Goofy Pumpkin

 Happy Halloween!

This goofy pumpkin grew in our garden this year.   I call it the gluteus maximus pumpkin.

Skywatch

Welcome to my "Skywatch Friday" post.  SF is a weekly meme for sky photography.  Here's my entry:

It was taken this morning after I fed calves.

Visit the Skywatch Friday page to find all of this week's sky photos.

 

Canning Pumpkin

 Yesterday we did something new.....we canned pumpkin.  It wasn't my idea, that's for sure.  My husband has caught the canning bug from one of his brothers who cans everything under the sun.

We used the brother's directions.  My husband peeled the pumpkins and cut the flesh into small pieces.  We filled quart jars with the pieces and covered them with boiling water.  You have to use a pressure canner for pumpkin and as luck would have it there was one in the storeroom (a garage sale find years ago).                                                        

The jars had to be processed for 90 minutes at 10 lbs. of pressure.  Guess what I did during that time....yup you guessed it, I read blogs, and listened to the canner hiss and jiggle.  I had to adjust the heat so the canner jiggled two to three times a minute.

                                                                                   

Voila!  The finished product looks like this.  For use in recipes, you just drain the water out and mash the pumpkin.  My husband is so proud!              

                                                                               

                                                                               

Black Hawk Bridge

 Another stop on my fall drive was at Mt. Hosmer City Park above Lansing, Iowa.  From there you can view the Black Hawk bridge over the Mississippi River.

The bridge is now 90 years old!  It is slated for replacement starting in 2024.

Pike's Peak Sumac

Last week I took a drive to gaze in wonder at the autumn colors in the hills of northeast Iowa.

This photo was taken at Pike's Peak State Park near McGregor, Iowa.  In the distance, across the Mississippi River, is Wisconsin.

The drive was enjoyable.  I wish my husband could have gone along, but he had a lot of work to do.  That's how it goes on a dairy farm!   

Autumn Street Sign

 I found this Autumn street sign in a small town in northeast Iowa.

I am now sixty-something, surely getting into the autumn of my life.  In 2007, when I started blogging I was fifty-something.  The word "midlife" in my blog's title fit my age then.  Now not so much.  What to do about that I can't decide.  "Life by Farmlight"  might be a good title as I still live on the farm.  I'll just keep thinking about what to do.

 Hello!  I decided to take a look at this old blog.  Should I start blogging again, that is the question.

I've been visiting other blogs that I used to read.  Many of them have quit blogging, also.  Some of them are going strong.  Here's a few:

Bitstop

Mille Fiori Favoriti

My Front Porch

rhymeswithplague

Skywatch Friday

Links to these blogs are in the right column under "Favorite Blogs".