Long days turning into nights

I never realized it, but Halloween's Samhain origins are all about the change of seasons, namely autumn turning into winter. The change is very real up here in the Pacific Northwest, autumn leaves have peaked already and we've had a cold snap this week with nights down into the 20s. 

Autumn color and some new paint!

With the longer nights coming, the last month was a last-minute rush to finish projects before working outside became an unattractive prospect, and we got most things on our project list done. The rest will wait until spring.

Hen Mail. This will hold garden tools and chicken treats in the back pasture.

They certainly aren't camera shy.

With the cold temperatures Ella and Esme are coming in at night, since they are only eight weeks old and it's well below freezing for about 10 hours a night -- quite unusual for our part of Oregon. I'm probably being overprotective, but if being a helicopter chicken mama is a crime, convict me. There's nothing more emotionally expensive than regret, especially if your livestock dies because you assumed everything would be OK...and it wasn't. 

But while I've managed to save the chicks from having issues due to the cold weather, the paint on our brand new shutters has not been so lucky. (although the newly-painted house itself looks amazing!) We discovered the latex paint the painter used did not adhere to the vinyl shutters, so when the temperatures dropped and then rose rapidly the paint blistered, bubbled and peeled.

Frostbite? Sunburn? Either way, ugly.

That lovely green paint peeled off using only my fingers, in one fell swoop. Yikes.

That's disappointing, because now we're stuck with $300 worth of shutters we can't paint (although I'm thinking after I peel the paint off I can donate them to Habitat for Humanity and take a nice tax write-off, since they are good as new, just the wrong color.) And on the bright side, we CAN replace them with green vinyl shutters that are close to the trim paint. For those keeping score, cha-ching, another $300. Since we picked the shutters ourselves I don't blame the painter. I blame us. 

Even at our age, this kind of thing happens sometimes; we face home improvement challenges, and we either complete them handily or mess up and learn from them. At the rate we are going, by the time we are 80 years old we will literally know everything there is to possibly know about house maintenance -- at which point no doubt we will promptly move into a retirement facility.

And on the homestead front, I finally hauled all 12 quarts of tomatoes out of the damn freezer and just canned them instead of keeping them frozen. They were taking up way too much space in the chest freezer, while empty shelves stood unused in the pantry. I got a fair amount of "tomato water" in my cans due to freezing the tomatoes first, but since most of the recipes I use them for call for a cup of water to be added anyway, I've got that. And I can see what I have in my freezer once again -- always a good thing.

Tomatoes...and water. 

This weekend when the clocks go back it will be a time of drawing in next to the fire and enjoying inside activities. Everything we didn't get done outside will now have to wait until spring. And since I don't drive much in the dark anymore, any evening event or party not close to home will be something we take a pass on. We're heading into the long nights now. Time to slow down and settle in. 

Summer's End

One of the things I love most about life in the Pacific Northwest is the seasonal changes. No season ever wears out its welcome by sticking around too long. I'm especially happy about that when it comes to summer, whose backside I've never been sorry to see -- even up here. This year we had two days of 100 degree-plus temperatures, a handful of 90 degree temps, but mostly our summer stayed in the 70s and 80s. Perfect.

The lawn at our newly-bought home did turn brown in July and August since the property has no irrigation. Early in August, when we were sick of looking at it, we briefly entertained the idea of putting in some sprinklers, but with .75 inches of rain later that month and the same so far in September, it's all greened up nicely -- and quickly.

There is a three week difference in when these photos were shot. What a difference an inch of rain makes!

The one downside to those mild temps and rain is that my tomato harvest has really come in slowly. This necessitated a new protocol for canning, which is actually not canning this year. Instead of running the water bath canner for just one or two quarts of tomatoes, instead I've started blanching bowls of tomatoes as they come in and then vacuum freezing them. Next year I'm planning on planting a variety of tomato called "4th of July," which as you've probably guessed, is an early ripening variety. Live and learn.

We do have plenty of pumpkins for pies and bread this winter; squash, eggplants and cukes are just about done, so the only thing left in the ground are some late season lettuce and onions. All in all, I'd say our 2019 garden was a success, and we'll expand next year with more raised beds as well as some fun new galvanized troughs for planting containers.

When we weren't in the garden or fixing things around the house we were installing and painting a new chicken mansion for the girls. It's 8 x 10 feet inside, so in the rainy season they will still have plenty of room to scratch and peck. Unreasonable, you say? Nope. Not when it rains 48 inches a year.

La Poulet Mansion

Sadly, we lost two of our favorite hens -- Callie and Chloe -- in that weird 2-day heatwave, probably due to their age. So yesterday I headed to the feed store to get two fall chicks. Ella and Esme will take their place in the flock for spring laying, provided they are both hens, which the feed store only provides a 90 percent guarantee on (so fingers crossed). But for now it's been fun having them peeping and cheeping in the dining room, where they'll live until they're ready to go outside (hopefully before Thanksgiving).

The next and last big push will be to paint our pump house, front door, garden shed and shop before the regular rains set in. We're hoping the painter can paint the house by then, too. But since it's still a little chilly outside right now, I think I'll have a cup of tea, kick my feet up and watch my new chicks explore their world!

The forecast: Foggy, with a splash of autumn.

The Last Time

Yesterday I was working behind the tasting room bar at the winery, helping out during a very busy Harvest Weekend, when I had a poignant moment. It was crisp morning, very autumn-y, with a breeze coming through the door; the kind of morning when you want to pull your scarf a little closer to your neck and retreat into the shadows with some hot tea or something (maybe wine, although 10 am is a bit early for it, even if my world) because you know winter is coming.

And I flashed back to my first winter working at the winery. There were many cold winter weekdays when we'd be lucky to get five customers in a day. Of course I knew I'd make virtually nothing in tips that day, but it didn't matter. Those kinds of winter days were the best. Often Chef would make some off-menu item for us to nibble on, there was light cleaning to be done or just reading Wine Business Monthly and listening to some good music while the rain drummed down or the fog lingered, as I stood behind the bar simply enjoying both the ambiance and the quiet as the hours ticked by.

It really was heaven on earth.

And it will never happen again, for (mostly) good reasons.

In the four years since I've worked at the winery, it's been "discovered."  Our wines began winning some very deserved awards, and we also got a full restaurant license, enabling us to serve a full lunch menu for those passing through the countryside doing wine tastings. That's about when I morphed into being the Chef's Garden Manager, since at my age I just don't have either the desire, the stamina or the memory to wait tables. In the meantime, even more awards came in...word of mouth spread...and now our little winery is a definite hot star in the firmament of both wine tasting and food venues in the area.

And so my lovely little winter weekdays in the winery are no more, gone and never coming back. But it occurred to me that there has to have been ONE of those days in the past (probably sometime in Winter 2014) which was the LAST day the winery would be like that for me, and the last day I'd ever experience that particular slice of heaven. It was the moment before the change. And I simply had no idea. 

Big Ag and I are still contemplating, planning and attempting to execute some big changes in our life (good ones) and it occurs to me that I will never really know when a "last" will occur -- the last run-in with an old friend in town, the last perfect sunset on that particular stretch of coast -- and like the chiché goes, I really should live more like each experience of anything may be my last. 

The changes at my workplace are proof that it all can change. And in the larger world, this year we've certainly seen more disasters relating to climate change than I ever recall seeing before, which means there are people who literally had no idea that 2016 was the last Christmas they'd ever spend in that house, or October 6 was the last morning they'd ever walk the dog around that neighborhood. And don't even get me started on those who lost their lives, for whom there was a last time for every single thing they did.

It's just a reminder to all of us that no matter how tempting it is to focus on the future, we've got to stay in the present, especially the good parts of the present. Any moment could be the last one of its kind. And once it's gone, those moments, like the Passenger Pigeon or the Tasmanian Tiger, are gone forever, never to return. 

May we appreciate and acknowledge those things when they happen and live them to the fullest.

Today, it worked

Chinaberry tree attempting some autumn color.

Ever have days when you realize you never should have gotten out of bed or left your house? Of course; we all do, right? But sometimes we don't appreciate the corollary to those days, which are the days when everything just magically works. I had one of those days today.

Another attempt.

To begin with, autumn has finally started to show her colors, along with cooler temperatures (if you consider 80 degrees to be cooler, that is), which is generally a huge help in helping revive my general mood after our endless, brown summer. We have color in the vineyard (I'm going to do a whole post on that in a few days with pics) and color around the property.

These Gazanias definitely have the right idea!

This is also the time of year when spring comes, meaning the hillsides start to green up again. Think I'm kidding?  Check it out.

So yes, this is how things generally go. Things green up in fall, once we get a little rain. Autumn colors set in, peaking between Thanksgiving and Christmas (while the hills are simultaneously greening up, go figure). Then in late January, the trees all start to blossom. 

Autumn: time to green up. These seedlings will be three feet tall by April.

I know; it's extremely weird and only a shade stranger than Australians and Argentinians having Christmas dinner in the heat of summer and spending the "summer" solstice bundled up in front of the fire. We get an autumn-spring and then a full-on spring a couple of months later. And then 8 months of summer. Some people love it, some hate it, but it is what it is.

Most of the time I have severe autumn and winter envy towards those in colder climes, but maybe it's more productive to just be grateful that I'm not covered in sweat and flies by 10 a.m. anymore. It's the little things.

Stephen Andrew even knows how to make packaging beautiful.

But today was great for other reasons as well. I caught the mail lady in the nick of time and managed to snag a package I've been trying to get for a couple of days, from my dear friend Stephen Andrew. It was some amazing artisanal honey from his home state! And it was AMAZING, that is not a gratuitous exaggeration. I even thought about taking some out to the beehive to let my bees see what kind of quality they should be aiming for in terms of flavor. Thank you Stephen Andrew! 

Speaking of the bees, "my" hive finally vacated the fountain and got into the bee box. This was a torturous, long process which consisted of me donning a beekeeper's suit every day and blocking off all their newly created avenues into the fountain until they finally gave up and just moved next door to the box.  Major win for me. 

Bees in the box.

So I got honey in the mail, I got bees where bees are supposed to be, and our land deal closed, so we now own 2.5 more acres next door to us. And stinking daylight savings time ends Sunday, so mornings will be light again! 

All good reasons to get out of bed.

Fall around the homestead

Fall color in the vines of Big Ag's vineyard and our own olallieberries. Our table grape vines are still kinda green (upper right of second pic).

Fall has meant that chores are much more comfortable to do outside now, and so in addition to continuing our back yard project, we're also pruning, trimming and making the first early preparations for spring. 

By far our biggest success on the property has been our olallieberry, blackberry and raspberry vines down in the pasture. While last year was short on berries, the summer proved very hospitable for growth, so next year's harvest should be a good one.

The year before this, I had such a bumper crop I ended up selling quite a bit to a local restaurant, which was a nice little bit of extra income I was happy to have. I'm hoping 2016 is the same, but since I don't know what the weather is going to do, I don't want to count my berries before they hatch, so to speak.

Yesterday was such a nice sunny day I decided to finish up trussing the vines and clipping the ends off the really long ones, since I'd rather have some nice lateral branches with berries on them than one looooong strand.

Stepford Wife vine/root...can be whatever you want it to be. Spooky

I discovered while down there that there are blackberry shoots with roots on the ends of their vines trying to dig down into the ground, which must be how brambles get established.

I just find it amazing that anything can be so versatile that it was be a root or a shoot, depending on its environment. We should all be so flexible.

Around the rest of the property, we finally have chairs and a fire pit for the back yard. Perhaps we'll actually get around to lighting a fire in it this weekend. 

And Valentina is still happily fostering with us, she has laid an egg nearly every day and since I'm currently getting none from my other girls, she was literally the hen who saved Thanksgiving. She can stick around as long as she likes.

Valentina frolicking among the rose bushes.....

Big Ag and I frolicking among the vines.

After the harvest and the Shemittah year

Today, under a brilliant blue sky and cool temperatures, we pulled the last of the tomato plants out, disengaged the old cucumber vines and even managed to find a few stray onions buried underground, in perfect eating condition. It's a little bit early to clean out the garden here, but with the El Nino bringing more humidity, more warmth and therefore more insect pressure, I thought it was wise to plow it all down and throw some chicken manure on top of it all before leaving it for winter, a gift to the earthworms and other bugs who live under the soil.

I also decided that I'm going to practice my own modified version of what's called the Shemitttah year in the Torah. It's an agricultural mandate to let the land rest in the seventh year of production. As it's stated in the Book of Leviticus,

"God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, telling him to speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you come to the land that I am giving you, the land must be given a rest period, a sabbath to God. For six years you may plant your fields, prune your vineyards, and harvest your crops, but the seventh year is a sabbath of sabbaths for the land."

I've expounded on the virtues of the idea of Sabbath -- for both religious and secular reasons -- on this blog before, and I'm sure you realize (if you've been reading this blog awhile) we've technically only been on this land for three summers. It's not a Shemittah year in any way....except of course, for the farmer. That would be me.  I have been growing a good portion of our food since around 2008, when I planted our first raised beds in our garden back at the old house. And I've been canning our produce each fall and winter since that time as well. 

I'm actually overdue for a good Shemittah by a couple of years now.

 During that time, a lot has changed, including me working more outside the home during summer and fall, (prime growing and canning time, but also busy season at the winery) and our kids going off to college, changing our food storage needs considerably. This last summer was crazy, trying to keep up the garden and my job, and I still have 40 pounds of tomatoes in the freezer to can as proof of that. I'll get to it before the end of the year, hopefully once the summer is gone for good and a boiling water-bath canner heating up the kitchen is seen as a friend, not an enemy.

And so my version of this Shemittah year will mean leaning out from the vegetable garden from this fall to next, and reassessing exactly what our needs are now that we have only two of us at home on a regular basis, and now that we also live in a place where we eat elsewhere a fair portion of the time. 

Normally right now, for instance, I'd be planting my carrot crop in earnest. But as of this writing, I still have a freezer full of carrots from last year which we haven't even started eating yet. So clearly I don't need carrots. Carrots in 2016 will be a Shemittah crop for us, then. I won't be growing them.

I will be growing a little lettuce and some onions, both super easy crops to maintain (meaning zero maintenance). I will be pruning and caring for our berry vines, our grapes and our fruit trees in spring because they need it, and if we get an abundant harvest I will gladly take it, because we got almost nothing last year (guess the berries took their own Shemittah year in 2015). Come spring, I will be planting something in the raised beds as well, it just won't be nearly to the extent I have in years past. I may have one raised bed's worth of produce. Probably an eggplant or two, one squash, three tomatoes....you get the picture. Farming Light. 

It's time for this farmer to take a break and have her Sabbath from the vegetable garden. Time for the land to exhale and rest, too. And in another three years, it may be time for a true Shemittah year where both the land and I take a good rest, but this time it's not so much for the land itself as much as the farmer. 

There will still be plenty of homesteading stuff (and blogging) going on around here -- soap making, cooking from scratch, eating abundantly from the over-storage we've managed to accumulate in the last few years, and finding new ways to continue turning our space from a zone of consumption into a zone of production. 

But everything needs a rest; even God rested on the "7th Day."  I am looking forward to my 2016 "Petite Shemittah," a sabbath for this farmer but not a dogmatic one as much as an acknowledgment that everything, including ourselves, needs a rest sometimes. 

Lettuce and late summer

I keep an informal crop notebook where, each month or so, I give a brief synopsis of what I've done in the raised beds and down in the pasture, where the orchard, vines and berries are. It can be helpful to see exactly what month you put in your lettuce or tomatoes last year, how it fared, as well as when you fertilized and what kind of bug pressure you faced. Notes are a good thing, and a good way to assess how things are going compared to years past on your property.

I consider it a gift to myself in the future, this written documentation of all my successes and failures, and it's all penned with an eye towards hopefully learning from my mistakes as I go along.

Notes to myself.

It's been helpful for every crop except my late summer/fall lettuce. This is my trickiest crop, because if you plant it too soon and it turns hot again, it bolts or turns sour quickly. Since it's much too hot to grow lettuce here in summer, I confess to being a bit anxious to have summer-type salads after a few months before the weather gets cold. So I plant early. Sometimes it works out. But the last couple of years it has not.

And because of this I find myself, for the third month running, attempting to plant lettuce that will last more than three weeks in the ground before bolting. The other issue with warm-weather lettuce is that it needs watering often -- sometimes three times a day when it's above 90 degrees, which its been most days for the last few weeks.  And about this time of year, I'm honestly kind of done with standing around outside in the heat of the day with the hose. I'm wanting Mother Nature to take over at that point with some much-needed rain. Hasn't happened yet, but you know Hope, like star thistle and other weeds, springs eternal.

Out with the old, in with the new.

So I have another set of transplants sitting out on the patio right now and all I can do is hope that the 90 degree temperatures will finally be over...weather forecasters are saying by the end of the week.

It can't come soon enough, I'm tellin' ya.

The Long Goodbye

"Late Summer" painting by Bev Bunker

The end of summer is always the same -- like a loud party guest who has overstayed their welcome and is the last person present, summer is the equivalent of that person -- sitting on the host's sofa at 2 a.m. relaying long stories about their trip to Europe last summer while asking if that vodka bottle they saw in the kitchen is empty yet. This is what late summer boils (literally) down to here in wine country. Summer has no dignity, and no clue when it's no longer wanted.

Summer, you were so much fun back in May. Now, if I may state things bluntly, you suck. Go home.

Harvest is in full swing out in the vineyards, and the 105-degree temperatures mess with the work schedules of all involved, since that's just too warm for anything to really do well out in the fields -- both the humans as well as the grapes themselves. And to have this kind of late-summer heatwave (a regular, normal occurrence around here) hitting when pumpkin spice everything is clogging up the shelves in the shops, and when the grocery aisles have featured products staged on clumps of fake fall leaves and hay bales, well, it's just depressing. For me anyway. It's like the best event is going on someplace, but not where you are, and you know you're missing out.

But at least there's a partial remedy for the frustration. And that is for me to take down the summer garden.  Because if I've had it with triple digit temps, it's a pretty good bet the squash plants I put in last spring agree with me. Oh, they're still producing squash, I'll be honest. I'm guessing squash plants will keep on producing after the last nuclear holocaust happens on Earth. The Bible is wrong -- it's not really the meek who will inherit the earth -- my bets are on the squash. 

But right now if I see another dish with squash in it I'll scream. Ditto for eggplant. Tomatoes are not high on my list of favorite foods right now either. They, like the party guest I mentioned in the first paragraph, have just spent too much time here and need to go elsewhere to continue their show.

 I hear spring is just getting started in New Zealand, so may I suggest there?

But as far as taking down the garden goes, some rituals are held not because of a season, but in anticipation of it. So although it feels nothing like fall here right now, I will take out the garden because I know, sure as the sun rises, that fall is coming (someday, hear oh Lord my prayer). 

But I will tell you that although I know the change in the seasons is most assuredly coming, it does nothing to decrease the resentment and restlessness I feel every late summer when I see all those hay bales and pumpkin-spice flavored crap in the stores everywhere. Because fall is my favorite season, and I know its happening somewhere. Just not here.

For now though, here in wine country we'll keep our shorts and tank tops on, harvest the grapes, and just dream of a place where pumpkin-spiced stuff seems right for the time of year. And maybe drink some wine to console ourselves. 

Cleaning up

Tomato beds are cleaned out and awaiting compost.

I waited to clear the tomato plants this year until December, with the idea that having some late tomatoes would be a good idea. Unfortunately, this is another one of those DIY lessons; even though our days are warm and sunny, our nighttime temperatures dip into the low 40s and even upper 30s.  So while the tomatoes look beautiful and freshly vine-ripened, they taste like tomatoes that have been in the refrigerator for a few days....just kind of bland and mushy.  Oh well.  It was a noble experiment. It was nice to be able to put them into the salads at Thanksgiving, but honestly, they were no better than crappy store-bought tomatoes, gassed with ethylene or greenhouse grown -- okay, but definitely not like a delicious summer tomato. Everything really does have a season I guess.

For fall 2015, I'm thinking it will be better to just add some fresh onions and carrots to next year's salads and call it a day.  The tomato thing did not work.

So now they are gone (there's one last pile you can see in the right of the pic).  So it's time for making some rich, lovely soil by compost-adding, ryegrass planting (for green manure) and fallow time.  Perfect, since inclement weather is expected and being out in the elements is no fun. I can just sit inside with a glass of wine and watch my spring soil being made from the warmth and comfort of the house.

Slow Time

"Cozy Cabin," by Judy Gibson

The clocks went back an hour yesterday, meaning that we're once again on Slow Time.  Many years ago, some folks in the midwest began calling Daylight Savings Time "Fast Time" and Standard Time "Slow Time," which I think is a marvelous and incredibly accurate description of both.

All day today I've felt like the day has been longer, and that I've accomplished more than I had in the rush of activities that comprised my days for the last several months.  When the time changes over to Daylight Savings Time (Fast Time), for instance, I can often be heard muttering, "Holy s#it, I can't believe it's this late already," as I dash out the back door to bring in the wash from the clothesline at 7 p.m.

But all that's over now... at least for a few sweet months.

As a fitting crescendo of Fast Time craziness, the last few weeks have been a blur of activities for Big Ag and myself.  We had a busy harvest season at the winery.  We hosted two parties here, one a sit-down dinner for 14 and another a pot-luck for 40.  And a charity I work part-time for had a big event I managed.  

I also had three minor events happen to me in the last week -- small things, really -- which lowered my spirits and made me long for a few days to lick my wounds, deep house.  First, I almost got my car towed on Halloween, through a mistake that truly was not my fault.  Second, a weird friend started acting even weirder than usual.  And lastly, my boss corrected a mistake I'd made at work in a way that stung, even though it was admittedly my own fault.  

But when it's Fast Time, it can feel at times like there's no time to heal from the minor bumps and bruises of life, something which is best done away from everyone and the crazy social agendas we sometimes foist on ourselves (or have foisted on us). And for the record, it's not the major tragedies which I think account for the sadness and malaise modern living often inflicts upon us. It's the little things, over and over, which eventually just add up to feeling sad, frustrated, and feeling like you just can't catch a break (although not getting my car towed was a huge break, I realize). 

I'm sure the Roman Empire did not end through one catastrophic tragedy, but rather through a slow erosion of fortunate circumstances. And so it is with our moods sometimes.

And so today, on this first day of Slow Time, I've found myself incredibly happy to be at home, deep in the comfort of the familiar, with no one to entertain, to make lively conversation with, or to answer to. Big Ag is napping in his chair, and the pellet stove is keeping us warm with its familiar clinking sound as the pellets fall into the hopper, giving us a cheery fire. The ground outside is wet from a good, soaking rain, and the so-called "civilized" world (generally not known for being particularly civil) feels far away. 

Slow Time is good for listening to quiet music, good for reading, making casseroles, and good for getting home at 4 p.m., in order to feel tucked into warmth and comfort by the time the sun sets. There's nothing wrong with long nights spent in a comfortable chair with a good book or your Kindle, in my opinion.  It's hugely under-rated activity by most folks, but not here at the homestead. 

Even though there are still tomatoes and eggplant on the vines and more onions, lettuce and scallions to plant, that's OK.  There's more than enough time to do these things in Slow Time and not feel rushed. The newly-ripe pomegranates will also get harvested in due time and there will be sweet, tart  juice to brighten up the cooler days. There will be more rain, more darkness, and more time by the fire. And wine, of course.

It's Slow Time, once again.  Hallelujah.

Seed Day

(L) Pink Lady, (R) Mortgage Lifter, both about the size of a human fist.  Beautiful producers, meaty with very little pulp.

As of today, all my summer and fall canning is done.  As promised, I put up a couple more quarts of relish and put them in the pantry, although I felt a certain "Groundhog Day" reluctance to start that water bath canner yet again.  

In the rest of the garden, the end-of-season eggplants are being made into babganoush, the pumpkins sit on the patio in readiness for whatever I need them for, and I'm bloody well sick of seeing tomatoes ripen on the vine, although not quite enough to rip out the plants just yet.  (You never know when pico de gallo or some other dish requiring fresh tomatoes will beckon, although at this point it's hard to even look at tomatoes without seeing Mason jars in my head.)

But what I did today is part of my typical fall ritual...I chose several beautiful specimens of my tomatoes and saved the seeds.  

Saving tomato seeds is easy, if you know how to do it.  Just fill a small bowl with warm water, halve the tomato and squirt the seeds into the water.  Set it in a warm place (the top of the fridge usually works best for me), cover loosely with cling wrap, and let it sit for a couple of days, stirring once a day.

Once a slight film has formed on the surface and 48 hours have passed, sieve the seeds out, put them on a paper towel and let them dry.  Once they are bone dry, they can be stored in a plastic bag with a small package of silica gel dessicant (usually found in shoeboxes or in other such products) until next spring.

It's hard to imagine, but the hundreds of pounds of tomatoes I've processed this last season all originated from just two tomatoes from last year -- one Pink Lady Brandywine, and one Mortgage Lifter.  If I processed every tomato I grew for seeds only, it's easy to imagine I could populate the entire country with these tomatoes the following year.  There is truly a gross overabundance in their attempt to reproduce.  But that is nature's way, and God's way ... making sure one tomato can feed your neighborhood next year, and one acre could probably feed the world if necessary.

So we seed savers are saving the world, one tomato at a time. And one tomato is pretty much all you'd need to do it.

First Day of Fall

The first day of fall in these parts always, and I do mean always, feels like summer.  Yesterday was no exception, it was about 90 degrees and sunny.  Fall creeps in steadily here, like smoke under the door, gentle, quiet and, at first, unnoticeable. She will first be providing us with colder evenings (low 50s and down into the 40s by next month), and then will mercifully keep shortening the length of the day by a minute or two until the heat can no longer make a stand during the afternoons. That's how it happens here.  The trees will not change color until November, and it will probably still feel like fall until just a couple of weeks before Christmas.  Then winter will set in for good and we will kiss our all-to-brief fall goodbye.

It is safe to say that I am weary of summer, yet I still count my blessings in regards to the many foggy, cold mornings we had in July and August, along with pleasant 80-degree days.  This summer was not a bad one at all, as far as temperatures go, but I am still ready for a change in seasons.

So now the wait for rainfall begins, especially at the end of this extremely dry year -- a record breaker out here in the west.  But before then we have a roof to repair and pellet stove to do the annual service on, so hopefully we can get all that done before the (hopefully) wet season sets in.

Fingers crossed on all accounts, especially for timely, heavy rain. 

In the meantime, we in the west wait earnestly for that first fallen leaf of autumn.