An adventure at home

Here it is, the autumnal equinox (at 6:23 p.m.) The days are getting shorter and outside our bedroom window, all the leaves have turned yellow. Yesterday seemed like a good day to go for a walk, so Garrett and I headed out in our hiking boots and long pants to ward off the pricklers in the woods. We thought we would walk along the Horseshoe Trail, which runs along the back of our property and eventually (I think) hooks up with the Appalachian Trail. But we headed the other direction, toward St. Peters Village and rocky French Creek. It was beautiful, and amazing that just a couple of hundred yards from our house you can feel completely cut off from civilization. When we got to the creek, we thought we could cross and walk back along the roads, but couldn't find a way from boulder to boulder that would get us across, so we decided to go back the way we came.

That's when the trouble started! We had left totally unprepared for such a hike, since we only intended to "go for a walk." So we had no water, no compass, no GPS, not even our cell phones. A half hour or so later with the sun starting to go down, we found ourselves on an unfamiliar trail headed in who knows what direction. Eventually, we found our way home, feeling stupid for going out so unprepared.

Anyway, summer is over. We celebrated last week at the annual Oley Fair party that the Stinelys have every year. It was great fun, as usual. The theme for the food competition this year was "Comfort Food." Garrett and I made Yukon Gold Potato and Wild Mushroom Gratin with Blue Cheese, figuring anything with those ingredients and that fattening had to be good. It was, and we took first prize, which means that next year we get to pick the theme. We're already looking forward to it!

Meanwhile, I finished two interesting books recently. The first was an autobiography by Jacques Pepin called The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen. Another interesting foodie story. Next, I read (listened to) Border Crossing by Pat Barker. Barker wrote the amazing Regeneration Trilogy, historical fiction about shell-shocked WWI soldiers. Border Crossing is a much less ambitious book, telling the story of a child psychologist (Tom) who rescues a young man (Danny) attempting suicide. Danny "coincidentally" turns out to be someone Tom had worked with 11 years earlier, when as a child, he had committed a brutal murder and had been sent to juvenile detention and then prison, in part based on Tom's testimony. Apparently, in Britain, juveniles can be released relatively quickly after committing murder, and are given new identities and protected by the "Home Office". So Danny was now "Ian" and seeking Tom's help in coming to terms with his past. Barker does a great job of getting in close to the relationship between therapist and patient, just as she did in Regeneration. But the book sort of peters out at the end, as if she got bored with the subject. Still, she is a great writer and the book was worth reading.