a Sweet Meat Winter Squash from the farmers market -- tasted just like sweet potatoes, yum!



Clara made a delicious butternut squash bake.




I got some satsuma tangerines and a pomegranate at the store, tempted by their alluring colors and salivation-inducing tastes. I may go buy a crate of satsumas tomorrow...




As I said, Kelley made this beautiful turkey for us.



And we all enjoyed our decadent feast immensely, I'm sorry Clara but this is the way it is (she's dancing in the doorway).



Joel and I enjoyed some momentary snuggle time after much feasting.



And no blog post of mine would be complete without a mushroom. No idea what this one is either, I'm making the spore print as we speak. This mushroom popped up in the tree lawn in front of our house with a couple other mushrooms. The mature mushrooms are about 3-4" wide.