The colorful leaves are still hanging on the trees where I live, but I can tell in just a few days they will all be on the ground. The air has a crispness to it that we don’t see much of the year, and I smile because although things may be more dreary outside than at the beginning of this season, I enjoy the opportunity to slow down.

To dream of the holidays and my children being home.

To dream of next year’s spring garden.

To dream of the new horse showing season.

To dream of what my word of the year will be (Instead of doing a New Year’s Resolution, I always pick a word that I want the next year to embody).

On a bigger scale, I dream of things for my adult children and for our community and the world at large. Slowing down and getting cozy with this season is a natural way of life. I am trying to burrow into this coziness like a small mammal hibernating for winter.

I have some medical treatment this month that will take me into January, and I am so looking forward to fresh, clean, unwritten 2024.

These are the things we are celebrating this month at the farm:

This month we are celebrating:

• November 1 All Saints Day
• November 2 All Souls Day
• November 10/11  Martinmas and Veterans Day
• November 19 St. Elizabeth
• November 23 Thanksgiving
• November 27  I have it in my calendar to make Advent Wreaths in preparation for the first Sunday in Advent, December 3rd.  (Hard to believe Advent is almost upon us!  If you want a little peek ahead, try my Advent Pinterest Board)

Learning and celebrating ideas for those of you with children or grandchildren at home:

• Learn songs for a Martinmas Lantern Walk
• Use transparency paper to make window silhouettes and transparency cut-outs and lanterns.
• Bake bread on the cold days
• Look for bird’s  nests as the trees lose their leaves; make feeders start to be filled all the time, make treats for the birds
• Dip leaves in glycerin or beeswax and preserve them
• Cook things with cranberries, corn, and pumpkin.
• Learn some Thanksgiving songs and practice so you can play them after Thanksgiving Dinner!
• Find a place to volunteer to serve Thanksgiving dinner
• Make Thanksgiving Baskets and leaving them on your neighbor’s doorstep!
• Gather greens and natural items to use for an Advent Wreath.  We do this at church from the areas surrounding the church and it is quite lovely!
• Find books, cozy blankets and pillows, and mark off half days for just reading and lounging around. Pull out candles, homemade Martinmas lanterns, salt lamps  and scatter them around.  Cuddle up and read aloud with some fabulous tea or hot chocolate.
• Find handwork projects that you will love and get started.

Other Ideas for this month:

• Get a small jump on gifts for the holidays. Here is my Pinterest Board of holiday gifts to make
• Make sure you are still getting your Vitamin N and get out in nature! Move your body!
• Dream a little about the next school year in homeschooling ❤ I am looking at high schools for our last child at home, and I see our homeschooling chapter coming to a close which is bittersweet.

Just a few notes from my corner of the world,

Carrie