“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

~ Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)

Pardon me… but where did September go?

It's normally my favorite month, but this year I looked up just in time to flip the page on the calendar to October. So I'm left with no other choice. I have decided that September is fine, but October is glorious. And this year October is really my favorite (because it's all I have left of the fall).

And autumn weekends might be the best thing that happens all year.

As we're still a bit away from the dizzying busyness of November (running a small business and handcrafting most of my holiday gifts and celebrating an oodle of family birthday… plus the herbal retreat and deer season and — you get the idea), October is an oasis. Gorgeous color is beginning to burst on the hills around us and we're enjoying a stretch of sunny and thankfully dry weather. And with some newfound energy that tends to come with cooler weather for me, I'm digging on on lots of projects. (I think I've found my #gettingshitdonein2016 mojo again – and I like it.)

With that spirit, the weekend's agenda included dying yarn for a vest I've been wanting to cast on for myself for months (the Splitstone). The yarn is more of my homegrown worsted, and the dye is homegrown as well. (This is a dilute hollyhock dye.) I love the soft sage that resulted.

I had planned to harvest some sumac berries for a charcoal grey as well but the recent floods seem to have knocked all the sumac berries down. (Sad face.) I will keep searching in hopes of finding a sheltered grove to harvest.

As for sweater patterns, thought I have a plethora of worsted weight sweaters bookmarked (some with beautiful, delicate detailing) I know myself well enough to know that squishy, comfortable, and farm-chore friendly is where I'm at. So this is probably my winner. Because: long, baggy sleeves will always win for me. 

Also on the weekend docket: lots of medicine making and prep for the Women's Herbal Retreat! I set to work writing and testing recipes, harvesting and drying herbs, and digging and scrubbing roots. (Otherwise known as my favorite way to spend a weekend aside from dying wool.)

There is still much to do to get ready, but spending the better part of a sunny day outside playing with plants, then inside making medicine was a delight.

And today? The work week and homeschooling week begins once more!

Perhaps making plant medicine and foraging more dyestuffs might find it's way onto our "school" list today.

Oh, yes. I do like the sound of that.

Have a good one, friends.

Love,

Rachel