It's the RV Life for Me

by Angie Quantrell @AngieQuantrell

We live in an RV.

That's recreational vehicle for you wondering about the abbreviation. Our tenement on wheels is like the Big Green Rolling Turd in the Robin Williams movie RV. Without the backed up sewer, ripped off awning, and Class A drive-and-walk-around feature.

Our RV is the type you drive in, unhook, set up, and drive away.

The Quantrells are on an adventure.

Phase 1: Complete - The house is sold. Closed. Done.

Here's a chance to say "Thanks" to our 2 fantastic realtors, Stephanie Blehm and her son Kenny Blehm! They did a fantastic job. And they survived Kevin. I mean our process. Wink, wink.

Sorry, Kenny. Mabel thinks your card is tasty!

Phase 2: In Process - Live full-time in RV. Settle cats and selves in for the winter. Learn to grocery shop often for not much at all (no space). Wear the same clothes all the time (no space). Store rubber stamping supplies (no space). Eat outside with guests (no space).

Search for property and research choices.

Phase 3: In the Future - Build small home (tiny is too minute) on out-of-town property.

Our lives in a nutshell.

It's been great so far. Things did get a little tense every now and then (sorry, honey). We relieved ourselves of many possessions. That felt good. Now we can see what we really need to survive.

An outdoor catio is a definite NEED. Poor kitties have adjusted well, but opportunites for exercise in the RV are limited. And, well, I just need them-who-love-outside-time to be out in the fresh air. Soon, babies, daddy will have it all done. It's going to be great! I'll post pictures when it's complete.

Pumpkin season is here, and despite the lack of space indoors, the big beautiful world beyond the RV walls has plenty of space to display my favorite seasonal produce.

Anyone else out there living in an RV? Who else loves kitties, pumpkins, and fall? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Early Pumpkin Harvest

Safe and gorgeous

By Angie Quantrell @AngieQuantrell

I harvested 8 pumpkins this morning.

It's August.

Harvesting pumpkins in August just does not sound right. Especially when it will be around 90 later this afternoon.

Not right at all.

Extenuating circumstances encouraged me to wade deep in the bristly pumpkin patch and knee high grass to grasp my favorite orange fall buddies. Er, I mean, signs of the season. Sure, I talk to my pumpkins. And those dratted slugs and squash bugs. I do admit to speaking kindly to my pumpkin pals. Not so much with the vermin.

Doesn't everyone talk to their plants and garden inhabitants? No? Hmmm.

Slugs. They were eating HOLES in my pumpkins! I rolled one large pumpkin over and a huge spotted slug, probably 3-4 inches long when stretched out, was coiled comfortably in the blossom end hollow. UGH. Tiny little slime booger slugs were creeping all over as well.

Odd. Spring. Weather. We had the weirdest spring. That is all I can blame on the extremely early crops. It was very warm, very hot, and then very cold. Plants in my area don't know what to do. Except grow.

Squash bugs. I've been so busy packing up the house, I missed recognizing the sign of yellowed leaves that indicated I had extra special garden pest visitors. Why, those hungry little insects have moved right in!

Orange. These pumpkin babies were colorful and ready to visit my porch.

Snip, snip, tug, and off we went away from hungry mouths to the safety of shade and protection.

Fall (in August) here we come!

How is your garden growing this year?

Pumpkin Soup on Pumpkin Day

Technically, I chose a lovely squash. So, Pumpkin-Like-Squash Soup on Pumpkin Day it is.

Once upon a time, this chef (a loose definition of the word, please) saw a lovely recipe on a very popular social media site. This recipe featured cooking soup in an actual pumpkin - in the oven - instead of in a pan on the stove top. I posted the recipe to my page.

Never to find it again.

So I am chef/experimenter/food explorer attempting to make up my own recipe. Let's see what kind of meal that gives us on this last day of October, Pumpkin Day!

Pumpkin Soup for Pumpkin Day

Ingredients:

- perfectly sized pumpkin for your soup bowl (It has to fit in your oven. Do not use a carving pumpkin. I am hoping a squash of similar size and shape will work. The meat of this squash was wonderfully deep orange in color and very rich smelling.)

- one leek, washed and thinly sliced

- 3 cloves of garlic, diced

- 7 or 8 fresh sage leaves

- chicken broth, anywhere from 3 to 6 cups, depending on the size of your pumpkin bowl

- 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese for the soup, additional for sprinkling on top of cooked soup

- fresh ground black pepper

- dash of cayenne pepper

- 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, depending on your love of this spice

OVEN: 400 degrees F.

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Cover jelly roll pan with parchment paper.

2. Prepare pumpkin (or squash). Remove lid and scoop out seeds and stringy parts of the pumpkin. Keep the lid. It goes without saying, but I will anyway. Do not pierce the base of the pumpkin or make holes in the sides! The soup will surely leak out. Put the pumpkin shell on the parchment paper-lined pan.

3. Add leeks, garlic, and sage. Fill the remainder of the pumpkin with chicken broth. Fill to the top of the inside of the pumpkin, leaving room for lid to close and enough space to add cheese and spices.

4. Add 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese, peppers, and nutmeg. Replace lid.

5. Bake in oven for two hours. Pumpkin should be steaming hot, with soft, cooked flesh. Oh, you are going to love the fragrance of this cooking soup pot!

6. Remove lid. Scoop bits of cooked pumpkin flesh and soup into a bowl. Top with additional parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!


PS After cooking and devouring this fragrant soup, I decided that crumbled bacon bits and some half and half would go very well with pumpkin-in-a-shell soup.

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife but couldn't keep her.
He put her in a pumpkin shell.
And there he kept her - very well.

I adore pumpkins. But I don't imagine I would enjoy being kept in a pumpkin shell for very long.

The Decomposition Project

(Photos 1 & 2 taken 11-1-13)

Yes. Kinders rock! We get to do all sorts of cool things.

Currently, we are investigating a long term decomposition project. The materials consist of two pumpkins (minus the seeds, which were cleaned, cooked, and quickly inhaled by eager mouths).

Both pumpkins, one carved and one uncarved - due to very thick, gourd-like skin - reside just outside our classroom door. In the gravel. In the weather. In the snow, wind, rain, ice.

(Photos 3 & 4 taken 11-24-13)

So far, both are still recognizable. One observation - the opened wound, I mean carved pumpkin, is definitely succumbing to decomposition, while the pristine (not for lack of trying) warty pumpkin is just sitting there.

Date of death and burial, er, placement outside for observation: October 30.

Watch for future installments of time lapsed photographs. It's going to get really gross.

(Photos 5 & 6 taken 12-4-13)

(Taken 12-15-13: Looking a little more saggy!)

(Taken 12-19-13: Definitely squishy! The uncarved pumpkin is holding up very well.)

(Taken 1-5-14)

(January 5, 2014)

(January 7, 2014, after a bit of snow and ice)

(January 7)

(January 7)

The Pumpkins Have It

Lovin' those pumpkins.

Love pumpkin spice-as in latte', pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread (looking for pumpkin donuts), pumpkin deco...It could go back to the days, like yesterday and many years previous (wish I could find the photo of me wearing a lovely white and orange houndstooth double knit pantsuit; just picture it), where I was known for loving the color orange. Still love the color orange, particularly in trees, leaves, flowers, bushes, and produce. It's probably tied in to loving the cool weather of fall, the crunches of autumn walks, the seasonal skies, wet weather, and the promise of even more cold and Christmas around the corner. Love it when the newspaper, almost every year, shows pictures of the zoo animals having a fall treat of floating, smashed, or tossed pumpkins.

Pumpkins are in a league of their own.

Yes. The. Pumpkins. Have. It.

I vote for pumpkins.

Orange is In.

Orange, orange, orange...

Orange is the color. I can't really decide how MUCH more I like orange than red and green, but orange wins hands down. There was this one double knit pant suit my mom made me (think 70's and an orange and white hounds tooth pattern)...I think that may have been pushing it. Ok, it WAS pushing it. But I have always loved orange. I believe I felt pretty hot in that pantsuit! We also lived in Arizona. So think, sweaty, hot, double knit, bright orange and white hounds tooth pantsuit. Enough said.

Fast forward to today, and my precious little grandson shows promising signs of loving orange just like his nana! Ah, delightful boy. Papa and nana took our bundle on his first pumpkin patch visit. He absolutely LOVED the pumpkins and oranges and gourds and squash and bumps and Indian corn colors (tried to eat them, in fact). He was wearing an awesome onsie with orange and some picture. All I can remember is I love orange on him. And all I can do is look at his sweet little grin. Who knows what his shirt said?

Fall is the perfect season. Oranges, reds, yellows, pumpkins, squash, corn, and cool days with fall blue skies and approaching storms. Perfect grandbabies with adorable faces.
And orange.