Knit is a Four-Letter Word

This week’s question for Ten on a Tuesday is – Ten Things I like about Fall/Autumn.

1. ) Apple cider from Sunny Slope Farms, a local orchard. They don’t start making their cider until half way through October; not until they have a mixed selection of apple varieties to make it from. This attention to detail makes this the Best Apple Cider.

2. ) Apples – Sunny Slope has the best apples, its totally the reason why I don’t eat apples outside of Autumn here. Their Empire apples are small and red and crisp and tart with a little sweet and completely addictive.

3. ) Knitting – Woolly hand knits make complete sense. When finishing off a 3 skein shawl, having all of that knitting draped over your legs becomes pleasant, as opposed to slightly sticky in Summer.

4.) Sparkly lights – I know it’s not an old Halloween tradition here, but I do like all of the sparkly light displays that start up in the Autumn now. Sparkly lights make the earlier sunsets tolerable. (I also like it when people keep their Christmas lights lit in January. January is a dark, dark month in the Northern Hemisphere, it can always use an extra bit of twinkly sparkle.)

5. ) Tea – hot tea, with milk and sugar, and a small plate with a couple of biscuits (that’s cookies) is lovely when there’s a chill in the air.

6. ) Soup. Cold soups are OK, but hot soup really comes into its own in the cooler months. I make a mean Roasted Pumpkin Soup – here it’d probably be called Roasted Squash soup, since I make it with Butternut. I’m originally from Australia, and there a butternut is a pumpkin, so Pumpkin Soup it is. Then there’s Beef and vegetable Soup, Matzo Ball Soup, Curried Cauliflower Chicken Soup. I could live happily in the colder months with a big pot of soup in the fridge, and a constant supply of buttered toast with which to dunk in it.

7. ) Humidity levels. The Summer in Southern New Jersey kicks all kinds of arse with its bountiful supply of tomatoes and corn, but the humidity, man, that’s a different kind of arse kicking. Autumn is the kindest month to my hair – the humidity is gone, but the breaking cold hasn’t arrived.

8. ) Self inserting cats. We have a cat door, so they could, in theory, be self inserting cats all year round, but they like to stay out and cat about when the weather is warmer. This then requires multiple and varied cat wrangling techniques to bring them inside. In the Autumn, suddenly the heated house with the blankets and the human laps becomes infinitely more appealing, and they’re in like Flynn every night, no persuasion required.

9. ) Thanksgiving – turkey, home made cranberry relish, mashed potatoes, these are good, good food.

10. ) My birthday. In Australia, I had a Spring birthday, but it morphed into an Autumn birthday when I changed hemispheres. My birthday is November the 24th, so every 4-6 years or so, my birthday and Thanksgiving Day collide – turkey and cake!