The fruits of autum

Autum is the season of mushrooms. Living in the countryside surrounded by forest, we went mushrooms picking with a friend and her girls. I knew nothing about mushroom hunting so I was glad that my friend taught me a thing or two. Thumb of rule, in case of doubt, don't pick it. Actually, we used a knife to cut off the stem so that the mushroom could grow again. If we picked it, the root would be damaged and there won't be a new mushroom growing from that root.

 

Anyway, most wild mushrooms are not edible. We were looking mainly for cepes (porcino) as they were easy to identity. With our little children, it was difficult to spot the mushrooms further away from the forest trail. Or those that were edible already had worms in them.  

 

Our pick of the day was a coulemelle. My friend told me it was good. Just soak it in water and slice it up and fry with butter and garlic. It was big and easy to identify. It has a little hat just underneath. Seb and I tried it and we liked it. No tummy ache so all was well. 

We tried mushroom picking over the weekend with Seb taking his usual walk with Handsome in the forest. We did not have much luck this time. Most of the time, the kids and I were saying 'No good.' when we spotted the mushrooms.

 

Autum is also the season of chestnut. And being a city girl, I was not able to tell which chestnut fruits were edible. As school holidays started this week, the boys spent their days at the recreation center while I worked. On a lovely day, they went to the forest and picked up chestnuts. The staff at the center prepared a bag of chestnuts for each parent. I boiled them and A1 and I enjoyed them. Seb and A2 were not fans.   

Despite the wet autum season, there are interesting things to do in the forest. To make our kids walk in the forest, we give them a basket and tell them we are going chestnut and mushrooms hunting.

The boys' rooms

We have moved into this house for more than a year now. Time flies. I had previously posted an entry on the boys' room in our previous appartment.

 

Now, I present to you their rooms in this house. A1 asked for a red room and he requested a blue room for his brother. As A2 did not have an opinion last year, we did as what A1 wanted. His grandfather helped to paint the bedrooms. It was not easy to paint a bold color wall as mistakes could be easily spotted. The grandfather did an excellent job though he was not a painter.

 

A1 has circus theme wall stickers from his uncle and auntie in Singapore. It goes well with the red wall. I found the airplane light from Leboncoin.fr, a site like eBay. Usually there are toys scattered all over the floor. Once I told him, 'Your room is so messy. You will knock on your toys and fall over at night.'  He replied 'No, just a little messy. Look, there is a road in the middle.' and pointed to the narrow clearing from his bed to the door. We then laughed togather at his cheekyness.

 

 On this day, A1 was tidying his room so I decided to take a photo. A2 was hiding in A1's wardrobe then. 

 

The two photos below are A2's photo. He still has a diaper changing table. I do have a set of wall stickers of sea creatures but I prefer to wait until he is older. He would tear them off the wall as he did to his brother's.

 

Their rooms are basic and functional. Toys get to travel from one room to another easily. And the boys play in any room any time. Except when there are fights and doors get slammed. Then I will know that each of them are in their own room.

A2's bag

I did it. Here is A2's bag. As I expected, it was too small to be useful. And not practical to carry. I had a hard time sewing it and the end product was not satisfactory.

 

Still A2 was very happy with his new bag. He slept with it and now it was lying on the floor beside the bed.

 

 

Speaking of which, A2 is a horder. When he likes something, he would go everywhere with the thing, sleeps with it and just have it in his hand all the time. The latest 'precious' are his house slippers. He insisted in wearing them to sleep. We took them off when he fell asleep. Yet in the middle of the night, he woke up, turned the lights on, wore his slippers and went back to bed. Seb found him sleeping with the lights on one morning. A few mornings, he had his slippers on without the lights on in his room. Or he would walk into our room in the middle of the night and asked 'Papa, où sont mes chaussons?'