Last night was a veritable vegetable smorgasboard.

Perhaps it was the chill weather? Perhaps it was the industrious inspiration I found chez bohemian girl ? Hard to say, but there I was in a splitting, peeling, slicing, roasting, grilling frenzy.

We had my beloved blue hubbard roasting as the first step on its way to becoming a smooth squash soup. There were sweet potatoes and russets roasting with onion and garlic, roma tomatoes, open faced, sprinkled with sea salt and drizzled with olive oil, sharing space with thick slices of portobella mushrooms. And, grilling on the stove top, bright green Brussels sprouts sizzled face down in a thin layer of olive oil.

Yes, I adore Brussels sprouts. There are very few vegetables that I don?t love. In fact, as I think about it, only two come to mind: fennel and eggplant. I?m sure fennel is a lovely root vegetable, it?s just that I am violently allergic to it, and eggplant, well, I adore the color, the shape, it?s the actual eating of it that I can?t stomach. Too squishy chewy?I know(!)?me, the lover of mushrooms complaining about squishy chewy?go figure.

So, there was an abondanza of veggies, T lit the first fire of the season in the woodstove, red wine was poured and we rocked out to Ashley MacIsaac . (Literally, there was much with the dancing and the dancing and the dancing). It had been a long, long time since we listened to the wild man from Cape Breton and oh, how good it was.

Although the cd we were playing last night is from 2002, it brought me back to another place and time now drenched in bittersweetness: October. 1996. Me with my dogs?dogs you?ve never met?Jack and Douce. We would walk along the railroad tracks and watch as leaves drifted down into the lake. Sleepy Maggie playing over and over in my head, filling my whole spirit with ideas and visions as some songs are wont to do.

Whoa?how DOES music just propel you back in time to a place so specific you can feel the sun, hear the sound of the warning whistle, see the burrs caught on the legs of your jeans from the tall grass where you stand while the train rumbles past?

Anyway, all this to say, it seems we have acclimated to the season change.

(The photos I am posting here were taken yesterday and the day before, as today is cold, rainy, and thick with fog. Ah Summer, we hardly knew ye.)

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