I love the fall season. I love the scents and the colors. The evenings when it starts getting darker earlier and earlier. Making the house cozy again with candles. The first time the wood stove can be turned on again. Forest walks, collecting autumn leaves. Pumpkins on the porch and in the cooking pot. Mushroom soup, hot chocolate… How I love the seasons!
No this isn’t Hella, but I thought it was such a cute and fitting picture!
I wouldn’t want to live in a country where you don’t experience seasons. Where the summer goes on endlessly and monotonously. I really need the variety of the seasons and every season has something beautiful. I love spring, nature exploding in all its splendor and the warmth of the intensifying sun. Crazy about the summer, with its balmy evenings, temperatures high enough to wear shorts, and abundant harvest. Nuts about autumn. Only winter has no warm place in my heart. But that has more to do with the lack of light than the cold. After all, what kind of winter do we really have in the Netherlands lately? Endless gray days; I am less fond of that.
But now we are heading towards autumn and I always look forward to that at the end of summer. It stirs up cozy feelings in me. I feel the need to bring nature into my home, to make a tribute to the season at home. Dive into the kitchen and make pumpkin oatmeal cookies. Light incense and candles in the evening. Wonderful, isn’t it?
Picture by Rianca Houthuijsen Fotografie
I have a fascination with the seasons and how they played an important role in daily life in earlier times. The Festivals were celebrated to honour aspects of the season, such as the second and last harvest in September. The autumnal equinox is on September 22 this year. The day and night are the same length and the astronomical autumn starts. But it can still feel very much like summer outside; sometimes you can even wear shorts in October because of a small rise in temperature! But officially it really is autumn at the start of the equinox. The last harvest has been reaped and the bounty of the earth is being celebrated and shared with one another. In the old days, when there were no supermarkets full of food every day of the year, the realization that this harvest would have to last all winter long must have been sobering.
I made this autumn centre piece when I still lived in my old house. But it would have fitted in my Tiny House just fine too!
Do you pay attention to the seasons and bring some of the old customs to celebrate the changing year into your home and life, like I do? It really doesn’t have to be big or elaborate; it’s the little things that matter. Place a large pumpkin or a collection of ornamental gourds in different sizes and colours on your porch. Bake tasty autumn cookies. Make a tiny autumn table on a beautiful earthenware plate or wooden cutting board. Burn some incense in an autumn fragrance such as cinnamon. And, of course, burn some candles. That’s the way to get in the right mood! That is also the advantage of living in a Tiny House. A few small elements, and there you go – you’re in style for the season!
To get you started, I hereby give you a recipe for delicious pumpkin oatmeal cookies:
Pompoen Havermout Koekjes
- 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 10 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons), softened (ca. 150 gram)
- 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin purée
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
Preheat oven to 375°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, stir together oats, flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, use an electric mixer to beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add pumpkin, eggs and vanilla and beat until combined. Stir in flour mixture until just combined, and then fold in cranberries.
Drop cookies by heaping tablespoon onto prepared baking sheets and gently press with fingers to flatten into discs (note that cookies will not spread while baking). Bake 20 to 24 minutes or until lightly browned. If baking two sheets at a time, rotate sheets halfway through baking. Transfer to wire rack to cool. Store cookies in an airtight container.
Enjoy!
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