Tag Archives: Autumn

Heed the Call of the Pumpkin at these Great Bay Area Pumpkin Farms

Posted on October 14, 2011 | 1 comment

Few people can resist the delights offered by a pumpkin farm. They’re wonderful places for urban and suburban families to slow down just enough to feel the turning of the year and maybe try some harvest or other activities from times past. And, of course, there are the pumpkins themselves — jolly orbs that lay in profusion among pastures until you, the visitor, pick the most perfect among them to take home.

With Halloween almost upon us, most pumpkin farms have gone into high gear, with lots of activities over longer hours, and a host of pumpkins still available for the picking. Included in this listing are working farms and special pumpkin patches in the North, East and South Bays.

Note: The 41st Annual Half Moon Bay Art and Pumpkin Festival takes place October 15-16 this year. Enjoy a parade, entertainment, contests, crafts, food, and displays of the world’s largest pumpkins, before or after visiting a charming South Bay pumpkin farm.

South Bay

Half Moon Bay bills itself as the “Pumpkin Capitol of the World” for good reason. Many people know about the yearly Art and Pumpkin Festival. Less well-known is the bounty of area farms, many of which have been in families for generations, along Highways 1 and 92.

Farmer John’s Pumpkin Farm, Half Moon Bay

This delightful pumpkin patch offers an extremely large variety of pumpkins, all grown on-site. This working farm also features a hay pyramid, scarecrows, play areas, a Native American tipi, cornrows, U-pick sunflowers, and an antique John Deere tractor. The farm is wheelchair-accessible.

See Farmer John’s Pumpkin Farm for directions and more information.

Arata’s Pumpkin Farm, Half Moon Bay

Open since 1932, Arata’s is one of the oldest working pumpkin farms in the Bay Area. In addition to pumpkins, enjoy pony rides, animals, a hay ride, and a huge hay maze — clearly a labor of love — constructed out of 10,000 bales of hay.

See Arata’s Pumpkin Farm for directions and more information.

Little Creek Ranch Pumpkin Farm, Half Moon Bay

Just up the road from Arata’s, Little Creek is a delightful family farm and pumpkin patch suitable for very young children. Pumpkins lay far apart on flat ground, so there are no vines to trip over. The entire pumpkin area is surrounded by low hay bales. There is a play structure and pony rides, along with other animals.

Call Little Creek Ranch at (650) 726-2765 for directions and more information.

Pastorino Farms, Half Moon Bay

Pastorino Farms dates from the 30s and is known today for its huge assortment of pumpkins, along with its big orange-and-black decorated barn. Pastorino offers train rides around a small track, a jump house, pony rides, and a petting zoo. Hand-made signs that identify the many different types of pumpkins, some of them quite unusual. Also nice is the farm’s large selection of Halloween decorations and kitchen wares.

See Pastorino Farms for directions and more information.

Lemos Farm, Half Moon Bay

A working farm since 1942, this popular, charming spot offers lots of activities for all ages, especially young children. In addition to a good selection of pumpkins, Lemos Farm features pony rides, hay rides, a hay maze, a train for small children, a toddler-oriented play zone, haunted houses for older and younger children, and animals you can feed and pet. Lemos Farm retains a great deal of charm from the South Bay’s rural past.

See Lemos Farm for directions and more information.

East Bay

Smith Family Farm, Brentwood

Smith Family Farm has been in the same family for three generations and offers lots of great old-time activities on its large farm. There’s a leisurely tractor-pulled hay ride out to the pumpkin field, a corn maze, a hay maze, displays of antique farm equipment, live entertainment in a barn, a host of animals, and lots of fresh U-pick produce. The farm offers lots of places to picnic and play in a large, varied ranch setting.

See Smith Valley Farm for directions and more information.

Clayton Valley Pumpkin Farm, Clayton

Clayton Valley Pumpkin Farm, at the base of Mount Diablo, features a large variety of pumpkins and squash in all shapes and even colors. This working farm offers lots of fun activities for all ages, including a trackless train, a playland featuring old-fashioned games, and plenty of farm animals. The farm represents a part of the area’s rural past that is largely disappearing.

See Clayton Valley Farm for directions and more information.

Joan’s Farm, Livermore

This large, pretty working farm offers a taste of the Old West: There’s an Old West town, gold panning, antique farm equipment, a museum, and more. There’s also a large corn maze, hay rides, farm animals, and a farmstand with fresh produce for sale.

See Joan’s Farm for directions and more information.

North Bay

Peterson’s Farm, Petaluma

This working farm opens to the public for Halloween. Families may visit on weekends or after 2 on weekdays. In addition to two large, natural pumpkin fields, Peterson’s has lots of animals to feed and pet, including chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, cows, ponies, rabbits, pigs, calves, and a very big but gentle bull known as Wooly Monster. There are also fresh vegetables, flowers, free-range eggs, and an observational bee hive, all in a very intimate farm setting.

See Peterson’s Farm for directions and more information.

Peter Pumpkin Patch, Petaluma

This large, beautifully situated pumpkin farm in the Chileno Valley is also the home of Spring Hill Jersey Cheese. Visitors can milk a cow or dig for potatoes in a potato field, in addition to buying some of the best homemade ice cream around (pumpkin and vanilla) and specialty farmstead cheeses.

See Peter Pumpkin Patch for directions and more information.

Adobe Pumpkin and Flower Farm

This 30-acre farm has thousands of pumpkins and gourds for the picking, along with U-cut zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers, and more. Adobe also has a great corn maze, a hay ride, a haunted barn, a jump house, animals, crafts, and food and live entertainment on weekends.

See Adobe Farms for directions and more information.

Nicasio Valley Farms, Nicasio

Along with a large, picturesque organic pumpkin patch, Nicasio Valley Farms offers U-pick strawberries, lots of gourds, and a farmstand featuring a complete array of fresh organic vegetables, as well as eggs, breads and cheeses. There is a hay maze, a jump house, musical entertainment and food for sale.

Call Nicasio Valley Farms at (415) 662-9100 for directions and more information.

Still want more? See Pumpkin Patches, Corn Mazes, Hayrides and More in the San Francisco-Sacramento Area.

Have fun this pumpkin season!

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman

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Posted in Butter and Egg, Field Trip, Holidays, Nature, Seasons, The Great Outdoors

Tagged Autumn, Bay Area, East Bay, Fall, Farms, Half Moon Bay, Harvest, Marin, Nature, Pumpkin Patches, Pumpkins, Slow Food, Sonoma

23 Things to be Happy About in October

Posted on September 30, 2011 | 6 comments

I tend to be happy most months and seasons, and completely enjoy the continuity and mystery of the turning year. That said, there is just something a little extra-special about October, which starts tomorrow here and which some of you are already enjoying. What are some items on your Happy October list? Here’s mine:

Crisp air
Pumpkins in fields, farms and stands
Long nights
Scarecrows
Curling up with books and tea

Bountiful harvests
The slant of sunlight
Apples and cider
Riotously colored leaves
Fall movies
Meals with friends

Sweaters and socks
Gloves, mittens and hats
Leaves crunching underfoot
Birds in flight, migrating
Fireplace fires
Stock, johnny jump-ups and even mums

High school football
The smell of bays, oaks and wood duff
The prospect of Halloween
Children in costumes
Picking up sewing projects
Being at rest

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman

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Posted in Nature, Odes, Seasons, Snapshot, The Great Outdoors

Tagged Autumn, Autumn Leaves, Fall, Fall Leaves, Flower Photography, Halloween, Harvest, Nature Photography, October, Photography, Seasons

Spring Ahead! Daylight Saving Time Begins Tonight for Many

Posted on March 12, 2011 | 1 comment

When Benjamin Franklin wrote An Economical Project, his 1794 discourse in which he proposed the idea that would become our current Daylight Saving Time, it probably didn’t occur to him that the world would be using his system of adjusting human activities to maximize natural daylight more than 200 years later.

It also probably didn’t occur to him that others would take so long to embrace it. Attempts to legislate Daylight Saving were still widely ridiculed at the beginning of the 20th century. (It took the energy needs of WWI for many to finally enact them.) Standard times, brought about in the U.S. and Canada by the needs of the railways, which straddled various locales, also took a few decades to eventually pass into law.

This is a wonderful article on the history of Daylight Saving Time and time zones, which includes all kinds of quirkiness and variations. (One year, 23 different pairs of DST start and end dates were used in Iowa alone.) Indeed, cities and countries around the world begin, end and practice Daylight Savings at a variety of times and in a variety of ways.

Most of the U.S. begins Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. (local time) on the second Sunday in March and reverts to standard time at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday in November.

How does Daylight Savings Time impact safety, particularly on the roads? Apparently the first dark evenings in Fall, when the time changes back, see an increase in pedestrian and auto accidents, as some people readjust to driving in darkness. In 2007, Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. was moved to the first weekend in November, in the hopes of getting more Halloween Trick-or-Treaters out during daylight and presumed safety, which may be good for the youngest Trick-or-Treaters.

Sleep deprivation is an issue that can affect people just after Daylight Saving Time kicks in in Spring. Cows, too, can be a little flummoxed, say Indiana dairy farmers — to the degree that their milk production suffers. Interestingly, Indiana only adopted Daylight Saving Time in 2006. Arizona is the only state that currently opts out of Daylight Savings, although the Navajo nations within it opt in — are you confused yet? In addition some Amish communities, particularly in Ohio, remain on Standard Time, which they (wonderfully) call Slow Time.

Here’s hoping you enjoy your Slow Time, your sunlight, and the wonder of time in general, whether you practice Daylight Savings or not.

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman

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Posted in Seasons

Tagged Amish, Arizona, Autumn, Clocks, Daylight Saving, Daylight Saving Accidents, Daylight Saving History, Daylight Saving Sleep, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings, Daylight Savings Time, Fall, Farming, History, Indiana, Slow Time, Spring, Standard Time, Time, Time Zones

Stir up (or cook down) some Colonial Apple Butter

Posted on November 9, 2010 | 17 comments

In a world of wonderful jams and butters, apple butter might just be the ultimate slow food. Comprised of just a few natural ingredients, and no sugar, the best apple butter cooks most of the day over a low flame, so that the resulting mixture is wonderfully dense and has a rich, caramel-y taste. I’d been wanting to get in touch with my inner Colonial cook and make some, when a friend happened to bring over a bounty of Fuji apples from her backyard tree, and then another friend further inspired me by making amazing dried apples from her tree. (Lucky me!)

Apples were indeed plentiful in Colonial America. Alice Morse Earle’s book, Home Life in Colonial America, lists such dishes as apple-slump (baked apples under a cake topping), apple-crowdy (a turnover-like dessert), and something called apple-mose, along with various types of pies. The book quotes a Swedish parson writing home about the Delaware settlement in 1758:

Apple-pie is used throughout the whole year, and when fresh apples are no longer to be had, dried ones are used. It is the evening meal of children. House-pie .. is made of apples neither peeled nor freed from their cores, and its crust is not broken if a wagon wheel goes over it.

I washed the Fuji apples, appreciating their pretty shapes and colors. In Colonial country homes, it was not uncommon to hold an apple-paring, in which friends and neighbors came to help peel the crop of apples for winter’s dried apples, applesauce and apple butter. The ingredients for apple butter were put into large brass kettles, which were then hung in big, open fireplaces. The finished apple butter would be stored in barrels in the house’s basement. Quince and pear butters were made as well.

My apple butter is extremely easy to make, requiring only the ingredients you see above:

8 cups apples (a cup is approx. 2 small apples)

2 1/2 cups apple cider

1 Tbsp. honey

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. cloves

This recipe yields 2 jars of apple butter and can easily be doubled or tripled. I arrived at it through a combination of various vintage, Amish, and canning books, along with some trial and error.

1. Wash, peel and chop the apples into small pieces.

2. Place the apples into a large pot and cover with the cider.

3. Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce heat to a low simmer.

4. Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine.

5. Simmer on low heat, uncovered for 6 or more hours, or until the mixture cooks down to a paste. You may opt for occasional periods of slightly higher heat, if you find that your mixture remains too watery or if you want to caramelize some of the apples at the bottom of the pot.

This is the “inner Colonial” part — the long, slow cooking process and the fantastic way your house will smell and feel as you do it.

6. Using a wide-mouth funnel, ladle the mixture into jars that have been prepared for canning. (I boil them for 10 minutes in a boiling water canner.)

7. Seal the jars and boil them again, for 10 minutes. Let them sit for a day. (If you follow strict canning guidelines, you can store your apple butter for the future. If you do not, then you’ll want to eat the apple butter within a couple of weeks and store it in the refrigerator.) Please refer to the USDA canning guidelines, downloadable Guide 1, for more information on proper home canning.

Preserves and butters of all kinds make wonderful gifts and spreads, especially one like this, in which there is barely anything to get in the way of the wonderful, fresh, age-old Fall apple taste. Try apple butter on toast or crackers, with cheese, poultry, or even other fruit.

The colonial kitchen above is located at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, VT. If you are able to get to this museum, I highly recommend it. It’s like no other — approximately 40 buildings on beautiful grounds house collections of folk art, paintings, quilts, dolls, design, and entire detailed re-creations of such staples of the past as apothecaries, blacksmiths, printing shops, train stations, one-room schoolhouses, and homes of many eras. Look for an upcoming post that details more about the one-of-a-kind Shelburne Museum.

In the meantime, enjoy your butter and fall!

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman

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Posted in Home Ec., Lost Arts, Nature, Recipes, Seasons, Vintage

Tagged Apple Butter, Apples, Autumn, Canning, Colonial, Fall, Food, Food History, Fuji Apples, Preserving, Shelburne Museum, Slow Food, Vermont

A Roundup of Halloween and Fall Fun

Posted on October 29, 2010 | 6 comments

Everyone seems to be inspired by Fall and by Halloween, which comes at the exact height of the season. There is no shortage of wonderful blog posts and ideas about play, creativity, and celebration of this pivotal and lovely time of the year. I’ve gathered a few:

Fall’s bounty and beauty are explored by Mom in Madison

A roundup of Fall outdoor activities comes from Your Wild Child

Backyard Mama brings us ten ways to enjoy Fall

Make shrunken apple heads with Active Kids Club

Create a Sugar Sprite tradition for Halloween candy with Stephinie on Rhythm of the Home

A wonderful compendium of Halloween herb and food history and lore comes from The Herb Companion

From The Squirrelbasket: Halloween traditions, superstitions, and pumpkin carving

DIYLife weighs in on composting Fall leaves

Shivaya Mama describes experiencing peace and joy through watching children’s delight at jumping in Fall leaves

Have a glorious Halloween and Fall!

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman

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Posted in Crafts, Deck Garden, Holidays, Home Ec., Nature, Play, Seasons, The Great Outdoors

Tagged Autumn, Autumn Crafts, Composting, Fall, Fall Crafts, Fall Leaves, Family, Food History, Halloween, Halloween History, Pumpkins, Shrunken Apple Head, Traditions

Fall Begins Tonight with a Big Harvest Moon

Posted on September 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

The Autumnal Equinox will occur overnight tonight at 3:09 Universal Time (7:09 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, 10:09 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time), officially ushering in Fall. In a rare occurrence, a big, full Harvest Moon will be in the sky to greet it.

According to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune: Typically, the Harvest Moon arrives within days or weeks of the Autumnal Equinox, but rarely does it align within hours. There hasn’t been a comparable coincidence since Sept. 23, 1991. Such an alignment won’t happen again until 2029.

As I wrote last year, the Harvest Moon is quite a magnificent, miraculously timed occurrence. It traditionally shines its all-night beacon at precisely the time farmers are gathering their crops. Because it’s close to the horizon in the Northern Hemisphere, October’s full moon is also particularly large and bright — quite helpful in the days before electricity, and perhaps even now.

Here is a good explanation of the how the September Equinox works.

Happy Fall!

Make a Honey Spice Cake for a Sweet New Year and Fall

Posted on September 8, 2010 | 5 comments

Honey is one of the world’s oldest foods. Ancient Egyptian tomb reliefs from as far back as the 3rd millennium B.C. show bees being smoked from their hives to produce it. Nomads and traders helped honey’s popularity spread worldwide, while it remained a prevalent sweetener in the Middle East, where it still often, and wonderfully, appears in Mediterranean, Arab and Jewish dishes.

Jews around the world traditionally celebrate their new year (which this year begins at sundown tonight) by dipping apples in honey, and by eating honey and spice cakes, the better to usher in a “sweet new year.”

And lots of people ring in Fall by making honeyed cakes of wonderful harvest ingredients like pumpkin, and warm spices like cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves.

This terrific and tasty honeyed spice cake recipe is from the San Francisco Chronicle. The resulting cake is at once dense, moist, and extremely flavorful.

Of course, you don’t need a new year or season to make this cake. Its firmness and ease of slicing makes it a natural for school lunches and after-school treats. It’s loaded with healthy ingredients and happens to taste especially good.

Photo by Susan Sachs Lipman:
Pumpkin spice cake at the Mill Valley Book Depot

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Posted in Butter and Egg, Holidays, Home Ec., Recipes, Snapshot

Tagged Autumn, Cake, Depot Bookstore, Egypt, Fall, Food, Food History, Honey, Honey Cake, Jewish New Year, Mill Valley, Pumpkin Cake, Rosh Hashana, San Francisco Chronicle, Spice Cake

Rhythm of the Home: Make an Autumn Leaf Placemat

Posted on September 1, 2010 | 8 comments

The Autumn issue of Rhythm of the Home came out today. I’m thrilled to have an article in it: How to Make an Autumn Leaf Placemat.

This beautiful online magazine has been one of my favorites since its inception. Each season brings lovely and inspiring ideas from a terrific array of bloggers and crafters who write about fun family craft projects, family connection and balance, nature, inspiration, and love.

The Autumn issue marks the full round of the seasons for Rhythm of the Home, and the spirit of Autumn comes through in so many of the pieces. Congratulations on the 1-year anniversary!

Every story in the current issue features something lovely. To name but a few, there’s an interview with Salley Mavor, the creator of Felt Wee Folk. There are stories about creating community with the NoCo Nature Tribe and Mothers Circles, and honoring family rhythms with a Blessing Hour.

Pieces explore Simple Living, Finding Balance, Loving with Intention, Mama Journaling, and Making a House a Home. I learned about Moroccan Babywearing and Life in a Viking Village, the tradition of Mother Roasting for post-partum women, and a creature called the Halloween Sugar Sprite. I continued to enjoy Kristie Burns‘ nice writing about the Four Temperaments, this time focusing on their relation to Fall.

There are tons of lovely and inspiring craft projects. I want to make them all! They include a Harvest Basket, a Story Table, a Playscape, yummy Pumpkin Bread and Autumn Spice Scones, Flower Pounding, Autumn Fleece Washing, a Thankfulness Journal, a Family Library Bag, and many more fiber, cooking, and other projects.

Can you tell I’m crazy about this magazine? Come on over and get inspired for Fall.

Click to Read

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman

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Posted in Community, Crafts, Holidays, Home Ec., Nature, Play, Recipes, Seasons

Tagged Autumn, Autumn Crafts, Autumn Leaf Placemat, Balance, Blessings, Cooking, Crafts, Fall, Fall Crafts, Fall Leaf Placemat, Family, Family Rhythm, Food, Online Community, Placemat Project, Rhythm of the Home

Let Nature Decorate your Holiday Table

Posted on November 25, 2009 | 3 comments

Nature often makes the best decoration. Especially in Fall, leaves, fruits and nuts are readily available in public spaces, in addition to being eye-catching, pretty, and free or nearly so.

Of course, the hunt is a highlight of the pre-planning. It provides a fun family tradition, and a way to enjoy nature together in the beautiful Fall, before bringing some of it inside for lovely — and free — table decor. My favorite tabletop finds include buckeyes, chestnuts, multi-colored leaves, ivy, pine boughs, pine cones, branches with berries and, from the store, mini pumpkins, persimmons, apples, mandarin oranges, and pears.

Above are fall tables from two different years. Both feature collected items from nature and inexpensive store-bought fall flowers that my family and I arranged in a shallow bowl, using a “frog” to hold the stems in place. All of our glassware and china has been handed down, including the festive red glasses. I layered inexpensive tablecloths and fabric runners.

One Thanksgiving morning, our cousins gathered branches and boughs for their table and made cute homemade placecards for each guest.

Another guest provided this very festive and yummy cake. I made the Cranberry Crunch squares from Susan Simon’s The Nantucket Holiday Table. They’re very good, and a great use for cranberries.

If you’re fortunate to be able to collect buckeyes, chestnuts or acorns in your area, they can make an inexpensive, natural, interesting filler for a large vase of flowers.

Friend Mary Mauro cleverly filled a very tall vase with mini pumpkins for a gathering. (She is also a gifted flower arranger.)

I hope you have an inspired, happy Thanksgiving.

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman

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Posted in Crafts, Design, Holidays, Home Ec., Nature, Recipes, Seasons, The Great Outdoors

Tagged Autumn, Fall, Flower Arranging, Flowers, Food, Holidays, Mary Mauro, Nantucket Holiday Table, Nature, Susan Simon, Sustainability, Table Decor, Tabletop, Tableware, Thanksgiving

Make a Fall Leaf Placemat

Posted on November 15, 2009 | 5 comments

This is a fun, easy, rewarding project for those who still have leaves falling, or on the ground. Or perhaps you’ve collected some and you’re not sure what to do with them. Making a placemat will allow you to enjoy them for years to come. Even small children can be involved in this project by gathering leaves and helping with the design. You’ll need:

Iron-on flexible vinyl, available in fabric stores by the roll. It is made by Heat’n Bond or Therm O Web.

Medium-weight white cotton fabric, about 3/4 yard per placemat.

Your favorite Fall leaves.

A phone directory or other heavy book.

1. Gather some wonderful, colorful leaves that have fallen.

2. Place them in a phone directory, or other thick book to flatten them. Put them toward the back of the book, so there will be enough pages over them to press them. Make sure you leave space between the leaves, and space between leaves and the book’s fold. Leaves will be flat in a couple of days.

3. Cut fabric rectangles, 2 inches larger all around than you want your final placemat to be. I cut my fabric into 20″x 13″ pieces, to make 18″ x 11″ placemats. For the exact shape, I traced the outline of an existing placemat, which had rounded edges. Turn the fabric pieces over and make occasional guide marks 2″ around from the outside edges, lightly with a pencil.

4. Turn the fabric right-side-up again and play with the placement of the leaves. When you are happy with the way they look, you will be ready to iron the vinyl down. Don’t forget to leave more than a 2″ space all around your design.

5. Heat your iron. Peel the backing off the vinyl and place it sticky-side-down onto the leaves. Smooth the vinyl with your hands, then iron it onto the fabric, following package directions.

6. When the fabric is cool, turn over and cut according to your guidelines. For further sturdiness, you can iron vinyl onto the back of the placemat as well. Admire and use your placemats for years to come.