Another slice of life in my Equestria dreamscape. After music festivals and our aborted vacation in Manehattan courtesy of Discord, it was nice to able settle back down into some daily routines again. As the days get shorter and the nights cooler, one can watch as Ponyville prepares for the coming winter. A regular and somewhat somber festival is the Fields of Fire Feast. The feast coincides with the annual burning of the fields after the last harvests have been collected. This is done to remove residual plant material from the fields and helps fertilize and prep them for next years planting. Also it signals the end of new fresh fruit and vegetables in the farmers market. Yes there are a few late autumn squashes that won't be picked for a couple more weeks, but for the most part growing season is over until next winter wrap up. Within a couple more weeks the Ponyville Farmers Market will close down until mid-spring next year. There will be several fairs during the late fall and winter, but the usually busy town square will be oddly quietly now on most days.

Our cottage's preparation for winter are more or less complete http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7012640/ . The shelves are stocked, the pantry provisioned, the root cellar is packed, the attic is full and the wood shed is filled to the top with firewood. In hopes of planting our own crops next year, all us have worked to get the garden prepped for next spring. All the windows have been caulked. We've had the chimney swept and the cistern has had straw packed around it to help insulate the water from freezing when the snows finally arrive. Also we've had the septic tank checked to make certain it will make it through the winter to.

One group of ponies that is looking forward to the coming winter are the ones that run the local ice company. Stocks of block ice are start getting low around this time, and they get much of their ice from the numerous lakes and ponds that will freeze around Ponyville during the winter. In fact the harvesting and collecting of ice during Winter Wrap Up is one of key strategies to success for their business. Once a week the ice wagon comes out to our little cottage and for some bits the ice ponies replace the old block in our ice box with a new fresh block of ice.

Now in real life I rather enjoy cooking. However I have had to adjust my mind here in Equestria to how things might work in a pre-electric, natural gas kitchen. Everything is done via wood fire and setup and timing is far more critical. One can not just start cooking unless one has already taken the steps necessary to have the fire built and at the right temperature for the dish you are preparing. This is particularly true in the morning when one is often starting with a cold stove or fireplace. One cannot just throw their breakfast in the microwave, and no electric toaster is standing by to toast your bagel on a moments notice. Of even greater importance to Carousel is that that is no programable coffee maker to have pot of that most essential of liquids waiting for you when you stagger out in the morning. The answer that the two mares have settle on is to make certain that the stallion gets up first to starts the fires about an hour before they stir from their beds. Besides I'm a morning pony so I don't mind getting kicked out of bed at five in the morning. Right?

Also there is question of not having hands. Now all ponies do possess what seems to be a form of body contact levitation that I have jokingly referred to as gecko hooves that allow ponies to handle and manipulate things that should just fall out their hooves, but still it has taking some getting use to. It is the one thing I miss about no longer being a unicorn. To help out I have been enlisting both Petina and Carousel to assist me in the kitchen preparation when it comes to meals. For the most part they are good pupils and have learned quickly the chores I have assigned them. This will be very helpful since once I start working more outside the cottage like Carousel I will not be able to tend to fires and kitchen all day like I do right now.

When it comes to recipes I have been turning fairly often to the Happy Mare's Home Journal http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7674093/ for ideas and meal planning. I really appreciate it because it spells out many of preparation steps are explained in more detail than many of the local cookbooks do. The problem I've encountered with several of the cookbooks I've borrowed from the Ponyville library is that they assume that you already have a certain level of cooking proficiency and knowledge of running a period kitchen. They expect the reader already knows certain things about cooking, managing a wood fire, or cleaning and maintaining a wood-style stove so you don't get ash in your food. If not the mare, there is a bit of bias in them, will just ask their mother or nearest relative for advice. Therefore they will quickly skip over certain aspects of preparation that I wish they would spend more time explaining. Fortunately the staff at Happy Mare's Home Journal does not suffer this blind spot. As a general rule the Fields of Fire Feast is not an extravagant event like Hearth's Warming Eve. Instead it is smaller and somewhat more somber gathering usually only involving the immediate members of the household at the table. It is a time to reflect upon the success of the past harvest and what the winter months will present as challenges to the ponies. Using some recipes I found in the Journal I was able to plan our household's feast. It was not an overly complicated meal, but it was very enjoyable doing it with Petina and Carousel.

The main dish was onion herb cheese egg rings. Large sweet onions were sliced carefully and the outer rings of the onions removed to produce rings about one and half inches high and about four inches wide. Then eggs were beaten and fresh herbs, mainly sage and thyme, are incorporated into egg mixture. The onion rings were carefully sauteed in a large cast iron skillet in which a couple teaspoon of a product called shindleback melted in the skillet. I am not aware of a similar product in our world, but shindleback is a vegetable shortening that is salted and the pots with it are put in a smokehouse. Over several hours the contents of pots are stirred ocassionally and the shortening takes on some of the smoky flavoring of the smoldering wood fire. The end product has many of the same flavors and consistency of bacon grease, and like bacon grease it is used to impart a smoky quality to the dish being prepared. Especially things like corn bread.

After a couple minutes of sautéing the onion rings the egg/ herb mixture is poured carefully into each onion ring to about three quarters the depth of the rings while the rings remain in the skillet. Then on top of each ring a generous portion of grated mild cheese sprinkled on top. Once that is done the skillet with the onion/ egg/ cheese rings is carefully placed in the oven for about 15 minutes. When the skillet is removed you are presented with golden onion rings filled with an cheese herb custard. Accompanying the egg rings were loaves of soda bread we baked that day. A salad made of late autumn greens and dried fruit with a tangy sweet dressing. For dessert we had homemade baked apple crumble. Bottles of hard cider rounded out the meal. Gathered around the table we enjoyed the fruits of our labor as Celestia's sun set the sky ablaze with orange and red, it was a pleasant way to end the day. That night was the first evening you could really see your breath when you went outside. The next morning we were awaken to the horrendous honking sound of thousands of snowy white geese making their way south in great "V" formations to warmer climates. Amongst flocks were pegasus shepherding them through Equestria to their late season homes. Frost covered the mailbox out front of our cottage. Winter will be here soon.