17 September 2023

Autumn

It’s September. The best and the worst month.

I can feel fall coming. The pumpkins are big and beautiful. The garden is subsiding. The air is still hot, but with crisp cool nights.

I can feel fall passing by and am doing nothing about it. The need to harvest, to carve pumpkins, to set by supplies for the winter, it’s overwhelming. But it’s hot and still mostly summer. The contradictions leave me feeling depressed with a wistful longing for times long past.

Watching Tales from the Green Valley to satisfy my craving my son sat and joined me in the watching. He stared at the boiled partridge with dumplings they prepared from scratch, as in alive, and insisted on finding the recipe. Then as they hand spread wheat seed, covering it with a Hawthorn branch pulled by a horse he wanted to try that too.

Ah, a child who takes after me.

That is one thing that we can do. I discussed it with my farmer husband. He bequeathed us a corner of his garden that will be fallow through the year. If we wanted we could gather left over wheat seed and give it a try. We spent the morning raking and tilling a very small piece of land. Then went in search of seed. Our search is a bit late. They’ve spent the weekend up until now cleaning out the drills that planted the ‘real’ wheat crop in the last couple of weeks. He was slightly annoyed as he was trying to get work done when we came asking for scraps. But, he found a place in the seed truck where seed always hung up and needed cleaned out. Then came in search of us so we could catch it to use.

It was way more than our tiny plot needed and we kept the extra to grind over the winter. I love having home grown and ground wheat to cook with.

Then we planted. He planted. He hopes to harvest by hand next summer and use the straw for braiding rope or making baskets. Maybe together we can fill this craving I always feel.

We have put up as many vegetables as we have jars and room for. canned tomatoes, green beans, pickles beans. Frozen corn. Soon we will dig potatoes and bring in some pumpkins and store them away. Some things don’t change as much as we think. The pleasure of putting away food for winter is still strong.

I’ve begun picking a few of the pumpkins and placing them around the house. Maybe the best season of all isn’t quite us passing by.

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28 February 2019

Starting The Garden

We got the seeds started for this years garden.

By we I mostly mean my super gardener husband.  Calling what the rest of us contributed “help” is stretching thing a bit far. We were there though! 😉

Lots of petunias, my contribution. A variety of tomatoes, celery, egg plant, and probably peppers. We planted them last Friday and, the petunias especially, were coming up already by Monday.

They are a sign that spring may eventually come again. We are more than ready for it. February was cold.

 

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7 May 2018

Garden Beginnings ’18

We finally got the garden started. No potatoes in the ground by Good Friday this year. It’s been too cold for that anyway. This year the tomatoes and peppers went in the greenhouse at the same time that the potatoes and cabbages and even two rows of corn went in. We also went out on a limb and planted beets, swiss chard, and zucchini. The Goblin Child was actually a big help this year. 8 Still not so much. We planted a corn/sunflower house for them again this year. No maze this time. It never did work out as well as it sounded. This year we just did a circle, with a double row of corn and a wire panel trellis as the entry way. They have already started enjoying it.

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24 July 2017

Growing Like…. Pumpkins?

Every year my favorite part of the garden is the pumpkins. To be specific, the arbor that the pumpkins grow over. This year I had plans and came home to fine that my hard working husband had built it for me while we were gone for the morning. The pumpkins were just starting to vine at the time, that was a few weeks ago. Now the trellis is nearly covered.

I couldn’t believe that the vines were growing as fast as it seemed so I took pictures. I took them morning, noon, mid afternoon, evening and the next morning. In twenty four hours the vines grew at least six inches. We really could sit and watch them grow.

Category: 8, Family, Garden, Goblin Child | 1 Comment on Growing Like…. Pumpkins?
18 May 2017

Garden planting ’17

We got the garden in. Started to that is, the first plantings of corn, the zucchini, pumpkins and stuff. We planted 20 hills of squash! All of them different varieties. I keep saying 20 different types of pumpkins and having it pointed out to me that the count includes acorn and spaghetti squash. There are some new types this year and three types of carving pumpkins.

I meant to write this to document the date of planting but didn’t get around to it. It was almost two weeks ago now and everything is starting to come up. Just in time for snow this weekend. Oh well.

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22 April 2017

Planting Potatoes

It is supposed to be done on Easter weekend. I don’t know who decided that or why but it’s the rule. We didn’t quite make it. But on Tuesday, once the weather finally got nice, we planted potatoes. And by we I in no way mean me. Mostly it was The Goblin Child and her patient father. I spent most of the time trying to keep 8 from walking on the freshly planted rows.

The Goblin Child is getting old enough that she was really good help. She was gentle with the seed potatoes and was able to do exactly what needed done. 8 tromped around like the big boy that he is galloping happily across rows of planted potatoes and tossing the seedlings into holes.

Poppy finally had her calf! On the late side as usual, a nice healthy, so far, hold our breath and cross our fingers that he stays that way. Now we are only waiting on our heifer to calve. Blue is open, again, it will be good bye to Blue as soon as I can get her to a sale barn. The Goblin Child is mad about it but this is two years in a row, she has to go. The other cows had theirs and everything is good.

Category: 8, Cows, Garden, Goblin Child | 1 Comment on Planting Potatoes
5 November 2016

Another Beautiful Fall Day

Although the heat is unseasonal and a little disturbing it makes outside work much more pleasant. We spent a busy but enjoyable day out getting the garden cleaned up and playing on the hay bales with the cousins, depending on who you might be.

 

Category: 8, Books, Cows, Dogs, Family, Farming, Garden, Goblin Child, Horses, It's a God thing | 1 Comment on Another Beautiful Fall Day
1 November 2016

We Survived!

I’m not completely sure how, sometimes it was touch and go but Halloween is over and we are still alive.

The holiday started early with a trunk or treat in the big city. Main street was shut down and local businesses and clubs pulled cars, and motorcycles, in and decorated them. They did a great job, the Kiwanis club is awesome for doing this. 8’s favorite was the  feed store, they had a stock trailer instead of a trunk and were dressed as a horse, a chicken and two pigs. 8 stood and stared, they weren’t like the horses and chickens he’s used to. He kept saying “neigh” and “bock” and they kept giving him more candy. I don’t know what anyone else’s favorite were. I was busy following an over tired 8 around as he through himself to the ground and crawled around. Neither one of them took naps that day and by evening they were tired and more than a little rotten.

 

Halloween was a very long day. Because small towns are awesome, 8 and I got to go along with the preschool trick or treating. They went to the nursing home then to all the businesses downtown. It was quite a walk and as much fun as we had many of the kids were exhausted by the end. I was exhausted. 8 needed carried most of the way and my arms are about to fall off today. Back at the school we left The Goblin Child to enjoy her school party without us butting in.

After lunch it was home for naps then up and right back to it. As soon as school got out for the afternoon we joined friends and went to the Methodist church for their trunk or treat and hot dogs. It is such a nice church, they are very active with a preschool, summer bible camp and now this. It was nice not to have to run clear home and then back in after supper and let us start, and finish, earlier. Going around our tiny town the children overflowed their buckets. People were giving out the good stuff too, hardly a tootsie roll in the bunch.

Category: 8, Books, Cows, Dogs, Family, Farming, Garden, Goblin Child, Horses, It's a God thing | 1 Comment on We Survived!
30 October 2016

Halloween Movies

The legend of sleepy hollow is my all time favorite. Both the old cartoon which is the measure by which all other versions are judged and the newer movie with Johnny Depp. I spend lots of time trying to convince the children we should watch it. Again. My greatest sorrow was in realizing Brom was short for Abraham  after we had already named our youngest child. Ichabod was ruled out as a name for obvious reasons as well as it’s sad meaning but Abraham we could have done. I suppose legally changing his name would be going a bit far.

 

I wanted more movies like Sleepy Hollow. Not scary but with the full beauty and ambiance of fall, the history, horses would be asking a little much but would be nice. So my always dedicated husband searched.

He found The Others. It had the ambiance, the history, no horses unfortunately. It was pretty good, there was only one problem. Unlike Sleepy Hollow it was scary. I could handle it though, if only because I had my husband to hide behind. By the end I was ok with it and did really like it and no nightmares.

 

The we watched The Woman in Black. I think he forgot the not scary part of my request. I really do hate ghost movies. This was just dark, terrifying, I didn’t watch it, with my phone held in front of my face the whole time trying to ignore it except for the times I couldn’t and peeked. Many times he warned me to be sure not to look. They added really unnecessary elements like stuffed monkeys and dolls, things that completely creep me out, aside from the ghost its self. On the bright side there was at least one horse and the scenery was beautiful.

 

 

Now Halloween is upon us and, as I am ready for Christmas music, it is unlikely we will continue our search for other great Halloween movies this year. That does leave plenty of time for next year though.

Category: 8, Books, Cows, Dogs, Family, Farming, Garden, Goblin Child, Horses, It's a God thing, Movies | 1 Comment on Halloween Movies