The (almost too) large book club was held in the meeting room of a library. It worked out well as we were able to thoroughly discuss two books in our allotted time. The point of changing the venue was that meetings were becoming too food/social focused and too light on book discussion.
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| Wrapping up a successful book club meeting on a rainy night. |
The faction pushing for more food and drink are also the ones bringing +1’s and not actually reading the books. This venue change is helping. If they want a social gathering, then why not just host one, rather than co-opting book group?
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| All these flowers and butterflies were crafted out of felted wool to make this pretty wall art at the library. |
In homesteading news, Home Depot was giving away pie pumpkins on Halloween, so I drove over and made a bit of a haul. I see many pumpkin pies, breads, and muffins in my future.
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| Nine pumpkins - luckily they are small ones. |
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I found that none of my knives were up to the task of cutting through these pumpkins, so I went for the real tools just to get the cuts started. I roasted them, then put the flesh into the food processor.
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These 2 small pumpkins yielded 6-8 cups of puree for the freezer, and 2 cups of pumpkin seeds for roasting. I should have quite a stash by the time I process them all.
My neighbor Annette and I were intent on avoiding the Halloween madness that is our neighborhood on the 31st. We went out to dinner, saw an Autumn Glow festival with acrobats, then stopped at Home Goods to get past the witching hour for the trick or treaters - 9pm. The Facebook page for our cul-de-sac reports just over 400 kids. Yikes - the sheer amount of chocolate I would have eaten had I stayed home scares me.
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| One of hundreds of lighted 'sculptures' at Autumn Glow. |
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| Chinese acrobatic show. |
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| It was a cold and windy night for a walk! |
The weekend continued with a retirement party for a fellow hiker on Saturday night. A large group of hikers was hosted by Geri - we had trouble recognizing each other in nice clothing as opposed to our trail attire. Now this was a nice social gathering which everyone enjoyed thoroughly!
My sister Theresa and I met in Great Barrington, MA to hike Monument Mountain on Sunday. We had planned a bike ride, but the morning temp was barely 40° so we opted to hike instead.
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| This was taken at the Devil's Pulpit overlook on Monument. |
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After our lunch at the Barrington BrewPub, we did another hike at Threemile Hill Trail
in Fountain Pond State Park. We hiked a total of 6 miles with under 1000 ft of elevation. |
I spent Monday morning in the garden cleaning up, and planting a mock orange bush and an azalea. It was chilly but comfortable as long as I kept moving. I sat down to admire the blue sky and a bald eagle flew over. I'm hoping that was a good omen for Election Day tomorrow. I voted early last week so I won't be trying to fit in a trip to the polls last minute.
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Hoping democracy prevails in our country!
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You always have the best photos! I love that blue sky. We've seen some of it lately, but this week looks dreary and rainy. We have treats at BC but also discussion questions that we go through and talk about. That's a shame that you had to move venues to actually have a Book Club versus a social get together. Most of our members read the book although a few of them only read part of it--if they don't have much time or they hate the book. I take pride in always finishing it, even if it's awful.
ReplyDeleteThat gorgeous blue sky only lasted a few hours before clouds and a thunderstorm moved in. I try to soak in the beauty when it appears because it is so fleeting this time of year.
ReplyDeleteOh, you have a sister! You're so lucky. I wish I had one... Your walk looks beautiful. My book group... does discuss the book, but also does a lot of chatting. But it's nice!
ReplyDeleteI actually have four sisters, but really only get together with two of them regularly. They are wonderful!
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