A Little Dose of "Cute" and Plenty of Work

Today Harold and I spent the better part of the day outside working on the now-dead garden - after two nights of frost the garden is done.  We also got a start on getting things cleaned up.  AND I  spent some time playing with the new kittens from this summer!   I haven't posted any 'cute' photos for a while, so humor me a little and let me show you some of our new kittens here on the farm:

Here's a few of the Mamas and their little ones.

A couple more cuties, about 6 weeks old.

Older kitten, Cassie, playing peek-a-boo.  She was born around early June.

FlufferDuff and her little one who looks just like her!

A new tomcat kitten.  He is only 7 inches long but looks bigger in this photo.  He has big feet and a big head, so he will be a big tomcat someday!

Of course there are more kittens, but they wouldn't pose for me.

Harold took the Lo-Boy tractor and used the brush mower attachment to cut some brush, and also one of the gardens, which was done.

Cutting through a patch of thistle, cleaning up the yard. 

He also mowed through one of the gardens that was finished.  Later, he will put the tilling attachment on the tractor, and dig up the garden area for winter. 

We also took down fencing, harvested veggies and herbs that survived the last two nights of freezing, and I collected more petunia seeds from my late season petunias that were purple and blue in color.  I harvested a big pile of parsley (second cutting) and plenty of oregano.   I discovered that oregano can take a little frost.  In fact I think it has a better aroma after frost.  I like to sprinkle dry oregano on pizza on top of the sauce before I put the toppings on.  It gives the pizza a real "Italian zing", I think!  When I was growing up in South Bend, there was a wonderful pizzeria called Starlight Pizza on the west end.   They also used to put quite a bit of dry oregano on their pizza sauce, and it was the best pizza ever.  I miss that place!

A big batch of oregano that I will dry tomorrow with the microwave method.

I also harvested the rest of my dry beans.  This year I planted Kenearly Yellow (a type of Maine bean good for baked beans), Yin-Yang beans, Swedish Brown beans, and Hidalgo beans (a type of brown and white speckled Mexican bean).  I grow many kinds of dry beans and usually grow several varieties each year.  They all have different tastes and different uses - some are good to eat as is, some are for soups, some for burritos, and some are good for pasta and salads.

This coming week, I will dig up my carrots and  rutabagas and put them in the freezer, dig up the onions on a sunny day and let them dry in the sun for a couple days for winter storage, and harvest about 3 or 4 winter cabbages to make sauerkraut.  Then I will make my jellies.  I've been saving juices from grapes, plums, chokecherries, and highbush cranberries for jelly making.  There's nothing better than home canned jelly!  Much better than the store variety!  Now the apples are ready, so I'll be making plenty of apple jelly.
The frost may have finished the garden, but there's still plenty of work to be done!