autumn – Budget Bliss: Bucket List

The All Hallows Market: A Curious Day Among the Gravestones

Published on October 18, 2026 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

It’s spooky season! So naturally, I headed to the graveyard for a market day.

Browsing a curious collection of curios, crystals, preserved specimens and skulls, I wandered along winding paths lined with vendors offering their strange wares among the gravestones. It may seem odd to set up a market in a cemetery, or even a bit disrespectful to disturb the peace of the dead with the living, but I like to think they rather enjoy their visitors. Besides, everyone was respectful of the graves, staying on the paths as they browsed.

Funds from the vendor fees go straight towards the preservation of Mount Bethel Cemetery, the oldest burial ground in continual use in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Dating back to 1730, it is the final resting place of more than ten thousand of the borough’s former residents, including many significant figures from its rich history. Some of its oldest gravestones date back to the eighteenth century, including a legible marker from 1758 belonging to William Campbell, a trapper said to have carved his own headstone after contracting rabies from his dog. There’s plenty of history among these gravestones, if you know where to look.

The event, called The All Hallows Market, was organised by the Curiosity Shop of Columbia, known for its rather particular selection of shop pieces, ranging from taxidermied bats to antiques. Naturally, a market organised by a shop like that was never going to be your typical Saturday shopping trip.

And thank goodness for that.

The vendors offered an eclectic assortment of wares inspired by Victorian fashion, steampunk, pagan traditions and modern Gothic aesthetics. There were curiosities for collectors, treasures for the unusual-minded and plenty of things that wouldn’t look out of place in a witch’s parlour or a Victorian naturalist’s study. It was the sort of gathering where a skull could be a decorative object, a preserved specimen could be a conversation starter, and nobody would bat an eye at either.

For anyone who loves Halloween, it was a little slice of seasonal heaven.

The day itself seemed determined to cooperate. The weather was warm, but there was a distinct scent of autumn in the air. The leaves on the nearby trees had only just begun to change colour, offering the first hints of the season to come. It was that lovely in-between moment when summer hasn’t quite let go, but autumn is already waiting in the wings.

I’d started the day at one of my favourite coffee shops, where a friend joined me before we headed over to the cemetery. We were greeted by a parade of hearses, which felt like an entirely appropriate arrival for an event of this particular character. Nothing says spooky season quite like a procession of vehicles traditionally associated with the dearly departed.

One of the hearses was particularly worth investigating. Peering inside, you could see old medical equipment, adding another layer of macabre history to an already wonderfully peculiar afternoon. It was the sort of thing that made you wonder about the stories behind the objects, and perhaps whether you really wanted to know all of them.

Then there was the vendor selling an actual skeleton.

Now, dear reader, I have questions. Far too many questions. Where does one even acquire an entire skeleton for resale? What sort of paperwork might be involved? And perhaps most importantly, how does one decide that a skeleton is precisely what one’s home is missing?

I didn’t ask, but I certainly thought about it.

Not everything was quite so existentially questionable. One of my favourite booths sold steampunk journals, each with its own distinctive character. I have a particular fondness for objects that feel as though they belong to another era, or perhaps to a fictional world just waiting to be discovered. A journal is already an invitation to adventure, but a particularly unusual one practically begs you to fill its pages with something interesting.

Another vendor was selling wonderfully amusing earrings, which presented an entirely different sort of dilemma. There was a cute little ghost reading a book, an accessory that felt almost suspiciously tailored to my interests. Then there were the toe bones of a raccoon.

Yes, dear reader. Raccoon toe bones.

There is a very particular sort of shopping decision that can only happen at a market like this. Do you choose the adorable ghost engrossed in literature, or do you embrace the sheer absurdity of wearing a raccoon’s toe bones as jewellery? Both have their merits. Both would make excellent conversation starters. And both are considerably more interesting than another pair of ordinary earrings.

I debated the options, because of course I did. Sometimes the hardest part of an adventure is deciding which peculiar little treasure deserves to come home with you.

There was even a pop-up tattoo booth for anyone feeling particularly adventurous. I considered the idea in the abstract, as one does when faced with an opportunity to do something unusual. But a spontaneous tattoo is a rather more permanent souvenir than most of the things one finds at a market, and I’m not quite ready to add that particular experience to my bucket list. If I ever do, I suspect it will require a little more thought than a spur-of-the-moment decision among the gravestones.

In the end, I left empty-handed.

Not because I wasn’t interested. Quite the opposite. There were plenty of things I could have happily brought home, from the steampunk journals to the ghost earrings and, purely for the conversation it would generate, perhaps even the raccoon toe bones.

But I didn’t need to own any of them to enjoy them. The afternoon had given me plenty to take home already: the sight of hearses lining the entrance, the wonderfully strange assortment of vendors, the questions raised by an entire skeleton for sale, and the memory of debating jewellery made from the toes of a raccoon.

Sometimes the best souvenir is the story you get to tell afterwards.

And that’s part of what I love about these sorts of adventures. You don’t have to travel far, spend a fortune or even come home with anything in your shopping bag to have a worthwhile afternoon. Sometimes all you need is a nearby event, a friend who is willing to indulge your interests, and a willingness to follow your curiosity somewhere a little unusual.

A market in a cemetery might not be everyone’s idea of a perfect autumn outing. But between the strange treasures, the hearses, the changing leaves and the history beneath our feet, it was exactly the sort of wonderfully peculiar adventure that makes life a little more interesting.

Besides, if the dead really are watching, I hope they appreciated the company.

Happy spooky season, dear reader. May your autumn be filled with curious places, unexpected adventures and just the right amount of the macabre.

The Autumn We Almost Lost

Published on September 20, 2026September 20, 2026 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

There are some things that feel so thoroughly associated with autumn that we hardly think of them as special anymore.

Pumpkin patches. Hayrides. Apple picking. The crispness in the air. Rows of trees heavy with fruit. We see these things every year, or at least we expect to.

After an unusually warm growing season followed by a late frost in the spring, much of the apple harvest in our region was lost. Something I had always thought of as an almost ubiquitous autumn activity suddenly became a rather rare treat. There were fewer apples to pick, and suddenly the ones hanging from the trees felt a little more precious.

This year, however, apple picking was a rather different affair.

In fact, there was not a single apple orchard in the whole county offering apple picking. In order to find one, we had to look further afield, across the river to Flinchbaugh’s Orchard and Farm Market, to make the most of what remained. I had checked their Facebook page and discovered that this past weekend was possibly the only weekend they would be offering apple picking. A rare treat indeed.

So, on a Saturday morning, my sister and I set out on a small journey to the farm. It’s a quaint market full of fresh local produce on the inside and a sprawling flower market outside. At this time of year, it was overflowing with pumpkins. Food trucks were parked outside, and the smell of fresh apple cider donuts wafted through the air.

After purchasing our tickets and bag for apples, we climbed aboard a wagon for a tour of the farm, riding past fields of sunflowers, wildflowers, pumpkins and, eventually, the apple orchards. The orderly rows of trees stretched out before us, their branches holding clusters of apples together in little golden bunches.

As we rode towards the orchard, we passed the machinery being used to gather the commercial harvest. Two men working nearby paused to politely tip their hats as we passed. There was something wonderfully old-fashioned about the gesture, even as enormous modern equipment rumbled through the rows. Bees hummed lazily between the trees, gathering their own harvest as we gathered ours.

These were Golden Delicious, but they were unlike the Golden Delicious I usually pick up at the supermarket. These apples were honey-sweet and bursting with flavour. Crisp, fresh and still warm with the lingering memory of the sun, they tasted like the season itself.

Perhaps knowing how easily the harvest could have been lost made them taste even better.

And then there was the cat.

Oh, the cat.

An orange cat had apparently appointed himself official ambassador of the apple orchard. He was wonderfully friendly, purring loudly as he made his rounds among the visitors. Clearly accustomed to attention, he seemed determined to ensure that no one left the orchard without first receiving an appropriate amount of feline hospitality.

Naturally, we obliged.

After gathering our apples, we wandered into the pumpkin patch.

If the apple orchard was orderly, the pumpkin patch was anything but. The neat rows of trees gave way to a glorious mess of pumpkins, flowers and grasses. Round orange pumpkins appeared wherever you looked, tucked among the vegetation as though they had simply sprung from the earth wherever they pleased. Grasshoppers chirped and sprang out of our way as we tromped through the patch in search of the perfect pumpkin.

It felt less like walking through a cultivated field and more like wandering into autumn itself.

Perhaps that is what I enjoyed most about the day. None of it was particularly extraordinary. We picked apples. We hunted for pumpkins. We rode on a wagon. We took pictures among the wildflowers. We breathed in the crisp autumn air.

And yet this year, the ordinary didn’t feel quite so ordinary.

The apples reminded me that abundance is not guaranteed. A warm winter, a badly timed frost, too much rain or too little can change what a farm is able to produce. Something that seems inevitable when you see it stacked by the dozens in a supermarket can become surprisingly precious when you watch an entire harvest disappear.

Maybe that is one of the pleasures of paying attention. We think we know what a season will bring because we have experienced it before. But every year is slightly different. Some things flourish. Some disappear. Some return unexpectedly. And sometimes the thing you assumed would always be there becomes the thing you are most grateful to have.

This year, I got to pick my own apples.

They were delicious.

There was a pumpkin patch full of flowers and grasshoppers, a wagon ride through the farm, wildflowers waiting to be photographed, bees humming through the orchard and a very affectionate orange cat making his rounds.

It was an ordinary autumn afternoon.

But this year, it was extraordinary.

Practical Magic: Capturing a Jar of Summer

Published on September 7, 2026 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

It’s Labor Day weekend. The children have returned to school. The leaves have just begun their transition from green to yellow, red, and orange. There’s just the slightest nip in the air. Though not officially here by the calendar, autumn is announcing her impending arrival, armed with pumpkin spice everything and spooky décor.

It’s enough to make anyone feel a bit witchy. And what better way to celebrate than by creating some magic in the kitchen?

Upon my stove boils a curious concoction of preserved summer. A spell sealed away until the time is right, most likely in the midst of winter’s blast, its bright heat pushing back against a blizzard’s howl. The kitchen fills with the sweet smell of fruit and sugar as the mixture bubbles away, slowly transforming from something ordinary into something that, with a little patience and the right ingredients, will become something entirely different.

Yes, armed with a dark brew, this concoction will my guests renew!

I speak, of course, of making jellies, jams, and shrubs, of drying, pickling, canning, and all the other delightful ways humans have devised to capture the bounty of one season and carry it into another.

You will be forgiven, dear reader, if you are not familiar with all the forms of preservation previously listed. I shall assume that you are particularly unfamiliar with “shrubs.” Most people are, and no, it isn’t a bush one plants in one’s garden.

A shrub is a sweet and tart beverage made from a concentrated syrup of fresh fruit, sugar, and vinegar. It is one of the earliest forms of food preservation, and I simply adore adding it to iced tea or using it in homemade cocktails. There is something wonderfully satisfying about taking fruit that is abundant for a brief moment in summer and turning it into something you can enjoy months later.

And, like any good witch, I must be careful with my spells. There is a recipe to follow. Measurements matter. Temperatures matter. Sterilization matters. The jars must be prepared properly, the seals must be checked, and everything must be handled with care. There is a certain amount of magic involved in watching fruit, sugar, heat, and time transform into something completely different, but this is not the sort of magic where one can simply wave a wand and hope for the best. An improperly prepared spell may have unintended consequences.

In this case, those consequences are less likely to involve turning someone into a frog and considerably more likely to involve food poisoning. So I follow the recipe. Carefully.

I measure the sugar. I measure the pectin. I watch the temperature. I stir and wait and watch the bubbles rise and burst. There is a strange satisfaction in following a process developed and refined by generations of people who figured out how to make the harvest last just a little longer. And when the spell is complete, I ladle the glowing mixture into jars and seal them away.

Can I go to the store and buy jam? Absolutely. I can buy pickles (not that I would I happen to hate pickles but you can!). I can buy dried fruit. I can buy salsa and tea and any number of other things I might otherwise make myself.

But there is something to be said for capturing the flavors of locally grown produce and preserving them with your own hands. There is satisfaction in carefully measuring out the ingredients, following the recipe, watching the transformation happen, and eventually opening a jar months later to discover that you have somehow managed to preserve a little piece of summer.

I have canned salsas and spreads. I have pickled lemons in salt water. I’ve dried various vegetables to use in soups later. I’ve even made my own fruit tea from scraps of summer fruit, using things like strawberry tops and apple peels. That last one is particularly delightful on a snowy afternoon. Take the scraps that might otherwise end up in the compost and turn them into a fragrant cup of tea. Add a little honey, curl up somewhere warm, and suddenly January seems considerably less offensive.

And that, dear reader, is where I think food preservation becomes more than simply a frugal hobby. It is a skill.

There is a tendency to think of bucket-list adventures as things that require plane tickets, reservations, expensive equipment, or some dramatic story to tell afterward. We put things like skydiving, visiting exotic countries, climbing mountains, or swimming with sharks on our lists.

And those things can certainly be wonderful. But learning how to do something is an adventure too. Learning to preserve food means acquiring a skill that doesn’t disappear when the experience ends. I can make another batch of jam next summer. I can try a different fruit. I can experiment with a new shrub. I can dry vegetables for another winter’s soup.

The experience becomes something I can return to. That is one of my favourite things about learning new skills. You don’t simply check the box and move on. You take the knowledge with you. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to learn how to bake bread. Maybe you’ve wondered about woodworking, gardening, knitting, pottery, fermenting, playing an instrument, making soap, painting, or any of the countless skills humans have developed over thousands of years.

You don’t have to become an expert. You don’t even have to love it. Try it. Learn something. And if you discover that you enjoy it, you’ve gained something you can carry with you for the rest of your life.

I certainly haven’t become some grand master of food preservation. I don’t have a cellar filled with hundreds of perfectly labelled jars. My kitchen isn’t a scene from a nineteenth-century homestead where I’ve somehow become the keeper of ancient culinary wisdom. I’m simply someone who enjoys making things.

And I particularly enjoy making things that allow me to cheat time. That may be the real magic of preservation. Summer is fleeting. The strawberries disappear. The peaches soften. The tomatoes eventually stop producing. The herbs die back. The garden goes quiet. But I can capture some of it. I can put summer into a jar. Then I can tuck that jar away and wait. Months later, when the trees are bare and the wind is howling against the windows, I can pull it from the pantry. I can spread it across warm toast. I can stir preserved fruit into something I’m baking. I can pour a little shrub into a glass of iced tea and remember the heat of July.

And I don’t have to keep all the magic to myself. I spread it around, too. Slightly intended pun. Jams, jellies and other homemade treats make wonderful holiday gifts. There is something special about receiving something someone made themselves. It says, I thought of you when I made this; I took the time to make something; I put this away months ago and remembered you when it was time to bring it out. And perhaps most importantly, it says, I hope this makes your day a little brighter. That feels like a much more meaningful gift than something grabbed from a shelf five minutes before Christmas.

So as autumn settles in and the farmers’ markets begin their final abundance of the season, perhaps consider adding a little practical magic to your own bucket list. You don’t need a cauldron. You don’t need a pointy hat. Although, I always love a good hat, bonus points if it’s festive. A hairnet will probably suffice. Head to your local farmers’ market. Find something delicious. Learn how to preserve it. Follow the recipe carefully. Respect the science. Don’t accidentally poison your loved ones. Then seal away a little bit of summer.

Because when winter finally arrives, when the snow is falling and the cold seems determined to seep into your bones, you can reach into your pantry and open a jar. And there it is. Summer. Waiting for you. A little magic you made yourself.

Falling into Autumn: Appreciating the Changing Seasons

Published on October 11, 2024September 1, 2024 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

I love fall, the cooler days after the scorching heat of summer, the changing leaves, the cozy sweaters and warm drinks. I love the stormy days and misty mornings. I love the way the world seems to nestle down for the coming winter.

One might wonder at something as mundane as a seasonal change being included on a bucket list. But then, dear reader, if you’ve read my other posts here then you already know my answer. If you have not, the answer is simple, because one ought to embrace the joy of living where one is at. One ought to remember that wherever one is, someone somewhere elsewhere dreams about the very place you find yourself. Think of all the millions of people who never get to experience the wonder of fall! Consider all the people who never get to see the leaves of their trees turn to brillant shades of yellow, orange and red. Throughout the tropical regions of the world, there are people who dream of witnessing the changing seasons, who find the vibrant colors of fall as enchanting as a tropical beach. There are even people in the United States who have never really experienced all four seasons as we do in the northern parts.

When was the last time you joyfully walked through them, crunching gleefully as you marched through them? Perhaps, you were a young child and no longer given over to such frivolous and silly things. I implore you dear reader, abandon your adult self with all its imposed rules of oughts and shoulds. Indeed embrace the fall with a child-like enthusiasm and wonder. See the season with the eyes of someone who has never seen this particular form of natural magic.

It was with this sort of attitude, that on my birthday I embarked to a nearby nature preserve to drink in the pleasure of the late fall. Trees typically peak about a week or two before my birthday meaning that there are often more leaves on the ground than in the trees and the forest isn’t quite as majestically dressed. The air is also usually a bit chillier requiring extra layers. That day I donned a hat, a warm caplet and fingerless gloves which would keep my fingers free for the task at hand.

I took a few moments to simply breathe in the crisp morning air savoring the flavor of the forest on the cusp of winter before venturing forth onto the path. I listened carefully to the sounds of the woods around me, the water gurgling in a nearby stream and the way the leaves rustled underfoot. I then drank in full the sights of the forest enjoying the brilliant color of the trees in their glory. With a child’s enthusiasm, I trounced through the woods at times kicking up the leaves, at other times standing quietly to simply enjoy the sights, smells and sounds. There were few others out on the trail that morning, but mostly I was alone with the forest.

I could not say just how long I was out there, but I walked quite a ways basking in nature’s glory before making the determination to go back. It was one the way back that I indulged in another child’s game, collecting leaves of various colors and forms. I made a bit of a game with it, sometimes exchanging a leaf that I had already picked up for one on the ground to make sure I did not become over burdened with them. With my collection well in hand, I headed back to my car quite content with my birthday treat to myself, a quiet morning fully immersed in the glory of autumn. It was something so incredibly simple, yet I enjoyed as much as an afternoon at a spa. I try to spend at least one day in the fall to really appreciate the season as if I were one of those tourists who traveled hundreds of miles on a carefully planned trip just to see the leaves. I am frequently amazed by the beauty that my home brings each year.

How to experience the beauty of fall?

If you live in the northern climes, I recommend tracking the peaking of the leaves in your local area and then planning a morning or afternoon out around that time to really enjoy the outdoors. Keep in mind that fall can be a rainy time of year, so being flexible is key. Luckily, it costs almost nothing to get out to the woods and go on a hike.

There are many other ways to enjoy fall like visiting a pumpkin patch, corn mazes, apple picking and more, but this activity is all about the leaves. You could go a step further and use the leaves for art projects. I used mine just as table decorations for a few days.

If you don’t live in a place where there is a dramatic shift of the seasons, embrace the cycles of the year wherever you may be. The subtler nature of the changes can be just as rewarding as the dramatic shift. Perhaps, there are certain flowers in bloom in the traditional autumn season that you can stop and appreciate. Appreciate the migration of birds who have come down to your warmer home to escape the coming cold of winter. Paying attention and celebrating nature throughout the year is a rewarding experience. We so often neglect the world around us as uninteresting and miss the magic that is occurring all around us instead looking to other people’s backyards for wonder and inspiration. Find the wonder in your natural environment.

Completed: November 2021

Cost: Free (maybe a few dollars in gas)

Miles from home: 6 miles