Last Trip to NH
Last weekend, we went to NH for my birthday--our last trip of the season, which meant we had to say goodbye until next May. Usually we get to go once more in November, but this year we can't. We were all very sad to leave.
It was a quick trip--Friday night through Sunday late afternoon--but worth it, as it always is. I love being up there in the fall--this October trip always feels so moody and final. It's not a place that's all that welcoming for outsiders once the weather drops, and there's the feeling of being ushered out, we who don't really belong there, we who won't be around when the snow piles up around the barn. It's time to leave the house, and the woods, to the ghosts--whose presence we both feel strongly, especially once summer draws to a close.
It was not only cold this weekend but rainy, but we managed to squeeze in the things we love. Saturday, we went to our favorite farm to pick pumpkins and run through the corn maze. We celebrated my birthday that evening, with champagne, a steak dinner, cake (leftover from Greta's birthday), and presents. For a birthday like this--or any birthday, really--I felt it was best to mark it as far from civilization and regular life as possible. Forty slipped in without much fuss.
Sunday we took a nature walk and the girls played around the pond--lower now, allowing them to explore places they usually can't reach. We spent time inside coloring in the girls' new Pusheen coloring books. We carved all the pumpkins, and roasted the pumpkin seeds. The girls spent a surprising amount of time pulling corn kernels from dried ears of corn they'd scavenged from the corn maze, then playing with the kernels in a way I can't quite pin down--feeding them to the jack o' lanterns? Feeding them to their Shopkins? Unclear.
And then we closed down another season with dinner at our favorite pizza place before getting on the road.
Until next year, lovely farmhouse.
It was a quick trip--Friday night through Sunday late afternoon--but worth it, as it always is. I love being up there in the fall--this October trip always feels so moody and final. It's not a place that's all that welcoming for outsiders once the weather drops, and there's the feeling of being ushered out, we who don't really belong there, we who won't be around when the snow piles up around the barn. It's time to leave the house, and the woods, to the ghosts--whose presence we both feel strongly, especially once summer draws to a close.
It was not only cold this weekend but rainy, but we managed to squeeze in the things we love. Saturday, we went to our favorite farm to pick pumpkins and run through the corn maze. We celebrated my birthday that evening, with champagne, a steak dinner, cake (leftover from Greta's birthday), and presents. For a birthday like this--or any birthday, really--I felt it was best to mark it as far from civilization and regular life as possible. Forty slipped in without much fuss.
Sunday we took a nature walk and the girls played around the pond--lower now, allowing them to explore places they usually can't reach. We spent time inside coloring in the girls' new Pusheen coloring books. We carved all the pumpkins, and roasted the pumpkin seeds. The girls spent a surprising amount of time pulling corn kernels from dried ears of corn they'd scavenged from the corn maze, then playing with the kernels in a way I can't quite pin down--feeding them to the jack o' lanterns? Feeding them to their Shopkins? Unclear.
And then we closed down another season with dinner at our favorite pizza place before getting on the road.
Until next year, lovely farmhouse.
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