Hunting was not as productive this year. Yet for the first time in his hunting career Jay sighted, stalked, and shot this 7-pt yearling buck the Thursday afternoon before gun season ended in a fallow huckleberry field a tenth of a mile from our home.
Daren called this morning. It rained off and on all night and into the morning. Again. But he was determined to go out turkey hunting so when he got up he glassed the alfalfa field across the road and saw a small flock of jakes grazing in the rain.
He got dressed and looked out the window just as he left to go downstairs. The birds had crossed the road and were heading for the house.
He ran downstairs and got the gun ready, but before he got out the door, there they were, coming around the corner of the basement. He fought with a door he does not usually use, eventually getting it open in time to shoot the last jak.
The turkeys had walked right in front of him, across the lawn, up the bank, and were entering the woods behind and beside the house.
We had buttermilk pancakes for breakfast. I recommend them. Honey cinnamon butter and hot maple syrup go well with them. Nuke butter until soft but not melted, add honey and cinnamon until it tasted nice. Put the syrup in a microwave-safe container before nuking. Much easier than heating over the stove.
That is steam rising from them. Hot off the griddle.
Buttermilk Pancakes
from my old Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, with changes, of course. Pancake recipes make a batter that is too darn stiff and thick. Adding more liquid results in nicer pancakes that cook better. See above.
3/4 cup each whole wheat and white flours
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 T. sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
1 cup buttermilk
2 T. oil
extra water or milk–1/3+ cup
Mix dry ingredients together. I use a whisk. Add the wet ingredients and mix until blended. Add extra moisture until the batter is moderately thick but will run. Bake on a hot griddle. Makes enough for three or four. Doubles easily.
It is now almost 9PM. It is raining. Again. It rained this afternoon, also.
Happy October First! The Morning Glories were glorious indeed this morning. There were more than 45 blooms. Perhaps they sense their time is just about up?
Jay went turkey hunting this first morning of the season and returned with a nice hen he met on the edge of the cornfield.
Hawthorne was very excited by the arrival of the bird.
Ellie and I went to the perennial county quilt show. There were about 10 Civil War era quilts on display there from the county history museum which were made in this county. Here are two:
This was made by a member of the Treman family of Trumansburg. Lots pf striped fabrics. 
Incredibly beautiful. And below, a silk quilt, perhaps made by Quakers since it is backed with the same drab brown cotton they used to line their silk dresses.
The docent from the museum who shared a bit about these quilts said that the silk in this quilt came from Paris and was of higher quality than Victorian era silks and thus had not shattered. I asked what the difference in the silks was.
It seems that silk from China was sold on a weight per pound basis and to make the fabric weigh more the element lead was added during processing. It also gave the silk the nice weight and rustle when used in dresses. The lead, though, also caused the premature decay (shatter) of the silk itself.
French silk, on the other hand, contains no lead. It also does not rustle. It shsh’s.
Sunday Ellie and I spun flax in the fiber to cloth booth at Judy’s Day. We both wore linen. Another man spun wool on a walking wheel.
Kathy had spent a long time planning the activities children were able to do: breaking, scutching and heckling flax. The breaking board was so loud we removed a tent wall behind us so alleviate some of the noise.
We had an almost constant stream of watchers who asked all sorts of questions. It was surprising to me how many people did not know that linen was made from flax.
And that the process of spinning is what changes flax into linen. As the flax leaves the distaff, goes through my fingers, and is wound onto the bobbin, it becomes linen thread.
Over four hours of spinning. The resultant thread weight: 24 grams. Thank God for the industrial revolution. It measured 308 yards.
That is about 2912 yards per pound, plied.
Perhaps enough to knit a lacy washcloth?
PS: Earl and Merl are doing very well. They are living in the bunny hutch and are drinking milk from a pipette only once a day. Eating nuts, some fruit, corn, veggies on their own. Pictures tomorrow.
The view from the South end of Mill Street was impressive, too.
Yesterday I found 16 Monarch Butterfly larvae on milkweed plants in the fields above the house. This morning the count was 32.
And noticed this up in the broken white spruce tree, our large ‘bonsai’.
Look at the apex of the lilac .
It is a sunflower.
A snipe flew out of the corn a couple mornings ago.
23 was the largest number of blossoms on the Morning Glories in one morning.
The rains battered the tomatoes. They are on a definite downward autumn death spiral now. 
And the Autumn Crocus are beginning to bloom.
For those in the know, this is Mill Street bridge.
And this was Mill Street:
Why not to build a house in a swamp:
This was after the water had receded a couple feet.
Each day on the walk there is something from Father God as a blessing: a feather, the small round half-shells of wild cherry pits which something opened (how?) for the nut meat, an unusual insect – or a pair of them, another wing from a dragonfly, small wings from a grey moth left by the bird that ate the moth, a turquoise larva being attacked by ants, a beech leaf with its center layer eaten by a worm so it seems it contains a grey and black road map.
Lately each morning has also indicated that summer is coming to a close; this morning it was the two large patches of soil that had been scraped mostly clean of vegetation by the front hooves of a buck. Kind of early for that, I thought. But maybe not.
Then the fact that our eldest child, now a 20-yr-old young man, moved many of his material goods into his first apartment Friday. He has not come back since. But he better because otherwise clothes mountain in the basement will be removed to a thrift store Monday.
The blueberries are past their peak, the red raspberries are coming on, the corn is ripe. I need to plant lettuce and beets and other greens for the fall. And the rain. Yesterday only about .25 hundredths of an inch. But it is pouring out now.
