Feeling Fall

The leaves in the trees are looking faded and old, and the fog hovers in the marsh long into the morning.  It's a race now to finish the outside work before the hard cold comes.  The seasons here in the Northwoods are short.  I try not to think about all the tasks I want to complete and just focus on accomplishing at least one task every day. Tom and Ed worked on making firewood -- filling the wood stacks in the garage and the kindling bin, and covering the outdoor wood piles with tarps to keep them dry when the rains of Autumn come.  I, too, have been busy.

Canned peaches, kosher garlic dill pickles and country bread

And today we went out to the field and harvested my Red Cloud potatoes.  We got eight bushels.  I took one to my Dad with a bag of fresh peaches (he loves peaches).  Four bushels will feed us through the winter, and I will keep one bushel for next year's seed potatoes, so that leaves two bushels to sell at the farmers market.  I expect they will sell quickly.  Red potatoes are popular and I am the only vendor that sells the Red Cloud Variety. 

My Golden Bantam corn is still not ready to pick.  I'm not sure it will finish ripening before we get a hard freeze.  I expect it needs at least three more weeks of grow time.  The winter squashes and the pumpkins I will leave alone till after frost.  Then I will go out and bring whatever is on the vines back to the house.  I only got four pie pumpkins last year.  I sure hope I get more than that this year.  And I will be grateful for any winter squash I get.  I would love to get some Blue Hubbards this year.

I put all of the gardening tools and farmers market supplies out in the new shed.  The garage looks so different!  You can feel the feng shui is much better.  The no-flat replacement tires I bought from Northern Tool came in the mail for the hand truck and Tom's wheelbarrow -- just in time, too, for all of my Fall weeding and pruning chores.  No more cussing over flat tires!

Lara and I had a good day at last Saturday's farmers market in Phillips.  We sold a bushel of Tom's corn, all of the radishes we bought, and most of another bushel of green beans.  Alan and Diane Barkstrom of B's Flambeau Acres were back from a short trip they took and were selling their delicious honey and maple syrup.  It was great to see them and all the other vendors.  Farmers markets are such wonderful community builders. They keep money circulating locally so your town prospers economically, and you get to know your neighbors -- an emotional stabilizer that is, in my opinion, very underrated.

Well, it's getting late and I'm beat from digging up those potatoes!  Talk to you soon.