Pumpkinless Pie and Persimmon Rose Calling Card

September, dearies. This is just a vintage calling card that has been altered to have an autumn hue. Click it to enlarge.

I was itching to go off on a rant about Blog Etiquette According to One Who Knows, but can't get myself ireful enough to tackle it today. Something set me off but unfortunately the hysteria wore off before I could post.

In the meantime, here is that yam pie of which I tweeted. I put this up last year or year before, during the Great Pumpkinless Season, which has morphed into No Pumpkins, The Sequel.

Pumpkinless Pumpkin Pie

Two large or 4 small yams or sweet potatoes. Don't peel them yet.

Cook them in boiling salted water until tender -- for example, when you can stick 'em with a fork. Note: It is normal for them to smell like cat breath/gasoline when boiling. Do not let it alarm you.

If you don't have enough time to cook them all the way, take them out and zap them some.

Peel them and put in big bowl.

Add in one can sweetened condensed milk and an egg.

Beat on it all. Smack it with a potato masher, that's what I do. Whip it A BIT if you have an electric mixer. Pull out any strings of potato because picky people are scared of them.

Add in some spices. I added in pumpkin pie spice and threw in extra cinnamon and ginger, but better TOO BLAND than TOO SPICED because you can always dust it with more cinnamon when done if needed.

Now put it in a pie crust. Put in a 400 oven for 10 minutes and lower the heat to 325 for about 40 more or until done. You can tell it's done when you give the piepan a shake and it doesn't. Put a piece of tinfoil on it if it's getting too brown. Cook it up high in the oven, not on a lower rack.

It will flatten down nicely when cooled. This is a pioneer-style pie.

A Very Strong Lady

And what have we here? A woman with extreme strength hidden under that ungainly driving coat.

She is lifting that heavy pumpkin with ease. Mayhap she has a future in a grocery store produce department, or it's a diet pumpkin -- you know, "lite."

A Prediction and Time for Autumn Clipart

A vibe has passed through my noggin.

EARLY DEEP SNOWFALL through much of the country. WAY EARLY. A blizzard. Dipping down, down, down into the continent. 

People's eyes will be as big as saucers. People's saucers will be as big as eyes -- no, scratch that last one.

And here we have my version of a prim clock I saw for sale. I must tell ye gals and guys that they are stocking and about to open those seasonal Hallowe'en stores here -- the ones where they go into empty storefronts (and we have plenty of them) and put up tons of costumes and decorative items and party goods. The regular party store is tossing luau items faster than you can say "punkin pie" and filling the shelves with fall items.

Help Make It An Early Fall

Honestly, if all of ye would just go outside and bang on a tin pie plate with a bent mixing spoon and holler "Here, fall fall fall! Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere, fall fall fall" maybe the autumn winds would hear you and hurry on down. For best results, use a pie pan that you baked a pumpkin or apple pie in before, allrighty? Honeys, just try it! I'm desperate.

This woman wants autumn, and she wants it now, and she's going to wear fall leaves in her hair in August whether anyone likes it or not. Don't mess with her, she's got that bulldog jaw that means trouble. I would pay good money fer a nose like that, by the way. Trying to tape mine up with that white tape at night is not getting me anywhere. Just making my nose sticky with adhesive residue. My do-it-yourself dermabrasion didn't work too well, either, but at some point I think the skin will start healing.

And here's a nice autumn postcard that was, remarkably, originally a Christmas card. Click it and it will go to postcard size.

Hey Teacher, Leaf Those Kids Alone

From a vintage postcard entitled "Autumn Leaves Are Falling," an altered version to fit on a website. The original version is also included for those into that scrapbookin' life. Click the lower one to enlarge.

I know ye get sick of my weather-wondering, dearies, but this year is just so strange. I'm uneasy. The morning glories should just be beginning to bloom, but they are already done. The cicadas are singing such mournful dirges that I want to weep -- and they should have been singing a month ago.

Will it be a severe winter? I think so.

By the by, as to my predictions, woke up with a start the other night and felt there was a large earthquake going on somewheres, so quickly grabbed the Blackberry and wrote my thought in the Memo Pad app. And had "proof" to show my husband when he asked the next morning if I had predicted the earthquake that had, indeed, happened during the night. But I'm also predicting a HUGE quake, like an 8.0, and the discovery of a new faultline system. I feel the huge quake may be in the Alaska area.

The Queen of Sheave-ah

Kindly direct yer attention to the top of both sidebars. Amazing strawberry corn fer sale from a prim bloggie fren and a hollyhock seed giveaway from another bloggie fren. That pup made from crysanthemums is from Japan. I'm going to try it this fall.

From a vintage photographic postcard, a young woman dons a classic robe and strikes a pose while bringing in the sheaves.

Right-click to save.

Real wheat is quite interesting. Where I lived in the Pacific Northwest, bald eagles would walk along behind the threshers and gorge themselves on the lil' mice scampering in panic. A bald eagle is an extremely large bird, larger than you'd think if you hadn't seen 'em up close. With brilliant yellow talons and beaks. Their feet are much larger than a man's hand. And they are almost as tall as a kindergartner.