Yesterday was bright and beautiful, albeit cool; it is, after all, fall, and we had overnight frost the night before.  A perfect time to begin the long, incremental shutting down of the gardens, preparing everything for the arrival of winter.  I had, at my disposal, large compostable bags and shears and seqateurs to begin cutting back perennials and bagging the results.  Our composters are used mostly for kitchen waste, not so much garden detritus, which is carted away weekly by the municipality for a gigantic compost heap, which residents are able to avail themselves of, during the growing season.

After three bagsful of garden cuttings I was beginning to warm up nicely inside my fleece-lined jacket, but it was time to get back into the house and begin dinner preparations.  The first of which was the baking of the traditional pumpkin pie.  My husband thought he might like a crumb crust for the pie for a change and I agreed; crumb crust it was.  I had some misgivings when I poured the pumpkin pie filling into the crust which I'd pre-baked, but in the end it came out very well; the crust seemed to integrate itself into the spicy pudding-like quality of the pie.  I'd used two eggs and a cup of 10% cream and the pie did seem different this year.

I suppose baking a squash was a bit of overkill in that department, but it was delicious, alongside the tender turkey and tiny whole potatoes.  I've enough turkey left over from that small turkey, to bake at least four to five turkey pot pies that I will freeze for use later on.  We seem to be the few in our family who are not vegetarians.  My brother and his daughter, my sister and her son, our daughter and granddaughter, our youngest son are all vegetarians.

On our ravine walk while the turkey was roasting in the oven, we came across a ravine-walking acquaintance accompanied by his wife, their daughter and son-in-law, and four pre-teen grandchildren, a picture of family togetherness.