Autumn Season is Best for Activities Recipes Crafts

Today was warm so my husband and I went to our storage shed to organize the autumn season decorations and my craft things. There were 22 storage boxes labeled for the autumn season.  In comparison to the other holidays, the autumn season had more storage containers for crafts, decorations, kitchen recipes, and there was no question about it, the autumn season is by far the best and favorite season at my house.

Know that we start preparing for the travel activities in early summer, plus how we will decorate the yard and home is planned in July. Which includes what crafts we will do for the upcoming season and how we will decorate for the holidays; Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Autumn is the longest and the best season for activities, recipes, and crafts as each year is a bigger celebration than the year before? Hoping this year will be the best autumn ever.

Autumn decor ideas for living room

Autumn Harvest Living Room Decor by sgolis featuring Zazzle throw pillows

Here are a few of my favorite blog posts; activities, recipes, and decorations/crafts for the autumn season.

Mushroom hunt in the woods

Autumn parties; plans and menu ideas

Decorating your autumn home

Decorating Bedroom for Autumn

Today I took some time to make plans to decorate my bedroom for the autumn season. Granted I have never decorated my bedroom for the change of seasons but since my husband has been spending more time in our newly renovated room I thought I would pop decorate it so we can both it enjoy this space throughout the season.

Cozy Autumn Bedroom by sgolis 

The fall colors are warm and earthy; gold, orange, brown and touches of gold. These colors will give the bedroom a cozy feeling and it will be a great place for my husband to relax.

We just painted the walls a warm flax color and I do not plan on painting an accent wall, instead, I will hang a few seasonal posters in hardwood frames. I also thought chocolate brown or pumpkin spice drapes would be eye-appealing window treatments. Then all that would be needed would be a garland of fall colored maple leaves to drape across the drapery rod or maybe accent the post as a wall decoration.

Presently our comforter set is chocolate brown and instead of buying a duvet cover I think I will update the bed with assorted seasonal pillows and add a fall theme printed fleece blanket.

Then for the dresser, I thought I would add a lamp and a stack of books. I think this would create a focal area that would be eye appealing.

Do you decorate your master bedroom for the autumn season. 

Apple Pear Chutney with Cranberries

In the autumn my family harvests the pears and the apples and my job is to come up with recipes for the bushes of fruit.  I make the traditional things like apple-pear pie, apple-pear sauce, apple-pear muffins but this year we also made apple pear and cranberry chutney. 

My husband helped me to get the fruit ready for the chutney and the day before we peeled and cored a bushel of apples and pears. When the peeling was done husband chopped all of the fruit and then slow cooked the fruit; apples, pears with granulated sugar, cinnamon, apple cider vinegar, apple juice and water.

The fruit cooked on the stove for several hours.  Then when the fruit was almost done my husband added the dried cranberries.  When chutney was done the sauce had thicken around the chopped fruit. We never made apple pear cranberry chutney before and thought the blending of the fruit was delicious. 

Hunt for Chanterelle Mushrooms in Autumn

Hunting for chanterelle mushrooms is a fun activity especially if you enjoy hiking in the woods and viewing wildlife. My husband and I discovered that the heavily wooded landscape that surrounds the Ozark Mountains is an ideal hunting ground for wild mushrooms. We took a stroll in the woods in the middle of September and discovered many mushrooms however most of the fungi that we found was highly toxic. Therefore we needed to do some research to learn more about wild mushrooms. 

Image Credit Wikipedia Creative Commons

The library had many books on mushrooms grown in the wild.  We studied the books and learned the characteristics of the Chanterelle mushroom;  they have a sweet scent like apricots and that they do not grow in rotting wood, but rather in areas close to the ground by oak, pine, birch, maple and other hardwood trees. We also learned that the best time of the year to hunt for these mushrooms in the wild was September through October and if the weather continued to be mild you could hunt for them in early November. 

The chanterelle mushroom is easy to locate as long as you keep your eyes on the soil line, they are a brightly hued orange-yellow, although there is a copycat mushroom that is highly poisonous. So you need to be certain that what you are picking is a chanterelle mushroom.  After weeks of studying books on wild mushrooms we decided it was to our best interest to hire a mushroom picker to make sure that what we found was edible. My brother volunteered his services and thus it was a fun autumn family activity.

We selected a day in autumn when there was rain in the forecast and we prepared for the day by gathering our rain gear, hiking boots and pest repellent.The expert mushroom picker met with us in the morning and we spend most of the days in the woods hunting for wild chanterelle mushrooms. 

Note:  Hunting for wild mushrooms is nothing like strolling down a nature trail, to be successful in mushroom hunting you need to go off trail and walk through leaf piles, climb over timber and cross over streams.  You may find the mushrooms in moss or pine needles and it will require you to gently move the moss or needles away from the mushroom stalk and you may get your hands dirty.   If this is not to your liking then trust me hunting wild chanterelle mushrooms is not a hobby for you.  

Plan to Celebrate the Autumn Season

Autumn is visiting me and I am making plans to celebrate the season. The leaves are starting to fall from the trees in my hometown. The nights are dipping into the low 50's and the days are no warmer then the mid 50’s. This is an indication that summer has ended and the season called autumn has begun.

This is the time of the year when we start to think about comfort foods rich hearty soups, chili and stews. Pot roast for supper, melt in your mouth popovers,pumpkin pie, and apple crisp. 

 Autumn is also a time when we participate in outdoor activities with your friends and your family.    Today I went to the Audubon nature center and hiked on the nature trail. The trees along the creek were in peak color. I watched the colorful leaves float in the breeze. It was as if they were slow dancing. 

 The sun was bright and I could feel the warmth upon my face. There was a cool breeze that I felt whenever I walked in the shadows and that is when I thought of pumpkin spiced coffee. 

At the end of the nature trail, there was a park bench directly next to a sugar maple tree. I sat at a park bench and thought about all of the things that I must do. 

I will make a butternut squash soup for supper, and while it is cooking, I will roast some pumpkin seeds for my family to snack on. 

Then I will run to the craft store and pick up a few items to start my autumn decorations. Run by the farmers market to select some juicy apples for an apple crisp for dessert. I will serve this delicious dessert to my family by the fireplace. I am wondering does autumn get better than this?

I had better get busy, as I have many things to do. Why not make some plans of your own to celebrate the autumn season.