A Greenville Halloween

Happy Halloween!!!

So much to do here in Greenville to celebrate Halloween! Friday we headed to Boo in the Zoo, a trick-or-treat opportunity at our local zoo. For Lauris, a great introduction to the concept of trick-or-treating, as well as a chance to see that other children are wearing costumes too. The event runs the two weekends before Halloween, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.



One small piece of advice: buy tickets beforehand. Instead of standing in the very long line (which moved quickly but had a wait of about 30 minutes) you can go straight to the gate. The crowds may have been partly due to some unexpected publicity; on October 22^nd the female Masai giraffe Autumn gave birth to a male calf. The baby was named Kiko, which means autumn’s child in Swahili, but neither mom nor calf was in the haddock that late in the evening so we’ll have to return during the daytime to meet the new addition.

Meet Kiko! Source: here

Another great local Halloween event for those looking to participate in an alternative to trick-or-treating, is Green Halloween at Roper Mountain Science Center. Billed as “fall on the farm” there were games, crafts, snacks and candy, farm animals, a hay ride and even a live band. We returned home tired, but with a bag full of goodies that kept us busy the next day too.

Between the pumpkins from the pumpkin patch, the wonderful costumes from our Seattle uncles (complete with hats and fire axe! ) and trick-or-treating (yet to come) it has been a spooktacular Halloween. May all of you, whether celebrating in the US or abroad, have a wonderful Halloween, All Saints’ Day, Guy Fawkes Night, Miķeļi, or fall harvest celebration! BOO!

The pumpkin patch

Not every day out picking apples is as “fruitful” as our day at Sky Top Orchard…

 

One week before our trip up to North Carolina I took the boys to an apple orchard a little closer to home to meet a couple of other moms. It was a beautiful day and a shorter drive (only 30 minutes from Greenville), but one little problem – no apples.

 

Turns out the season lasts longer up in the mountains, and with an early apple season the only apples to be had at Niven’s Apple Farm were straight from the refrigerator! Not to be deterred, we braved the school group crowds to enjoy the playground and check out the farm animals, then headed out to the pumpkin patch.

 

The boys couldn’t be happier with giant pumpkins to climb, dirt to dig in and endless rows to explore. This made it easy to snap some pictures and enjoy the day. We finally chose a pumpkin and some gourds, and carted those along with a bag of Mutsu apples from the farm store to tide us over until the big haul the following week.

 

Next year we start the apple business earlier, in September. Oh, and take dad along so that we can bring home one of these giants!

 

Jumis and huckleberry muffins

It’s harvest time here in South Carolina! The apple and harvest comes a little later here than in the northern US, just as the harvest season in Latvia is earlier yet (as the Baltics are much further north). The Latvian Apjumības or Miķeļi are celebrated for three days at the fall equinox, September 22^nd – 24^th, which coincided with the christening of Mikus (whose middle name is Jumis, pronounced you-miss). The pagan deity Jumis represents fertility and a good harvest, and there are a good many traditions and rituals that accompany the celebration (but I’ll save these for a later date).

The jumja zīme: imagine two crossed stalks of wheat (source here)

 

This time of year my thoughts wandering to the harvest celebrations is as predictable as the changing of the leaves. It’s been several years since we’ve been able to do any ‘harvesting’ of our own since we didn’t have a garden in Clermont-Ferrand (although last year I did help with an end of the summer harvest in Chatenet). Our trip to pick apples was long-anticipated and exactly what was needed to sooth my hands, itching to be digging in the dirt and harvesting a bounty of my own. But no sooner had the apples been put away in the refrigerator than the itch return, and I’ve been planning the installation of a couple of raised beds in earnest.

 

The berries are mostly gone from our local forest this time of year, it is only a few fruit that can still be found, such as persimmon and figs, which was why the package that I received from my godson in Seattle so delighted me. The small Tupperware with a few branches of evergreen huckleberry (vaccinium ovatum) stayed fresh in the refrigerator for a few weeks, until the day I was ready to carefully separate the berries from the leaves. Sitting out on the porch “picking” the berries I dreamt of the blueberry and raspberry bushes I’ll plant next to the house, and the reward once the plants have matured.

 

The resulting one cup of berries were just enough for a batch of mini-muffins. Mini, because huckleberries are pretty mini, and it'll take you a long time to pick two cups worth. Also, as we are still in temporary housing I don’t have a muffin tin; instead I have mini-cupcake papers that came with the cake forms I bought in a garage sale. So here’s the recipe for evergreen huckleberry mini-muffins, although I’m sure it’ll work just as well for regular muffins.

 

Evergreen huckleberry mini-muffins
(Adapted from a blueberry muffin recipe)

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

½ cup sugar

½ tsp salt

4 tsp baking powder

1 egg

4 tbsp butter

¾ cup milk

1 cup evergreen huckleberries

Instructions:

1.       Preheat oven to 350˚F. Toss the blueberries with ¼ cup flour.

2.       Mix the remaining flour with the salt and baking powder.

3.       Cream the butter and sugar, then add the egg and beat well.

4.       Slowly add the flour mixture and the milk, alternating between the two, until a smooth batter results.

5.       Fold the berries into the batter.

6.       Spoon the batter into your greased muffin tin (or your liners neatly arranged on a pan) and bake until golden brown. Tops should spring back to touch, and a toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean.

  

Autumn and apple orchards

Autumn has arrived in South Carolina! Beautiful fall colors, cooler temperatures and all sorts of activities to keep us busy, but I can’t help compare this year to last... Not better or worse, only much different.

 

Halloween is not really celebrated in France (possibly only by American expats!) and therefore all the accompaniments (store decorations, costume parties, pumpkin patches, mass volumes of trick-or-treating candy for sale) we missed last year seem almost like overkill this year. We’ve got the boys’ costumes almost sorted out, which was much harder than I thought it would be. Lauris is old enough to have an opinion about what he wants to be (let’s just say there is NO way he would put on the Spiderman costume he wore last year, this time around!), and Mikus is a little older than his brother was for his first Halloween so the 3-6 month pumpkin costume isn’t an option (even if a nine month old wearing 12-18mo clothes wasn't the case). But Halloween isn’t the only difference reminding me I’m not in France any longer.

 

Pick-your-own is a very popular activity here in the US. We have family outings to pick blueberries, strawberries, peaches, pumpkins, Christmas trees and this time of year, apples. In central France the closest thing to an outing to the apple orchards is a cider féte, and these celebrations aren’t as child friendly as a day spent in the country picking apples, choosing a pumpkin and jumping on a hay ride. Yesterday we headed to Sky Top Orchard in North Carolina to pick our apples.

 

Of the 22 apple varieties the orchard grows, four were still available for picking and we returned home with a half bushel of each: Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Pink Lady and Arkansas Black. I plan to make quick work of the Golden Delicious and churn out some applesauce next week, and the Arkansas blacks will make some excellent pies. I expect we will have had our fill of apples, apple pies, apple sauce, apple pancakes, etc. before we run out. Any must-try recipes I should try with these varieties?

 

We had a wonderful time in the mountains, picking apples (or watching mom pick apples), running up and down the rows (or watching dad run up and down the rows) and enjoying the colorful scenery on our way. Now, off to find a snack… There’s a Pink Lady calling my name!

 

Washington DC

Lately Laurīts is talking about Obama kungs māja (translates Mr. Obama’s house, he hasn’t gotten the hang of the word President just yet). Luckily, it isn’t because of the extended election coverage on TV, nor is it due to any political discussion in our household.

We don't think Obama kungs was home

 

On our way home from Chicago we detoured to Washington DC, where two good friends got hitched. We attended a very beautiful rehearsal dinner on Friday, complete with half-naked, passed out kids in strollers.

Did you know the Washington Monument is closed for repairs since the August 23, 2011 earthquake?

 

Saturday, while my husband was off with the groom doing who-knows-what-it-is-they-do-before-the-ceremony, and Mikus was busy catching up with his grandmother, Lauris and I joined a group headed for the capitol. The White House, several monuments and reflecting pools later we were already on our way back to start getting ready. I would love to return to DC to do a proper tour of the area.

Maya Ying Lin, then a student of Yale, designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

 

Then of course, the atkāzas on Sunday. Because it isn’t a Latvian wedding if it doesn’t go three days.

 

Mīļie Āri un Laura, novēlam lai jūsu dzīvē līdz mūža rudenim nepietrūktu mīlestības, saticības, laimes.