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| Freedom Apples ready to pick |
The full moon is tomorrow night, and with it ends our month of Ingathering. As the name implies, much of our effort this month is spent in preserving our food harvest and bringing in firewood.
Both freezers are now nearly full. I still want to put in a few more boxes of mixed greens and applesauce.
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| Making applesauce is easy with this mill |
Our Freedom apple gave us about a bushel of fruit this year. The Crispin has yet to be harvested but it's got a few fruits. I may dry those in slices.
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| Moonglow pears |
Our pear harvest is still small enough to fit in the vegetable drawer of our refrigerator.
While walking Lunette, Bob found some Hen of the Woods mushrooms on a log.
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| Hen of the Woods |
He picked some of it and that, too has been stashed in our freezer.
Bob finished putting wood chips on the existing paths in the garden. We'll be adding new borders around the perimeter which will need chips also, but that will have to wait. First, we need to focus on this winter's wood. We should be starting in earnest on that sometime this week.
On one of our warm days last week I was able to get all of our windows cleaned, inside and out.
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| Easy to clean replacement windows |
With twenty two windows to clean, it's an all day task! But it's so nice to have it done before the cold weather.
Lunette's been busy helping Bob with the wood chips and digging out mice and moles.
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| Lunette puts her all into hole digging: notice the dirty tongue! |
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| She doesn't care how deeply she has to go down. |
Yesterday was the Autumnal Equinox. We took the day off to enjoy ourselves. Bob and Lunette went for a nice walk in the woods. Later Bob and I went to Canandaigua to tour the Granger Homestead Museum. It was very enjoyable. We came home and had a nice soup for supper and watched a movie. We found it all very relaxing.
The equinox is a balancing point for us. It's time to let go of the hectic garden work and to prepare for winter's upcoming rest. We still have things in the garden. We always find it amusing when on the day after Labor Day people begin to ask if there's still anything in our garden. Like it's there one day and gone the next? We still have the drying beans, green beans, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, carrots, beets, kale and chard. But, the harried work of summer is done.
This is also a good time to reassess our lifestyle and make necessary changes. Next year we'll be decreasing the physical size of the garden, and how much is planted. All of this also tends towards balance.
That's enough for now. We hope you'll all take time to enjoy the simple pleasures of autumn: cool days, colorful leaves, birds migrating overhead, apples and wood smoke (if you're lucky enough to live rurally).
Take care and we'll be in touch at the end of Song Time,
Kathleen, Bob and Lunette
