All the Leaves are Brown (not!)...but the Sky is Gray

Well this has been a weird year, weather-wise, so why should autumn be any different. Not the first time and most likely not the last. The leaves on a lot of the trees are green, yet drying up, on the trees. Some of them had the good sense to turn to red or yellow but a lot of them are completely confused. We've had snow at least 3 mornings already. It might actually be a good winter for X-country skiing for a change! I can't help but look on the bright side. Its my nature.

I've slipped into the autumn way of cooking already. I see meatloaf and paprikash and stews ahead. I clipped a recipe for Butternut Squash soup from the Byerly's organic & natural flyer. Thought I'd give it a whirl this weekend maybe, with some braised pork.

I'm listening to Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris and I'm about half-way through it. Its a good companion during afternoon drive time if there's nothing new being discussed on Thom Hartmann's show (XM 167). I tend to listen to my book during the morning drive also since Bill Press (also XM167) hasn't had anything too engaging to talk about...this week he's off and his producer, Peter, is hosting the show. They were discussing the proposed tax on "sugared" sodas yesterday but if you ask me it should be a tax on HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) sodas since that might spur the soda companies to start making more of the Real Thing (with REAL SUGAR) again. Seriously, everyone needs to wake up and smell the poison! Stop ingesting all this HFCS ...and don't turn to diet sodas filled with aspartame as an alternative. Cancer causing substances are no alternative!

Back to books, I just finished Common Sense by Thomas Paine (1776) and that was delightfully enlightening...and a full use of English, I might add! I'm also halfway through Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, which I'm also enjoying. Its a kids' book so its a quick read. We'll be discussing it in Book Club (generic name, we have no name for our group) the first Tuesday in November. My book selections this year are diverse, owing to the book club. I'm glad Darcy wanted to start one south of the river! Our next book after "Graveyard" will be Into Thin Air. I bought it but I'm not so sure its going to suck me in like some of the others we've read this year. I also have the Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food and Food, Inc waiting on the nightstand.

Food, Inc. is a companion book to the movie I saw this summer with my friend Dina. This was a life-changing event...not seeing a movie with Dina...although I don't recall another movie we've seen together in the theater...No, this movie opened my eyes and sent me screaming back to a lifestyle that I lost sometime around the time Reagan plunged us into the darkness...and by that I mean the ol' Back to the Earth movement from the 60's and 70's...organic, whole, natural foods!
And nowadays its even more important because most of the food in the supermarkets is full of antibiotics, pesticides and GMOs (genetically modified organisms)...and I'm fairly sure its the cause of a LOT of our health issues today from the rise in autism to the rise in diabetes and obesity, among others.