Pieces of My Life ~ Maple Leaf

Welcome back!  Today we continue the journey we are making together as we piece a beautiful quilt that tells the story our lives through the blocks and memory book pages.

With leaves of trees showing off their brilliant colors and flittering or swirling to the ground, the Maple Leaf block begs for discussion of fall activities and events.

As a child, I enjoyed Halloween. Of course, it was all about the candy!  Actually, I remember more about the costumes.  Maybe because there are pictures of those.  I have very few memories of going out Trick or Treating with friends... a couple times - one of their parents did the driving. Maybe twice? 

More than anything, I remember getting to wear our costumes to school and having a party with cookies, cupcakes and punch.

clockwise - 1973, 1970, 1967, 1968

Remember, I didn't grow up in a neighborhood that was filled with houses and nearby neighbors to visit for the candy collection part of the day.

If we went anywhere, Mom and Dad would take us to our Aunts and Uncles houses.  We would get better treats there anyway... homemade treats!

I loved those masks!

One year in high school I attended a Halloween party hosted by friends down the road.  Steve was a year older and his sister, Sandy (on the gymnastics team with me) was a year younger.  There were some fun themed foods, decorations, games, music and dancing.  I don't recall costumes... but there may have been.  What I do remember is doing some snipe hunting. LOL! It was a good, clean party.  

Did I carve pumpkins??? Maybe one or two years... I'll just leave it to the fact that it wasn't really encouraged because those pumpkins could have been cooked and prepared for pies, cookies or breads.  And pumpkin pies were a staple for Thanksgiving meals!  And there was never anyone to come by and see them.

When it came to food preservation, there was a lot of it done in our house... mostly canning but some freezing.  Canning was something that my Dad would help with, but the freezing of various foods, like shredded zucchini, could be done easily without his help to tighten the jar lids, so that was something I helped with in my teen years.

It was a task/tradition that Dave and I continued after being married and had our children.  Gardens were easy to grow in the Midwest with plenty of water (most years) and good black soil.  We grew all of the necessary ingredients for our salsa - tomatoes, peppers and onions.  I canned tomato sauce to be used in spaghetti or lasagna or as a pizza sauce.  I would blanch and freeze green beans as well.

One summer while my parents visited, Dad helped me and taught me how to can fresh peaches from Michigan.  We spent hours in the kitchen together.  Dad would not prepare or cook meals... but he had the food preservation thing down!  And he was not afraid to help.  

In the fall I would get apples from an orchard.  Again, I would spend hours in the kitchen making apple sauce, apple juice and freezing some for pies or cobblers.

We never tried to grow a garden after our move to Colorado.  The soil is not good for growing much other than ragweed and the growing season is so short.  The nights cool off too much for the satisfaction of tomatoes and other veggies.  The extent of our food preservation anymore is making our salsa and freezing roasted chili peppers.  I do, every once in a while, purchase green beans to blanch and freeze... But not like in the 1990s!  Oh, and crock pickles... they're just so easy.  But you need to have a little room in the fridge for the storage of them. 

We could have purchased all of the produce we had become accustomed to preserving, but we soon discovered that the cost of fruits and veggies in Colorado was much higher than back in Illinois... It just wasn't as abundant here in the high plains desert... therefore it sold for a premium.

Happy Fall Y'all!  Now is the time that you need to head over to my Payhip store to get the Maple Leaf pattern.

Stitch up your block and then come back to share a link to a blog post or photo of your block.  I'd love to see it!

Keep Piecing,

Melva

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