Pizza Party!

Yes, we still love to eat!  

Here's a Greek pizza with olives, peppers, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, red onions, pesto, capers and feta cheese.  This was an experiment that worked out deliciously. 

Chevre, pheasant, morel mushrooms, caramelized onions, and Parmesan cheese, topped with fresh basil and chives adorn this family favorite.  It's a regular on pizza party menus.   

The sun decided to shine through the dining room window, putting pizza and salad (lettuce, celery, apples, walnuts and blue cheese with a champagne vinaigrette) in a natural spotlight.  

Chillier Weather

Freezing rain coated these apples.  They look so glossy and maybe just a little sinister with the dripping ice.  They're not poisoned, though.  Baloo thinks they taste just fine. 

Ice pellets falling from the sky aren't our favorite, but we walk in all kinds of weather!

This handsome fellow was a bright spot of color on a grayish day.  

These snow dusted trees are in my back yard.  There's something magical about evergreens covered in snow.

Red Belly

I got to enjoy the antics of a red-bellied woodpecker one afternoon and thought I would share the fun. 

He's a cutie, isn't he? 

Fuzzy Faces

This chubby fox squirrel is a natural acrobat.  

This one is a happy snacker.  

And then there's the little chipmunk cheek packer. 

Tracks and Tractors

A great, big bear track in the sand on our family property.  

This tractor sits near the road on a farm located along the route Baloo and I travel to several favorite walks.  They have a charming sense of humor and have decorated a number of their outbuildings with whimsical paintings.  They also have a few sculptural pieces made of vines and things, but I think my favorite may be the metal sculptures in the John Deere.

Baloo squeaks his special L'il Buddy to urge water to boil for warming his dinner.

Duck, Duck.....Grapes?

An old family friend brought home a couple of ducks to paddle around in the turtle pond in his yard this summer.  

One of the ducks decided the yard next door (where a famous chicken used to live) was a more interesting place to hang out.  

It liked to nibble on lilies of the valley.

My brother said that the duck mostly ate, slept and pooped.  He didn't think it was nearly as much fun to have around as a chicken.   

It did do the occasional graceful arabesque, though.  

I thought these grapes looked absolutely luscious.  

There may have been a shortage of grapes this year, but the few I've seen are certainly beautiful.  

A Brown Study

Kermit thought it was a challenge being green, but brown might be even more of a stretch for us to appreciate.  Since most of the autumn colors have flown from the trees, Baloo and I went in search of more subtle beauty today.  

The crisp, curling brown leaves on this field plant were a nice contrast to the light tan seed fluff.  

This group of puff balls has matured and blown spores out into the world for next year's crop.  

Brown on brown, this pine cone looked like it nested comfortably on a soft bed of fallen oak leaves.

Another field plant - could it be the seed stage of the dreaded goldenrod?  It sort of looks like that shape, doesn't it? 

These mushroom caps peeked out of an old nesting cavity in a fallen tree.

So, okay, Baloo is sort of black on brown, but he was having such a lot of fun I had to include him.