The Morning After

I always love the morning after a storm. The air is crisp and the plants glisten with moisture. It was all the more enjoyable this past weekend because it had been so very long since Southern California has gotten any measurable rain. It also happened to coincide with the first day of Fall and in celebration I baked spiced pumpkin bread. This is a particularly nice recipe (that I've made for years) and you can find it on Epicurious here.


Not even Steve can resist freshly baked pumpkin bread hot from the oven!


What's more, the morning was even crisp enough to pull on a vest - so nice! I simply hate the long hot summers (in case I haven't mentioned that before).

It's amazing what one storm can accomplish ~ it looked positively lush on the mountain! All the plants look revived and as you can see in the picture below my wild rosemary seems very happy. It's so convenient having herbs grow wild where you can wander out and snip some off for your evening meal. In particular, I like to use the rosemary to season roast chicken and/or potatoes. It's hard on the plants as we are gone so much and the Topanga climate is very harsh. Most plants require more care than we are able/willing to provide ~ but happily the rosemary seems to thrive despite the hostile conditions, as do the wild grasses.

The vest I'm wearing is knit with Noro's Silk Garden (5 skeins US 7 needles) and the pattern is a simple vest pattern from Ann Budd's Handy Book of Knitting Patterns. It's hard to go wrong with a basic pattern and a beautiful yarn ~ although I tend to prefer to add some side shaping as I have found that even a minimal amount of side shaping does wonders to improve a garment's fit.