Autumn Lessons

 

 

 It started about a month ago. Right around Halloween. Autumn was already long here, but before then it had been in name only. Now, it was in temperature as well. After waking rolled up in a ball with my head under the covers three mornings in a row, I finally gave in and turned the heat on in the house. Hubs shut down the sprinkler system and switched prominent garage status from the lawn mower to the snow blower. 

 

The leaves were turning color and falling. And due to a simple decision about a screen, I'd seen something in the yard. Something that compelled me to go out and take a picture. While there, I saw something else, just as noteworthy, and snapped a picture of that as well.

 

I wasn't sure what I'd do with the pictures, but their presence had felt important to me somehow. Embodiment of life lessons type importance. So I did what I always do, just let it be, let it germinate, tell me what I wanted to do with those pictures, to say about them.

 

Just for context, although many of you who read this blog regularly already know, let me just say this:

 

I grew up in New England. Fall is beautiful there. I've been on the Kancamangus Highway, seen the rolling mountains bursting with the colors of the season, reds and yellows and browns and burnt oranges and even greens all decorate both sides of the road.

 

Living in the Midwest, I always laugh when people who've never been anywhere else talk about the beauty of the Fall leaves. They have no idea. This, my friends, is nothing.

 

 

 

My house backs up to woods. Although, when I venture out, there are a few different colored leaves on trees here and there, what I get is just green, yellow and brown. Not that those aren't perfectly fine colors, but they are one-note, and I'm someone who's heard the symphony.

I wrote a blog post right about that time, published just a couple of days ago, called I Can See Clearly Now. I talked about the difference when we took the screen out of our kitchen window, the sharpness of the view. I credit that new clarity for, while working on a recipe, thinking that I had caught something out of the corner of my eye. 

Sweet Potato Mix Rolls

 

It was just a quick glimpse. The wind was gently blowing and leaves were falling. The lawn was not yet dormant, but was covered in a brown and yellow carpet. But when that wind blew, did I see a variation along the woods line? A deviation from the norm?

Truth is, had I not been so used to my monochromatic view, I would never have paid attention to the flash of color, even seen it, perhaps, let alone gone out to investigate. I wouldn't have been treated to the lesson embodied by nature, nonconformity is noteworthy. There is beauty in difference. Highlighted, no doubt by the juxtaposition of that difference among all that conformity.

There it is. Can you see it? Way over on the far left? Red. Hanging out there, just being red.

 

And had I not been out in the back yard acknowledging, documenting, that difference, I never would have taken that second picture. 

 

 

There among the dead leaves and half dormant, wilting plants, stood one Daylilly. On one single stock, one single hearty, fully formed flower that, despite the odds, was determined to have its one single day in the sun. 

 

Perseverance, determination, they can pay off. You can't know unless you try. That's what I got from that little yellow flower.

 

But for me, the main lesson, one we desperately need to acknowledge in this country, is what those red leaves so beautifully personified, just by being the only thing they could be. There is beauty in diversity.

 

Sweet Potato Mix Rolls       

                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

1 package (5.6 oz) Betty Crocker Homestyle Sweet Potato Mix

1 1/4 cup milk

1 cup hot water

4 TBSP butter, divided

2 1/4 cups flour, divided

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp allspice

 

Directions:

*NOTE: this recipe calls for a package of sweet potato mix, this recipe does not use the entire prepared mix.
*Prepare the packaged potato mix with the milk, hot water, and 3 TBSP of the butter in the microwave according to package instructions. Set aside, uncovered, for 5 minutes.

*Cover a kneading area with 1/4 cup flour. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the remaining 2 cups of flour with the baking powder, salt, and allspice.

*Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.

*Add 2 cups of the potato mixture to the flour mixture. Mix just until incorporated, then, on the floured kneading area, knead for just 1 minute.

*Form the dough into 12 balls, place on the baking sheet and allow to rest for 30 minutes.

*Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Melt the remaining 1 TBSP butter and brush onto the tops of the rolls.

*Bake for 20 minutes.

Flower Power 2.0

The hippies were right. 

In many ways, both consequential and insignificant. 

In the 60s there was a movement started by women, mostly mothers of boys btw (go, team!), of non violent resistance at the time to the Vietnam War. Ultimately it evolved into so much more than that, it became about civil rights, and passive resistance in general. It was about empowerment through peace and love. And it caught on, in a really big way.

I could write a whole blog post (and maybe I will) about the correlation between what they marched for back then, and the cause that's taken people to the streets in the present. I could also write a whole blog post (and maybe I will) about the power of a certain flower partaken of back then and the movement to legalize it now. But those are subjects for another day. 

True story: a cousin of mine (I think 3 times removed, but I may be wrong about that) created an iconic graphic back in the 60s. It was simple, a sunflower, with the words "War is not healthy for children and other living things". Perhaps you've heard of it? She later donated the rights to her design to a pacifist group, Another Mother for Peace.  

In the era of Flower Power, the flower was meant to symbolize hope.

In the era of the pandemic, I've been celebrating the power of the flower, just by virtue of their soothing beauty, to elicit a smile. A sort of present day "Flower Power 2.0", if you will.

It's not that I didn't know that flowers could make me smile, it's just how amplified that simple need became while I was stuck at home. 

I first realized it on the first weekend of May. I have 4 pots that I fill with flowers every year when we're pretty much guaranteed the threat of overnight frost is gone. For as long as I can remember, I've done it, and I've done it then. For me, it's a symbol that we've made it through winter. I look at those flower pots, in the front of the house and on the back deck and yes, I smile.

This year that ritual was threatened, and it made me sadder than I'd thought it could. 

I live in a state where there never was a stay at home order, where stores had to take it on themselves to limit shoppers, post signs saying masks are required, and labeling aisles either up or down. I also live in a state where people did not wear masks, ignored the aisle labels and seemed to go out of their way to approach those of us attempting to social distance. It was every woman for herself. On the first Friday of May, when I went to a few stores that carry flowers, I could see they were packed, people weren't wearing masks or social distancing, I would not go in. I went home, dejected.

On Monday it was pouring. I knew that most local stores that sell flowers present them primarily outside and even those inside are not under a substantial roof, but leaky tarp. Would I? Could I? I drove down to Lowe's with my gloves and mask and saw almost no one flower shopping. I'd get completely soaked, but I could do it. Sloshing, sopping wet, with rain literally dripping into my eyes I made my choices and filled my cart and felt exceedingly lucky (don't ask me about what happened when I checked out, though).

I filled those pots and I smiled.

A few weeks later on Mother's day, I was treated to the power of flowers again. Twice.

Completely different looks. Same smile.

I have lilacs in my yard, but because of their location they bloom late. In the meantime, one of my neighbors always brings me some of hers.

Then mine bloom.

Followed by my Azalias.

Anticipation is building for the upcoming bloom of my Day Lillies.

I see, I smell, I smile.

Of course, I have to mention that in my world there's another kind of flower flour that has power too. That same power, coincidentally, to bring a smile to your face.

Orange Blueberry Bundt Cake

Wishing you peace and love. And hope and flowers. Oh, and cake.

Orange Blueberry Bundt Cake 

                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
3 TBSP blueberry jam or sugar free blueberry jam
3 TBSP orange marmalade
2 TBSP water, divided
1 box white cake mix
1 cup orange juice
1/3 cup canola oil
3 eggs
1/2 cup blueberries
1/2 cup canned mandarin orange segments, drained and cut in half

1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 TBSP orange juice
1 TBSP orange marmalade

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a bundt pan.
*Whisk together the blueberry jam, 3 TBSP orange marmalade and water. Set aside.
*Beat the cake mix, 1 cup of orange juice, canola oil and eggs for 2 minutes, then mix in the blueberries and mandarin orange segments.
*Spread about half of the batter into the prepared pan, drizzle with about 1/2 of the jam/marmalade and water mixture (staying away from the edges of the pan), swirl in with a toothpick and repeat with remaining batter and jam.
*Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until the center springs back to the touch. Cool in bundt pan for 10 minutes, run a knife around the edges and remove to cool completely.
*Once the cake is completely cooled, mix together the remaining orange juice and the remaining orange marmalade. Whisk in the powdered sugar. Drizzle over the cooled cake.