Moving Into the Next Gardening and Farming Season

Hasn’t this autumn weather been just wonderful? I have lived here my whole life and fall is one of my favorite times of the year. One never really knows what sort of color we will see spread over the fields and forests. We know the Maples, Tamarack, and Burning Bushes will be spectacular, but, it turns out there is more. Much, much more. One only need slow down and look.

We are running our Autumn Photo Contest and I hope many of you will participate. After all, America is a big place and a photo from anywhere you have been this season is the one we want to see! The more color, the better. There is more information about the contest over on our Home Page.

For the last two weeks the grandkids and I have been picking up tools and putting things away. We have been gathering the filberts from the orchard and found that a family of Blue Jays are trying to harvest these nuts as well! Who knew?? I am still getting most of the fruit and the process is very much like a treasure hunt. As I shake the long slender branches I am reminded that this area needs a good pruning. As soon as everything goes dormant we will proceed with this task. I wonder…will this be the year I finally make that amazing chocolate /filbert biscotti recipe?  Maybe. We will soon be harvesting the black walnuts. And those gems, they belong in two places: in the silky caramel of cinnamon rolls and in chocolate fudge. So worth the wait and effort to harvest and cure.

Beyond these efforts we have decided to expand the hen pen this fall in preparation for spring when we plan to include some ducks. Ducks are cute and fun, and their eggs are deliciously rich. And….ducks are really, really messy which is why we are waiting until spring. The new hen pen expansion will encompass the part of the barnyard most in need of cultivation, fertilization, and weed control. Hens are great at cleaning up problem ground and by early summer the space will be ready for a “pond”. And by pond I mean a rock lined swale with really, really slow drainage. We have plenty of water to refresh the small pond everyday to keep our ducks healthy. This will be a new adventure for the grandkids as well.

This is also the time of year that we pull together manure from the barn and corral, and from corners of the field and chicken house. It all gets dumped into one big pile where it cooks all winter. Literally……somewhere in late winter when the frost comes out of the compost we use the backhoe to re pile the mixture and the steam just rolls off of it into the cool air. This steam is a wonderful sign of success. The grandkids don’t understand the wonderful workings of compost yet, but they will. This is us being good stewards of all God has blessed us with and making it all work together to give us better crops with better nutrition.

So, for the next few days we will enjoy putting the beds to bed, chopping leaves for the the compost pile and orchard floor. We will go for walks in the forest to find beautiful dogwood twigs heavy with burgundy red color to marry into autumn bouquets of dried grasses, dried strawflower and marigold, dried roses and even some golden fern to finish.  We have wreaths to finish and pumpkins to display. What a wonderful time of year! What will you do with your time this season?    Happy Autumn!