Autumn All Around

Well, kind of. It looks like Autumn, but it doesn’t feel very much like it. Having the windows open and enjoying the weather in November? In Wisconsin? Crazy. Just crazy. But my concern and fear of climate change isn’t what this post is about. It is actually about….nothing! Just a random mix of words and pictures, a “life update”. A journal entry? Maybe. I have realized recently I miss reading people’s words. I love Instagram and I love all the beautiful pictures, but for some reason I don’t really read the captions much? I guess that platform is more about the pictures than the words for me. And so I miss blogging. I used to read a ton of blogs daily back in college. Which was a long time ago! (I guess, a lifetime? I certainly feel like I different person from back then!). I loved it. Lots of craft blogs. It just felt so cozy. Most of those blogs are long dead. I stopped reading blogs for awhile too, swept up in Instagram. But I miss the words. I miss the construction of sentences and paragraphs and seeing how people’s thoughts translate to text. Alicia says in her latest post that she hopes blogging comes back and so do I! Although if this is one of those ‘be the change you want to see’ moments than dang! I better get better about blogging too!

I have recently discovered Feedly by reading the Wool + Home blog. So I am excited to have an easy way to read all my old favorite and new favorites blogs in one place again!! Hopefully I can become a more consistent blogger too. (I know……I have been saying that for about 5 years now…..)

For anyone who knows me, I am a bit obsessed with corn fields. Corn just has a lot of meaning to me. For a very large part of my life, I have lived by corn fields, so it is kind of my measuring stick for the year. It was spring when the tractors hit the fields to plant! How close to the 4th of July? Well, how tall is the corn? Knee High by the 4th of July! As the saying goes. Sweet corn smothered in butter and salt and eaten like a typewriter carriage: nibble a row down from left to right, rotate the corn, start another row from left to right. Ding!

Most of the corn grown in my area is used as feed corn, so it is left to dry in the field. The brown, withered corn stalks are one of the main things I think of when I think of Autumn. Corn mazes and corns stalks for decoration. Corn dollies made for the autumn harvest festivals. Popcorn balls for halloween! Corn, corn, corn!

My family house growing up was built on a lot with a corn field out back. Man, I loved just going back and staring into the stalks…. was anything looking back? Was there a forgotten old pagan god out there seeing to the harvest?? (Anyone who also knows me knows that I am a SERIOUS horror fan lol)

Eventually, “progress” came. The field was turned into a fun subdivision with 3 allowed house colors and house designs that all looked the same. My disappointment was endless. Even as I grew up and moved out. Fast forward 10 years to now. 3 years ago my boyfriend and I bought our first house. I am not at all ashamed to admit that one of the huge selling points for me was…..you guessed it. The corn field out back. Now while modern big biz agro does not have the best practices, they do still do crop rotation. The first summer we lived there…..SOY BEANS?!?! Not cool. And the year after? It was allowed to lay fallow. And then, finally…FINALLY. This year. This year was a corn year! I have enjoyed watching that corn grow all summer; grow green and grow tall, turn gold and then brown as it dried. They haven’t plowed it down yet, but I know when they do the squirrels will hide corn my my yard and corn husks will blow across the lawn in the November wind. I am so in love and so happy.

And maybe, this time, in this field, there is an old forgotten god watching me appreciate his field.

Last weekend my mom and I took a girls trip up to our cabin. This is our first year owning the cabin so despite going up north since before even my sister was born, I have never been up in the late fall/winter. Let me just say. I love it. I love summer and lounging by the lake and swimming, but I am more of a cold weather girl. So the chilly wind and moody skies were just… *chef’s kiss*

The piers have been pulled out for the season, but that just created mini mountains for Finley to be king off. I think he REALLY enjoyed being higher than us all lol

Being up north so late in the season finally also allowed me to identify the Tamarack tree once and for all! This crazy awesome tree is in the Pine family….but it isn’t evergreen! Every year it’s needles turn yellow and drop off like leaves! Not to mention it has the cutest little pine cones. I am starting to have quite the large collection of these little guys! I am something of a very amateur hobby naturalist. My office at home is filled with rocks, deer bones, different species of pine cones, and tree bark that I have found on the ground over the years. It makes me so happy to be able to be surrounded by nature even when I have to been inside. My coworkers are also very nice and don’t comment on the rocks and pine cones I have on my desk at work too lol

That is all for now! I think I shall try to have another post this weekend about some holiday crafting plans! Be kind and be well dear friends!