"There Shall Be Showers of Blessing"

Just like the lyrics in the old hymn "There Shall Be Showers of Blessing", we have been more than showered with garden blessings this year!  Today we harvested the rest of the pumpkins and winter squash.   We have already picked and sold and given away at least 25 winter squash and pumpkins, and this is what is left.   Tomorrow is the last market day, and then I will use/give away/store what is remaining.   Every year I always worry that my garden won't be good, but I should have more faith!  The Lord always provides us with more than we could ever hope for.

Load number 1 of pumpkins and squash.

Load number 2 of the harvest.

The whole load today!

Thumb Meets Blade

I was in the process of making kraut today, and shortly after I started I somehow managed to cut my thumb badly on the sharp blades of the kraut cutter!  Oh my did it bleed!  I tried not to panic.  Harold was gone to Fargo for the day, my neighbor who is a nurse was not home, Harold took the car to Fargo anyway, and other neighbors weren't home either.   I thought about trying to drive the big pick-up to the doc, but I needed both hands to apply pressure, and didn't think I could drive that way.    After what seemed like an eternity, and blood all over the place (like a scene from the movie Psycho), I managed to wrap it up in gauze and tape with my good hand.  One of my neighbors called back and then came over to help me re-bandage the thumb.   We didn't think it needed stitches ( it was a semicircular cut about 3/4 inch long and 1/4 inch deep, but the skin was not completely cut off), and the bleeding was down to a minimum.   Harold came home later in the day and helped me finish the kraut and re-bandage my thumb.   I guess I won't be working with tomatoes or doing any canning for several days!  Hopefully it won't take too long to heal - I have work to do! And you know, I was SO careful with the kraut cutter, but a piece of the cabbage slipped off and I lost my grip just as I was sliding the 1/2 head across the blades.   Sigh.............well, I will certainly remember this year's sauerkraut making!!

Honey B Farm As of Today......

It's been a while since I posted anything on here.  Sixteen days to be exact.   We've been so busy!  This time of year is especially crowded with things to work on.  So far I have canned up the following:  peaches, pears, chokecherry jelly, raspberry cherry jelly, chokecherry syrup, dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, red pepper relish, cuke relish, spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, potatoes, applesauce, plain tomatoes, seasoned tomatoes (with peppers, onions and celery), and green beans.  I've also put cabbage, corn, carrots, peas and turnips in the freezer, and dried 14 quart bags of apples, and jars of basil, oregano and parsley.   We also harvested all the dry beans and they are drying in trays in the bay window and sunshine.  I still need to make more spaghetti sauce, and can up some tomato juice, and dry more herbs.   Today I am slicing up winter cabbage to put in the crock for sauerkraut:

Eight heads of Danish Ballhead cabbage ready to go into the crock for kraut.   You need a firm, white winter cabbage for successful sauerkraut making.   The kraut cutter is a vintage one I got at an antique store.

The fall colors are really pretty up here now, but they won't last long.  We are already past peak colors, and it's all downhill from here.

A gorgeous maple.

What the yard looks like this morning.

On the windy side of the place, the trees are already past peak.

I took a walk around the yard and took some photos just to show how things are as of today.  Let me bore you with a few show and tell pictures!

We have already had some frosty mornings, so it's time to get the pumpkins in.  I grow Winter Luxury pumpkins, which are excellent for pies.   They are small pumpkins, about 4 or 5 lbs each, with wonderful sweet flesh for the best pies ever!

Uh-oh.....time to get the butternut squash in because the deer are eating them!   This one is already half eaten by those pesty critters!

All my beautiful petunias are dead - time to snip off the seed pods and save the seed for next year. 

The beeyard is quiet now.  Only a little Canadian thistle, and sweet and red clover for them to feed on now.   We harvested close to 500 lbs of excellent light colored honey this year!

I still have a ton of tomatoes in the garden - plenty will probably just go to waste.  Want to come and pick some?

Remember the photo of my new lettuce in the last post?  It's all grown and ready now and we will be eating salads all week long!   A crop of new spinach is next to it. 

Looks like fall on the back porch.  Plenty of great winter squash to eat. 

All these tomatoes will be made into spaghetti sauce tomorrow!

This summer we did manage to paint the porch siding and get the porch ceiling on, and some trim.  We still need to get soffit material on.

All of our workhorse machinery!  My lawn mower (which is pretty good size) next to our brush hog mower, next to the big tractor loader.   We're prepared for just about every job!

And now for some "cute"...............

Un-named white kitten on a mission for some food, since all the food trays are empty!

FlufferDuff with her new little grey kitten and another older kitten.   Poor Fluffer broke her nose and upper jaw tangling with a coyote this summer.   But she is OK now, just a little off center in the face!

Another kitten and one of our Mama cats (not her kitten, though)

What's this???  "Climber" the kitten took a selfie???  Now, how did he do that?

And that's pretty much the way it is out here in the quiet countryside.  We're all busy getting ready for winter.  Harold is cutting wood, I'm still working with produce and food, and we are watching the leaves go fast off the trees.    Pretty soon the bees will go to California for the winter and we'll be cleaning up the yard and garden and getting things tilled up.  I'm anxious to see how long I can continue to grow things in the greenhouse - maybe another month or a few more weeks?

Full of Beans!

I have started harvesting my dry bean crop.   For several days now Harold and I have been picking and podding out dry bean pods.  Every year I grow several varieties of beans, and this year I grew Mexican red beans, Topaz pintos, navy beans, Jacob's Cattle beans, Hidalca (a type of heirloom bean), Yin Yang beans (a black and white bean), and Vermont Cranberry.   All these different bean types have different tastes and textures.   People always ask me how come I grow dry beans "when you can buy them at the store cheap".  Well, you can't buy all these beans at the store!  Sure, you can buy navy beans and pintos and red kidney beans, but you can't buy the other varieties.  And besides, homegrown dry beans have a much better flavor than beans that have been stored in a warehouse someplace for a couple years.   My dry beans cook quicker and have a fresher taste.
     We eat plenty of beans.   We like them just as is, cooked and maybe some pepper relish stirred in, along with cornbread made from scratch.   We also like beans and rice, beans with pasta, bean soups, baked beans, burritos and tacos and refried beans,  and beans with couscous.  When winter snows have us snowbound (we are the last in line for the snow plowing guy), I know that we will have plenty to eat from the pantry.
     It's very relaxing for us to sit and pod out the beans.  Harold and I put on some music and sit at the table talking and working with the dry pods.  Better than any TV show, I can tell you that.   I usually dry the beans in trays until sometime in October, then put the beans in jars.   They stay good that way for several years.   Every year I try to grow 3 or 4 different types of beans, so I always have plenty of variety to choose from.   Dry beans are easy to grow - basically put them in the ground, then let them grow and forget about them until fall.   When the pods are dry and crisp, they are ready to harvest!  Beans are a great source of protein, inexpensive, and good for you.

We picked several five gallon buckets of beans today.   I already picked a couple buckets last week, and there are still a few more buckets left to pick out in the garden. 

One must be diligent about harvesting the beans, though.  Once the pods become dry and start to open slightly, you must pick them as they are ready, and before the rain.  Once the dry pods crack open and moisture gets in, the beans are ruined because they will sprout.   I always grow non hybrid beans and especially heirloom varieties.   By saving the seeds from one year to the next, I can always have a supply of beans to grow.  The Hidalca and Yin Yang beans I received from a seed saver group at the local tribal college.   There are lots of seed saver organizations that welcome new types of seeds and exchanges.   Next year I hope to grow some of the heirloom Native American beans, Maine Yellow Eyes, and a couple varieties of Mexican beans.   There is a difference in the tastes of each one, and they have different textures when cooked.   Oh - I am also drying some of my lima beans this year, too.   Dried limas are a good addition to soups and hamburger/bean hot dishes.

I have started to dry some of the varieties already.   By the time all is harvested, I should end up with about 6 or 7 quart jars full of dry beans.  Perhaps more, as it is hard to tell.

The Greenhouse Keeps Producing!

 Here are a few views of things in the greenhouse.  I am up to my ears in tomatoes, and I'm on my third crop of spinach and lettuce and herbs.   The tomato plants are a good 11 ft tall.   I've never had to stand on a ladder to harvest tomatoes before!!

Beautiful tomatoes all the way up the 11 foot vine!

Third crop of lettuce growing nicely.

Tomatoes up to the ceiling, peppers waiting to be picked waist high.   No bending to harvest!

Cornhusking on Great Fall Day!

Today we harvested corn to put into the freezer.  It was great to be outside this morning in the cool air - nice and sunny and not too hot.  A good day for husking corn by the dozens!

Harold begins the job of husking all the ears.  The tailgate of one of the pick-ups works great for a table. 

We grow Golden Bantam corn.  It is an open pollinated, non-sugar enhanced, non-GMO, heirloom corn.   It freezes well, and has a good old fashioned corn taste.   We do not care for the ultra sugary sweet corn.   Golden Bantam is just good plain corn!  We save the seeds for next year, too.

Walking through the corn patch to harvest the ears is one of my favorite garden tasks.   It's really neat in there, I think!  A fun job!

About 100 ears to put in the freezer!   We had two rows left to harvest, but we will keep those for eating and for seed.

The trees are already beginning to turn colors up here.

Beautiful early fall days like this are precious up here in the north country.   We know that winter is not far away.   We have already had a morning with frost, but we had the sprinkler going on the tomatoes, and covered some of the tender crops.   Nothing got hit, so we lucked out there.