Monday, October 8, 2012

Autumn Melancholy

Well... the seasons have changed here - somewhat abruptly. On Wednesday it was in the mid-80's and CatMan & I went for a lovely bike ride. By Friday morning there was snow on the ground and on Saturday we didn't get out of the 30's. I think I managed to save a few of the garden plants, but I'm not quite sure why I bothered - they're probably done for the season anyhow.


I'm not sure why, but this time of year I always start to feel a certain sense of melancholy. It's not sadness per se, just a sense that the long days are over and the hunkering down now begins.


Perhaps it would be less marked if I was willing to keep the house a few degrees warmer. I've gone from shorts and tank tops to 4 layers of fleece in remarkably short order!


And I'm sure that swing state politics aren't helping my mood any!


I harvested everything I could before the freeze - mostly tomatoes and squash, but a few peppers & eggplant too. There are 2 boxes of tomatoes ripening and waiting to be made into sauce, which is a good thing because I just finished using up the marinara from last year's harvest. And the zucchini & pumpkin bread bake-a-thon is in full swing - although I fear I still have 5 gallons of pumpkin & squash puree in the deep freeze from last year!


You know, I think there's a fine line between "abundance" and "overwhelmed." I like cooking and freezing, I just hate having to do it all NOW, if you know what I mean. And I'd really, REALLY like to have my kitchen back.


But I got inspired by some ratatouille that my step-mom made last week, so I decided that would be a good way to use up a bunch of stuff... but somehow I couldn't bring myself to stand over the stove sauteing it all. So I decided to try a ratatouille-inspired veggie roast with some chicken thrown in for protein.


It turned out fabulously, and I think I may try this method for making sauce - I'll try one batch at least and see how bothersome the tomato skins are once pureed. Honestly, the thought of standing over the stove blanching and peeling tomatoes for hours on end just sounds like more than I can handle at the moment.


Does anybody else out there get the autumn blues?


Anyhow, here's the soundtrack that keeps running through my brain, just in case you wondered what's going on in there...




31 comments :

  1. Snow!! No way. We are still getting rain, but temps for the last couple of days haven't made it out of the low 40s. I too feel low when the cold weather hits and the daylight hours shorten. I think you must be hitting the lows worse than I am when you turn to Barry Manilow. :-)

    I don't care to cook at all, so having to do a lot of it at once is not something I enjoy, but of course do it when I get enough out of my garden. It's apples that used to take me weeks to finish.

    Your veggie roast looks delicious you can cook for me any time.

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    1. Ha! You know it must be bad when she's stooping to Barry Manilow! I hate to admit this, but I fear I was a big Manilow fan back in jr. high. Hey - we all make some stupid mistakes as kids, don't we?

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    2. I'll be honest, so was I when I was in high school. To make matters worse my best friend was the spitting image of Manilow! Nose and all, I'm not kidding you he was a dead ringer except for age.

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    3. A-Ha! Confessions of a one-time Manilow fan.... perhaps we need a support group for that!

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    4. LOL for me it was Pat Benetar and Paul Anka ( I loved his song "having my baby") I never did outgrow my liking for Cher though........... LOL

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    5. Oh dear... I only know bits and pieces of Paul Anka songs from the old K-Tel commercials, but Pat Benatar - certainly did my share there... Heartbreaker, Dream Maker, Love Taker don't you mess around with me!

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  2. I'm with ya, Cat, hang in there :-)

    Sorry, I can't sympathise with your glut of veggies. I'm just jealous because I have NOTHING.

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    1. I keep trying to remind myself that too many veggies is a good problem to have - it's just the work part of it that gets to me.

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  3. Around here we get the autumn blues because it's still so effing hot. This week, it will FINALLY be under 100, and that makes things seem a little brighter. But I'm pretty sure we'll all be a bit blue until it reaches consistent 70-80's as the high.

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    1. Oy! You know, I have often thought that it would be nice to live in the desert where you wouldn't have to suffer through the cold winters, but after this hot, hot summer I'm starting to see that there is a definite down-side to that equation! Hope it cools off soon!

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  4. Part of me gets low in the fall with more cold and less light. I despise cold, which is why I live somewhere warm. So we had the same weather as you, but add 20 degrees to all the numbers. No snow, obviously.

    Now that I've lived here a couple of decades, I kind of look forward to fall because it's the end of the super-hot days. (In August, highs are in the upper 90s and lows are in the low 80s in the good years. Last year was a bad year with temperatures exceeding 100 for four months in a row with only a few breaks.) Now I'm cold all day, instead of just inside, so I can dress properly. Mmm, sweaters, scarves.

    Plus cold weather equal Santa Claus who is awesome.

    As for the stress caused partly by too much of a good thing, I'm thinking you might enjoy today's post at Cordelia Calls It Quits, which I read just before coming here. Especially if you like pie. (Cat, meet Cordelia! See cordeliacallsitquits.com)

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    1. I had to chuckle a little when I read that "super-hot" days were in the 80's-90's...that's GOOD weather for us in central AZ haha!

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    2. Thanks so much for the link to Cordelia... I LOVED it. I'm picturing myself balancing copious amounts of pie... or zucchini bread as the case may be!

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    3. Mmm, I keep thinking of a slice of pie on a plate made of a pie. And now... a zucchini muffin on a plate made out of a loaf of zucchini bread!

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    4. with ice cream on the apple pie and copious amounts of butter on the zucchini bread/muffin!

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  5. I too get the fall blues, I think because of the cold weather. I don't do cold well and I have to sometimes remind myself to enjoy the beautiful colors and crisp weather this time of year. Here's hoping the snow melts soon, and you get some more warm days before winter is truly here.

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    1. Well, we're into the fall roller coaster. It as in the 70's yesterday... 50's today... they're saying 70's again tomorrow and then 40's. I think it's the crazy temperature swings that get to me more than anything else... it's hot, no it's cold, no wait it's hot again! I suppose I should just try to look on it as a gift... you know, mother nature provides a surprise each day when you get out of bed!

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  6. Fall is usually my favourite time of year...but it has gotten too cold too fast this year and I don't think our bodies have had a chance to adjust(damn climate change)

    I had to admit defeat and turn on the furnace...I really feel the cold but this year I'm determined to lower the indoor temps.I've started knitting fingerless mitts and I'm making a plan to sew some quilted slippers.
    Your vegetable dish looks wonderful.
    Monday was our Thankgiving and although the house was really cold in the morning by the time the apple pies,scalloped potatoes and turkey were done we were quite warm.I love to bake when it's colder.
    I sympathize with your tomato abundance-it is a lot of work in a short period of time...but think of all the delicious meals you will make with them and they'll all have that "taste of summer"

    Marie

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    1. I do enjoy being able to use the oven again - it's such a nice way to add some warmth to the house without resorting to the furnace. I bit the bullet and installed central A/C a few years ago, and for a little bit extra they installed a unit which can be used for either cooling or heating... the actual gas furnace doesn't come on until it gets below freezing for long periods of time. So that has sort of smoothed out the transition from cooling to heating.

      But I totally agree about the abrupt transition. Denver is notorious for big temperature swings though, so I'm not sure why it caught me so off guard this year. I think that the really hot summer has something to do with it. Usually I'm outside most of the time all summer, but this year it was just too darned hot, so I was forced to spend much more time inside than I normally would. So I guess it sort of feels like "normal" summer didn't start until September this year. Sigh.

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  7. Hi Cat,
    you went from summer to winter and totally skipped autumn! Wow!

    You know, I have SAD, and I think one of my daughters and my son also have it, as well. So I understand fall blues. I work at keeping it at bay, but it's just been this year that I've made the choice to keep the house significantly warmer. Not so much for me, but I think it helps my son. He seems to do better when the house is much warmer. And lights, lots and lots of lights. In these darker months I never let myself get upset with family members leaving lights on, as I turn on every light in the kitchen when I'm in there.

    Hopefully you'll get Indian summer soon!

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    1. Well, we've warmed back up again - but there's another smaller storm coming this weekend. I have often wondered about the SAD thing... I try to make myself get outside each day since we generally have sunshine even when it's cold, and that does seem to help.

      But keeping the house warmer is probably not a bad idea. After I installed the new high efficiency furnace I decided that I'd earned the right to keep it a tad bit warmer and set the thermostat at 69 instead of 65. That helped a great deal, but I think one or two more degrees might make a big difference.

      I'm also trying to make myself go to bed earlier and get up earlier so I don't feel quite so "daylight deprived." As a life-long night owl this does not come easily, but even just a few hours seems to make a pretty big difference. Oh how I'm dreading the end of daylight savings time!

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  8. I think the vegie dish looks wonderful too. I will be making this one. The hunter gatherer in me was very taken by it!your weather sounds freaky!

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    1. It was ridiculously easy... just chopped it all up, drizzled a bit of olive oil on it, gave it a few shakes of salt, pepper and cayenne, and stuck it in the oven for an hour or so. And yes, I think Denver should win some sort of award for the freaky weather capitol or something!

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  9. Weather all over the place here too, but Spring on its way, and that lifts the spirits immeasurably. I do hate it when the abundant harvest all has to be dealt with at once. Nothing worse than the stuff you grew going off before you get to make the most of it.

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    1. I finally got started on the tomatoes - 8 quarts of marinara down, another 10 or so to go!

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  10. OK we were separated at birth or something; I was just having "When October Goes" going through my head relentlessly yesterday.

    On a happier thought, and just a bit of a thread hijack or digression: I was wondering what you thought of this new study about how looking at pictures of adorable baby animals improves performance and productivity. Probably something along the lines of: "It's amazing that faced with the unbearable cuteness of being [kitten], some people can only think about how to use it to increase worker productivity . . . "

    http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/10/looking-adorable-baby-animals-improves-productivity/57467/#

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2012/10/looking-at-photos-of-baby-animals-improves-productivity-study-finds.html

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    1. A-Ha! Another Manilow Fan comes out of the closet!!

      Those studies are hilarious! I'm not sure what to think... if it's true then I ought to be the world's most productive human!

      Actually... I seem to remember something from my stint as a psychology major that the connection between mothers and babies is primarily visual. Maybe that explains why people did better on a visual task? I dunno... but it strikes me as a good argument for kittens in the workplace!

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  11. Hello beautiful soul!
    I have been teaching A TON about this - the 'autumn blues' as you call it. There is an explanation for it energetically (if you believe in that sort of thing). In our Northern climate (we have had snow already too so I feel your pain) autumn equinox represents moving from a really YANG season (hot, bright, lots of energy) to more of a YIN season (cold, dark, quiet). This transition that the Earth (and everyone/everything else) is going through can be felt in our own energetic bodies... this kind of energetic transition can cause all kind of things to arise within us -- and we feel it as emotions. Often, our egos will be uncomfortable with these emotions that are arising (seemingly for 'no reason') and need to make up a story about them -- in other words, we attribute these feelings to something in our own life rather than simply allowing them to pass through us...
    WISE woman to be tapped in enough to know that they are simply impermanent 'blue' feelings that won't last forever... impermanent, just like everything else.
    Much love CatWoman xo
    M.

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    1. Hey Maren - thanks for such a sweet comment. I seem to be feeling much better now. As a dear departed friend once said to me, "I'm not wise... just old enough to have lived through it many times before."

      But here's what I wanna know... do you think I can blame my sudden sugar cravings on shifts in energy? Because I seem to have gone over into the chocolate phase if you know what I mean! xoxoxo

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