A foliage walk

 

This morning my hubby had an errand (giving a friend who'd dropped a vehicle at the mechanic's shop a ride home) and when he returned he suggested the two of us head out for a foliage walk.  He had ssen some pretty trees not far from our house.  So out we went!  I'll just share photos and captions in the interest of a quick post, but it's way better than no post at all -- so here we go.

This gravesite is all by itself next to the road.  I believe it's a Revolutionary War soldier, not sure.  The town places flags on all veterans' graves. but someone else has put this urn with marigolds and a vine here.  A lovely thing for someone to do.

Headed down the road from our house.

This red tree is outstanding.

Both orange and yellow leaves here.

Both red and orange here and below.

The pretty red sprig of leaves above is right here at the edge of our own yard.

There you have it!  Later, the sun came out and he went back to get more photos.  He got some great ones which I can hopefully share another day.

Snowy day in New Hampshire!

 Yes, it's a snowy morning here.  We had some heavy wet snow overnight.  Not a lot of snow in inches, but because it is heavy it has coated every branch of every tree.  I'm going to just share a few photos and captions.

Above is a corner of our balcony.  Bent-over trees like this can be a common phenomenon, especially for birch trees (Have you ever read Robert Frost's poem Birches? If not, you will want to look it up.) but in this case the tree is a maple.  When my hubby opened the balcony door to take this photo, the storm door immediately fogged up.  Hence the foggy look of this particular picture.

Our bird feeder is out in the middle of this clothesline to keep squirrels away.

Our snowy back woods.

Just a close-up of some snowy branches.

Snow-topped sap buckets.

And more of the same.  Just a pretty sight.

Tire swing half buried in snow.

Snowy trees in our front yard.

These are at the edge of our lawn.

Another sap bucket.  Those are beech leaves which tend not to drop in the fall.

Tall snowy treetops.

Our driveway and my hubby's old red plow truck.  

Hope it's a pleasant day where you are.  If you are not in New Hampshire, you can enjoy our snow from a distance!

Fall meet-up with friends #5 -- another breakfast and lunch at our little camp

 

It's a rare treat when we are able to get together with our good friends Syd and Cyndy from Vermont.  So when it happens, we like to spend most of a day together, usually beginning with breakfast.  Often it's at our home, but in summer and fall we love to entertain at our little cottage.  And thanks to a mild November, such was the case on Veterans Day.  Amazingly, this was the second meet-up with them this fall; they are the same friends mentioned in my October post about meet-up with friends #4!

I kept breakfast super-simple with breakfast sliders and with a Hash Brown Casserole, which I kept warm in a crockpot rather than baking it in the oven.   (The oven at the camp is tiny and only has one rack, so I could only bake one 13x9 dish.)   Cyndy is somewhat of a baked-apple specialist, so I had asked her to bring baked apples to add to the breakfast menu.  She surprised us with an unusual but scrumptious variation -- baked apples filled with bread pudding!  Of course we also had coffee with our breakfast.

The sliders were from Jamie at My Baking Addiction.  They were delicious!  I tweaked the recipe in a few ways.  I couldn't find Hawaiian rolls in the right size, so I bought Pepperidge Farm slider buns.  (They were still expensive -- $4.29 -- but not as expensive as the Hawaiian rolls would have been.)  I made homemade sausage patties instead of using purchased sausage.  And, I used American cheese for the cheese on the bottom roll layer and shredded cheddar for the top layer.  I really liked the cheddar, so another time I would likely use all cheddar cheese.   There will definitely be a next time! 

I imagine some readers might like to have the homemade sausage recipe.  I have posted it before, but it's been years.  So here it is:

HOMEMADE SAUSAGE PATTIES

1/4 cup water
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. rubbed sage
1 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/8 tsp. ground ginger
2 lb. ground pork

In a bowl, stir together water and seasonings. Add pork and mix well. Shape meat mixture into eight 4” patties (or a larger amount of smaller ones). In a skillet over medium heat, cook patties for 5 to 6 minutes on each side or until no longer pink in the center.

This is such a yummy recipe for homemade sausage! I often cut the amounts in half to make a smaller batch. This sausage is very lean and not at all greasy.  For these sliders, I used about 1 1/4 pounds of ground pork, which is what I had, and used half the amount of seasonings specified here.

We lingered over breakfast just enjoying the fellowship and wonderful food.  After the breakfast dishes were done,  we decided to take a walk at nearby Quincy Bog.  Syd took these photos with his phone.

There is just something about red berries after all of the other foliage is gone.  Love them.

We were fascinated by this large tree apparently growing out of a rock.

Such unusual moss growing vertically on this stump!

For lunch, we were joined by our daughter and three of the grandkids, who walked through the woods from their house next door.   Chili seemed like the perfect choice for a fall day, although the day turned out to be quite balmy. Once again I served  Easy Crockpot Chili.  And again I need to add a quick note that I tweak the recipe by cooking the spices and onion with the ground beef first.  It seems to add a very measurable depth of flavor to the chili.  (And the grandkids LOVE it!)   Even though this is a super simple recipe, I usually get many comments about how good it is.  I also use much less meat: a pound or less rather than the 3 pounds called for.  I often add an extra can of beans too -- usually kidney beans.  And I'd forgotten about this, but I usually cut down on the water and sometimes on that large quantity of tomato sauce as well.  It all depends on how many people I'm serving, the size pot I use, and whether or not I'm transporting it somewhere.  This time I used around 16 ounces of tomato sauce and no water, as we were transporting a very full crockpot over a bumpy dirt road.  (Once we got there, I transferred some of the chili to a saucepan and added some of the tomato sauce to each batch.)  So if you make this, feel free to tweak it too! 

Cyndy brought a pan of delicious cornbread and a jug of cider,  and we also had tortilla chips and a Baked Taco Dip.  I had seen this dip recipe on the Hodgepodge this week and decided to try it.  With teenage appetites present for lunch, I wasn't sure if the chili would stretch far enough without it.  (It certainly did, because two of the teenagers in question enjoyed leftover breakfast sliders and hash brown casserole.  After which I heard, "Amazing food, Grammy!")

For dessert, I had made two Turtle Pumpkin Pies.   This is apparently a Kraft recipe, but I found it in my Gooseberry Patch Big Book of Holiday Cooking (the link will take you to my review of the book).  In fact, it's one of the cover recipes!  I got this book at Thriftbooks for $5.99 a couple years ago.  It's always worth checking there for good deals on cookbooks.

 
I made homemade graham cracker crust (which the recipe I had specified doing).  Instead of cinnamon and nutmeg (which totaled 1 1/2 teaspoons) I substituted 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice.  My pie slices came out looking just about exactly like the picture, which was surprising and encouraging!

 

(My family has teased me for years about trying out new recipes on company.  I'm notorious for doing that!  But this may be the first time I have tried three new recipes on one hospitality occasion.) 

Just one more photo, for fun.  Our dear friend is "Miss Cyndy" to our young granddaughter Arielle (as well as to many other children).  When she saw Ari's deer costume (purchased on clearance after Halloween) she decided a photo shoot was in order.  A little deer is bounding through the woods on a gray November afternoon!

What a delightful day it was!  So thankful for good friends as well as for family "just through the woods". 

On the other side of Back Lake

 

During our time at beautiful Back Lake, we always enjoy sitting on the dock.  We like seeing what's going on across the water, as well as on it -- for example, loons.  Above you see a partial view of what we see from the dock.  We can often hear hammering in the distance, as it seems homes are being worked on, or new houses are being built.  

Quite a few years ago, our curiosity got the better of us and we figured out how to get to the other side of the lake.  We had to drive over there and park at a public boat launch and then we could walk from there.  This year, we decided to do that again and I'll share some of the photos we took.

The sun finally came out around 5 pm after a day of open-and-shut.  We thought this would be the best part of the day for our expedition, and we were right.

Aren't the cloud reflections glorious?

The scrubby little bushes below were so colorful!  Notice that a couple of the leaves are brilliant red.

And that is some of what is on the other side of Back Lake!  There are some incredibly large and beautiful homes being built over there, but we wanted to focus on nature rather than the man-made with our photos.

Late-fall beauty at First Connecticut Lake

 

During our recent trip up north, which I hope to blog about soon in its entirety, Mr. T and I spent some good time at First Connecticut Lake.  (For those who may not know, there are four Connecticut Lakes, the headwaters of the Connecticut River, up here in the tippy-top of New Hampshire.)  First Lake, the largest of the four, covers 4.8 square miles!   The foliage is pretty much gone up north, other than yellow tamaracks, but we saw some lovely sights regardless.  We spent a long, long time just sitting on a bench and soaking in the beauty and sunshine.  Storing it up for later.

The above was one of our favorite photos from the afternoon.  We loved the red leaves up close, the water, the evergreens, and the majestic mountains in the distance.

So pretty framed by the evergreens!

Have you noticed in your part of the country that picnic tables have disappeared from parks and public areas since c*vid?   There are a lot less of them than there were in many places here in our state, and there is no viable reason for it.  But I was happy to see here in this state park that there are plenty of picnic tables in scenic spots, and even a few thoughtfully placed benches.  Wouldn't you love to picnic here by the lake?

The red leaves are such an eye-catcher!

We loved the red and yellow leaves along the stone edges of the lake.

Some pretty yellow bushes.

Another shot from our favorite vantage point ... this one shows a bit more of the mountains, I think.

Pretty gold shrubbery.  We liked the red and gold effect below also.

Hope you've enjoyed this peek at some late-fall beauty on magnificent First Lake!

A few more glorious fall scenes

 

Just took these last few photos off the camera.  Wow, is The Wilds of New England a beautiful place in autumn!  Above is a road leading up to the orchard past some of the cabins.

One of the staff homes all decorated for fall.

This beautiful orange tree caught my eye.

I was trying to capture the trees behind the coffee shop.  My hubby liked that I also got the flagpole mums, pumpkins and hay bales into the photo.

A closer look at the flagpole display.

 Looking up the hill past the gazebo.  I love this gorgeous, classic new England scene.

Hope you have enjoyed these scenes as much as we did!

A foliage ride on the Cannon Mountain tram

 

 (Warning!  Many photos ahead!)

Back near the end of September, my hubby and I decided to take the aerial tramway to the top of Cannon Mountain.  I wrote a brief post about it and readers may recall that the visibility that day was zero.  We still had so much fun, but we decided that we would go up again in October (NH senior citizens ride the tram free Monday-Friday) and try to pick a good day when the foliage would be near peak.

Well, the other afternoon my hubby came to the realization that our October calendar was already so full that if we were to ride the tram in foliage season, it would have to be the very next day!  We quickly made a reservation and proceeded with our plan.  We took the first tram to the top of the mountain (9 am) and, after fueling up with coffee and a muffin, headed out to explore.

The above photo was taken next to the tram building at the top of the mountain. 

The above photo and the next few were taken along the Rim Trail at the top of the mountain.

The winding ribbon you see is I-93.

At the left of the photo above is one of the little trails leading down from the Rim Trail to scenic vantage points.  My hubby clambered down nearly every one.  The video is one that my hubby took of the second tram car approaching the tower.

The photo below was taken, I think, from the observation tower.  I didn't go all the way up, so I'm not sure.  There is a 360º degree view from the observation deck and on a clear day one can see peaks in Vermont, Maine, Canada, and New York as well as New Hampshire.

The photos below were taken from one of the decks off the cafe area at the top of the mountain.  It was a bit hazy, but you can see the glory of the foliage.

 

The next two photos were taken as we were going down the mountain in the tram car, thus the hand and camera of another visitor got into our photo.  What a beautiful vista!  One can literally see into Vermont and likely Maine from this vantage point.  The lake in the photo is Echo Lake.

 

And this very last photo was taken from the parking lot!  Still plenty of beauty to behold down below.

Hope you've enjoyed this peek at our aerial adventure!