Song Time/Falling Leaves Time 2025

Leaves are beginning to fall

The leaves are changing color, though not at peak yet, and beginning to fall. Summer birds have all departed and winter birds have yet to return. It's an in-between sort of time.

Thieving chipmunk

Bees, chipmunks and I have been busy socking away goodies for the coming winter. Bees are busy in the Nasturtiums, pollen bags full; chipmunks are busy stealing my Aduki beans; and I'm just about finished filling freezer, pantry and larder.

Many of the garden vegetables are done for the season: peppers and squash,

Dehydrating green beans

green beans and tomatoes.

So long tomato plants

I made salsa from some of the last tomatoes, both red and green.

Salsa for the freezer

We had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, so we took extras to the local food pantry three weeks running. 

Shredding cabbage for kraut

We put up a crock of red cabbage for sauerkraut last week.

My cranberries have been picked and sent to the freezer.

Cranberries ready to pick

I harvested 1.5# this year. A new high yield.

A nice harvest

These are mainly used for making cranberry orange ginger muffins. Ooo, so good!

Harvesting dry beans

I'm still harvesting dry beans. Past the halfway mark now. My problem there is the new variety that I tried this year: 1500-Year-Old Cave Bean. It appears to need a much longer growing season. It has plenty of full pods, but they're not drying yet. This is in spite of the fact that we've had hot and dry weather. We're currently in a drought situation.

Tiny Bottle Gourds

Another experiment was the Bottle Gourd. It finally showed two small gourds formed on September 27th! They don't appear to have grown any larger since. I knew this was an "iffy" proposition in the first place. I may try again next year, starting them indoors earlier.

Gardening friends brought us some hot peppers. This was their bumper crop this year. Bob's experimenting with some of them.

He's trying to dry some by hanging them in sunny southern windows.

Drying peppers

Another variety he's put down in a salt and vinegar brine (like we use for horseradish). We will see if they will be pickled after a long soak.

Bob's pickled peppers

Now our attention turns toward garden clean-up.

The corn patch has now been cut and transformed into our annual sign of the final harvest: the corn shock.

The garden's final banner

We grew a little sorghum amongst the corn. We bundled that separately and have hung it in the bird garden for the birds and squirrels.

Sorghum-pretty, isn't it?

We went on two outings this month.

Early in the month, we spent the day at Filmore Glen State Park.

Lots of lovely fungi at Filmore Glen

It was a beautiful day for a hike and picnic.

At Filmore Glen State Park

Then, of course, we marked the Autumnal Equinox. Again, the weather was delightful. After a tasty lunch of Tempeh Cacciatore, we walked at Watkins Glen State Park.

Fun shot at Watkins Glen

Watkins Glen gorge

In the month ahead we hope to get the garden clean-up finished. I'll plant the garlic and shallots for next year, and we'll go to the semiannual book sale in Ithaca. Once these things are done, we'll begin to settle in for our annual rest time.

Autumn is a time to slacken the hectic pace of summer. Slow down. Breathe. Look around. Begin to re-center. Prepare for winter's luxury of resting in that center.

We wish you awareness in this most wonderful season.

Till next time,

Kathleen and Bob

Fall and Winter ease awaits

 

Seed Fall 2023

Autumn at home

The month of Seed Fall has come and gone. Most of this month's activity was concerned with preparing for the season ahead.

The garden claimed the Lion's share of the time. When last I wrote, I mentioned the warm, dry weather we were expecting. Well, it came and was a real catalyst for our maturing bean crop. Almost the entire crop came to maturity on the vine and was gathered without any trouble from rainy weather. I have ten bushel boxes of bean pods in the cellar awaiting threshing next month.

Nice looking carrots

The carrots and beets have been harvested and are packed away in the root cellar.

Parsley Worm

I left one carrot in the ground because I found a Parsley Worm on it. This is the caterpillar of the Black Swallowtail Butterfly, one of my personal favorites. I'd rather lose a carrot than to deprive it of its needed safe haven.

Wrapping sweet potatoes 

 

The sweet potatoes we harvested last month have been cured, wrapped and are in the cellar with bags of garlic and shallots hanging above them.

Bob harvested the Spitzenburg apples. We're eating tons of apples.

Making applesauce

I've frozen 14 pints of applesauce - all I have room for.

Apple slices to be dried.

We're also drying apple slices. We've dried four loads so far, yielding 15 quarts of dried slices. Bob enjoys munching on these while reading by the fire during the winter.

The winecap mushrooms are still producing and we're enjoying our late, "free", self seeded lettuce again this year.

Late lettuce

As the harvests have been winding down, we've worked on garden clean up.

All of the trellises have been cleaned off.

Pulling off bean vines

Everything is out except the kale, flowers and our cover crops. We're just waiting for a frost now to finish it up.

I planted the garlic and shallots on the 27th. So, technically next year's garden is already begun.

Planting garlic among the cover crop

Another way in which we have prepared for the season ahead was to get ready for the woodstove season. 

Bob loading wood into his cart

Bob has filled our cellar wood bin with an assortment of wood types and sizes.

Preparing kindling

I gathered kindling and refilled our very large kindling box in the cellar.

In the last update I mentioned our red sauerkraut. This raised a few questions from folks. Red kraut is a Bavarian style. Typically it is fermented along with some combination of apples, onions, bay leaves, caraway seeds and juniper berries. We prefer ours plain, so we don't include these things. Ours tastes like "white" kraut, but it looks nicer and is loaded with anthocyanins.

Our red sauerkraut

The final way in which we prepared for winter was to go to the Friends of Tompkins County Library book sale. We went on $1.50 a book and $.10 a book days. We got some good reading material for winter.

Some of our good finds at the book sale

On Tuesday we will mark the halfway point between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice. Since the weather is supposed to be less than pleasant, we plan to rest and relax at home with games, reading, and Grandma Neill's apple pie.

Because of our preparations, our bellies will be full, our bodies warm and our minds and souls nourished. Bring it on!

There's still time to get yourselves ready for a restful and rich winter season. It's so much more settling to embrace what the season has to offer than to despise it. Just a thought to consider.

Till next time,

Kathleen and Bob

Time to enjoy the simple things