And suddenly I woke up one day and realized fall had decended on us. Whole fields of beans are turning, corn leaves are drooping, wagons are at attention behind the barn, Dad is fine-tuning the combine and that familiar scent is back. The scent that I have been breathing in since I was two years old. A scent that has inexplicably become a part of my soul. I breathe it in and I am home. It’s a change in the air; it has a sharpness to it. It’s a combination of diesel fuel and tractor exhaust. It’s the smell of grain turning. It’s the smell of leaves turning. It’s hard to explain.
For the first time in five years I will be home for the entire season of harvest. I am super stoked for this – more than you can imagine. To take Dad his lunches and suppers, to drive wagons around, to hopefully (!) drive a tractor and maybe even the combine (?!), to take many combine rides with Dad, to listen to Dad drive the combine up the lane when the day’s harvest is done, to feel bean stubble below my feet, to be lulled to sleep by the dryer fans, to see the leaves in the yard mingle with corn cobs and leaves, to see everything covered with red dog (the stuff you see floating in the air – it comes loose after the kernels are separated from the cob), and to run my hands through a wagon full of corn.
I can’t wait.
…as of late.
As a side note – I’m not encouraging you to go watch Grey’s. 
We have lots of apple trees at home – some good varieties and some not so good varieties. Back in July I brought boxes of Lodi and Yellow Transparent apples with me to the ‘Burg. My friend Peyton and I embarked on a wonderful applesauce making adventure with a gizmo and process details from friend G. We had a lot of fun and made 40 some quarts of utterly fantastic applesauce.
Our apples usually end up on the ground before we (my sister and I) are spurned into action. We were recently looking for a recipe to knock out a lot of apples at once. Success! And a major tasty one at that. Love when that happens.
1 1/2 c. flour
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 lb. butter
1/2 c. milk
1 egg
5 tart apples
Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease an 8-inch square cake pan. Mix flour through sugar in a mixing bowl. Melt butter in a small saucepan, remove from heat (let it cool a minute or so) and stir in milk and egg, beating well. Add to flour mixture and blend.
Spread batter in pan and press apple slices in uniform rows.
Mix 1/2 c. sugar, 1/2 t. cinnamon, 2 T. raisins (just throw in a bunch) and sprinkle on top.
Bake 25 minutes – check with toothpick test.
Notes:
We evidently don’t own an 8-inch square cake pan at the Moser homestead. Solution – double the recipe and bake it in a good ole regular 9×13.
With the doubling comes lots of apples. Use half of the batter and press some apples into it, and then spread out the rest of the batter and press in more apples. Finish with topping. My recommendation? Eat it straight out of the fridge with ice cream. Heavenly.
I love driving. Windows down, foot heavy on the gas, music up WAY up loud – love it. Especially when I’m driving in the country, on windy roads, gravel roads, or through beautiful landscapes. I would much rather be the driver than the passenger. Ugh, does this mean I have control issues? I also will be the first to admit that I have road rage. No violence or naughty hand gestures or anything, just simple feelings about other drivers on the road. I tend to give them a lot of verbal encouragement. And it might be loud, sometimes. And it might turn the air of my car blue, sometimes.
I was on my way to home #2 via I-64 E today. Wow, there was a lot of traffic. More so than I remember on past trips. There were quite a few drivers who were having mental lapses pertaining to one of the most obvious rules about driving. At least, quite obvious in my mind. There are TWO lanes of traffic on most major highways, correct? A RIGHT lane and a LEFT lane. The RIGHT lane is for SLOW drivers. SLOW drivers = people who actually follow speed limits (crazy, no?) or believe it or not, drive below the speed limit. The LEFT lane is for FAST drivers. FAST drivers = people who drive above the speed limit and want to get around the SLOW drivers. Now. It seems to me that if you are a SLOW driver and you happen to find yourself in the LEFT lane, a place where you might notice that there are a lot of cars behind you, you might want to MOVE. That’s right. MOVE your SLOW car out of the LEFT (FAST) lane into the RIGHT (SLOW) lane. I was trying my hardest to impart my road wisdom and encouragement to these poor souls, but they just weren’t getting it.
Also, I don’t care if you drive faster than I do. BUT! Please, please, please don’t pass me, pull in front of me and then SLOW DOWN. I will be very disappointed.
Moser Homestead
Sister Sara
A real thunderstorm moving in from the West
Flat farmland, storm!, my porch
An Ohio sunset
The following post is in the spirit of new lady friends J and G. 
While I was home for Easter I went a little crazy with the muffin making. I think I made five (?) different recipes and some of them were already doubled. Needless to say, we had lots of muffins. The night before I left for Harrisonburg, I went through some of Mom’s cookbooks looking for some awesome/fun muffin recipes. I can’t tell you where the following is from, but it is definitely a keeper. The muffins are so fresh, light and lemon-y. LEMON ZEST is my new favorite thing. Wow.
Cherry Vanilla Ricotta Muffins
2 c. flour
1/2 t. salt
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1/8 t. baking soda
1 T. grated lemon zest
1/2 c. – 2/3 c. sugar
1 c. ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1 T. lemon juice
1 T. & 1/2 t. vanilla
1/2 stick melted butter
1 c. dried cherries OR 1 1/2 c. fresh/frozen cherries
Combine ingredients flour through sugar in mixing bowl.
In a separate bowl whisk together the ricotta and eggs (one at a time, whisk after each egg). Add the lemon juice and vanilla.
Then add ricotta mixture, butter, and fruit to dry ingredients.
Mix and fill greased or papered muffin tins. Unless you like your muffins really small (boring) you won’t get two dozen. You also won’t get just one dozen. You’ll get seventeen, or some random number. Which just makes baking all the more fun. Fill your empty muffin spaces with water.
Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
Notes/Questions: I used dried currants because they are mucho cheaper than dried cherries. And they tasted fantastic. With the lemon zest and the real lemon juice, the vanilla taste seemed non-existant. What’s the point of adding the vanilla? Smearing these muffins with butter is also a good choice for consumption. :)
Enjoy!
After my long blogging drought, I have finally have something I want to say.
I FREAKING DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY THE HELL TAMPONS COST SO MUCH MONEY.
I went to RedFront today and this is a re-cap of my purchases: Bananas – 1.17, Grapefruits – 2.99, Carrots – 1.69, Tampax Super Pls 6.15. WTF?!?! It cost more to take care of my period than to buy fruits and vegatables?! AAAAAAAHHHHHHH! Also, how does it make sense that o.b. tampons cost more than applicator tampons? I am pretty certain that there is an uber amount of packaging with the latter kind. With the o.b. ones, not so much. So why do you COST MORE? You are cramping my attempt at a morally conscious eco-friendly lifestyle .
Someone please enlighten me.
I had long ago resigned myself to the fact that I would never speak Spanish.
This statement is quite amusing when you consider that all I have done for the past four days is study Spanish. For eight hours. Every day.
I am working at Rosetta Stone as a Product Tester for a few weeks, and I would love to give you a glimpse into what a typical day for me looks like. I have been waking up this week earlier than my body wants to, dragging myself through showers, finding lunch four hours before I get to eat it, and making my way through morning traffic. Ha. That’s a phrase I thought I would never utter. I make it to the CMC parking lot a little before 8 AM, and join other Rosetta Stone employees as we trek to the building which will become our prison for the next eight or so hours. Actually, in all seriousness, Rosetta Stone is a very cool place to work – and if I had a real job there I would probably be excited to go to work every day. People wear jeans, sweatshirts, heels – the whole gambit. I get all the free drinks I want (no, unfortunately not of the mixed variety). I think it’s safe to assume that one is automatically cool if they work at Rosetta Stone. It’s a very swank-y company.
I wind through the maze of the innards of the building to my “desk”, turn on my laptop, type in all my fancy usernames and passwords, “clock in” (I LOVE doing that), launch the software and I’m off to the races. The first day was quite exhilarating. There I was, actually learning Spanish. Remembering and recalling vocabulary, rolling my R’s, getting a grasp of the grammar and sentence structure – it was great. Needless to say the honeymoon period has worn off just a little. I came very close to hitting my computer screen today. Or wanting to hurt the device that makes the little dinging noise that sounds when you A) match the vocabulary word or sentence to the wrong picture, B) choose the wrong article to complete a sentence, C) say something wrong, D) not say the right thing soon enough, or E) forget to add a bloody little accent or tilde. There is also the corresponding dinging noise that sounds when you do the right thing. Which is very satisfying.
Red eggs are pretty.
The image to the left is a screen capture of a typical lesson. You have to pick the right article to complete the sentence. I do believe one would want to choose “Es rojo”. You can probably figure out what all those words over there mean, even if you know nothing of Spanish. Rojo = red. Blancos = white. Amarillo = yellow. Verdes = green. Not that the pictures give you any hints, or anything.
Since a lot of the software is created right here in Harrisonburg, a lot of the images are of familiar places and people. The familiar people really wigs me out. It’s just very strange to see faces I know in this internationally famous language software that people are using all over the world. Very strange.
It is also very strange to be doing dishes at home and random Spanish words come into my head. Words that don’t even make sense to what I’m doing or my context. The word esposo kept running through my head tonight. Last time I checked, I don’t have a spouse.
I am receiving such a high dosage of Spanish, there’s no way I can just go home and forget it all. It’d be cool if I actually started thinking in Spanish. I think maybe I should first learn how to communicate with someone who is not a voice through my headset or a series of dingings.
Sometimes when I bomb my little review sessions or hear just one too many dingings, I get really frustrated at myself and vent to Kelsey – “I suck at Spanish!”. As she kindly reminded me today – “You have only been learning Spanish for four days, Bess”. I guess maybe I should give myself just a little more grace.
These are words I love to say: amarillo, zapatos, abuela, boligrafos, leche, cocina, sabado and frio. OH, and pelirojo.
This job also makes going to bed early very appealing. Buenos noches!
I can’t count how many times I have tried to describe emotional encounters I have had with music. I tend to fail spectacularly, and so I don’t know why I feel compelled to keep trying. Here I am though. Feeling an indescribable pull to the need to do so.
I was immersed in the presence and spirit of God last night. Fully and completely immersed, and at times I could hardly discern the line between my humanity and the beyond. Moved to tears and utter holiness and joy by the voice of a prophet, a voice of truth. Carrie Newcomer is this prophet. I do not know of another human being that is so incredibly in touch with the deepest, and also the most simplest wells of the heart. Who is able to take others to those deep places by the simple combination of the pen, a melody and a guitar. Who expresses them in a way that is so rich and so raw and so present that it causes my soul to ache. Ache with the understanding of how real I feel in this moment. What is left after layer upon layer has been stripped away – that is what her voice sounds like. Her words are intimate secrets, new revelations which in fact are as old as time, unabashedly honest, visions of hope, poignant insights, agents of change, glimpses of the Divine, and all that which we are seeking. Her spirit is beautiful. I have never spoken with this woman, so how can it feel like I somehow know her true self and she mine? She is indeed a kindred spirit. The woman takes my breath away, uplifts my soul, and sends my heart winging.
She sang your song. And so… you were there.
Yes, it is true. I have jumped on the bandwagon of blogging.
