Autumn in the air

It feels like Fall is coming early this year.  The days are still hot and humid in our part of the world, but the nights have begun to glisten with the chill of fall.  I find myself needing a sweater to put the chickens to bed at night.  Yesterday I sat and watched the delicate yellow leaves of the walnut trees rain down as a brisk wind ran through the branches.  And if that isn't proof enough, I harvested and baked the first of our pumpkins. 

 

These little beauties are from our one "Winter Luxury" plant.  Really a gorgeous variety, with that delicate silver netting over the orange rind.  In addition, they are delicious!  I baked and pureed them, and ended up with 12 cups of puree.  That's enough for 6 pies!  So I simply had to make a pumpkin pie straight away, you know, to make sure it tasted good. 

 

 

Around this time of year I find myself getting all excited for no reason at all.  I'll be lying in bed at night, trying to go to sleep, and just buzzing with excitement.  I don't even know what I'm excited about.  Maybe it's leftover from being younger and getting the 'going back to school' butterflies in my stomach.  Either way, the chill of approaching Autumn always makes me want to dive into something new. 

 

Lately I've been feeling out of touch with my body.  I started running again three weeks ago, and that has helped, but I've been struggling for quite some time with this sensation of feeling heavy, slow, and clunky where I used to feel light, lithe and graceful.  We threw a party at our home Saturday night, and I had the opportunity to play with a friend of mine who is an amazing acrobatic yoga teacher. We've known each other for several years, but have not had the opportunity to do acro together. I've played with it a bit, but never with an experienced partner.  So when he flew me and we started moving through postures together, I was thrilled with the ease and grace of the movements.  It felt amazing. 

 

Later on we danced together, after I learned that he did ballroom and swing dancing for years.  It's been a very, very long time since I took a beginner's salsa or jitterbug class... we're talking at least 5 years.  But again, when matched a strong and talented partner, the movements came easily to me, and I found myself lost in the joy of it.  I used to feel that way all the time when dancing with my hoop.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to find a salsa night somewhere out here in the sticks... I'm hoping that learning a new movement art will help me find my creative space within the hoop again.

Experiments

So this year the husband and I have been conducting a few experiments.  Hubbybunch has been working on growing edible mushrooms in our basement.  It has been a process of trial and error over the past few months... we want to grow them from spores, not the expensive prepackaged kits.  I think he may have figured it out, because this morning we had a delicious breakfast of homegrown eggs with garden onions and cheese with a side of sauteed pearl and phoenix oyster mushrooms. 

They REALLY like growing out of the bucket.  We tried some in bags as well with limited success, but the bucket seems to be key.

I experimented with growing some new veggies in baskets in the greenhouse.  I planted Reisentraub cherry tomatoes, Table Dainty squash, and Italian frying peppers in hanging baskets.  Initially, they were growing beautifully.  And then the heat of the summer hit, and despite watering on a daily basis, the baskets simply dried out too fast.  Everything but the peppers shriveled and died.  The peppers, however, seemed to love the heat and tolerate the drought very nicely.  They didn't get really big, but produced quite a few fruits on a small plant. 

I also experimented with growing beans and peas up a string teepee in the greenhouse.  We had issues with mice getting in there and eating the seeds before they germinated.  However, those that did germinate flourished.  From only two black bean plants, I got about two cups of dried black beans.  I'll take that yield any day. 

Our Roma tomato plants in the garden are going gangbusters.  They busted the square tomato cages I used to try to support them (cheap pieces of junk!), but still managed to produce an absurd amount of food.  I've been harvesting consistently since early July, and picked an over-flowing half-bushel box last week.  There's more out there today that need attending to.  They are not the tastiest for fresh-eating, but I am LOVING them roasted with olive oil in the oven on low heat.  I've canned about 6 quarts so far as well. 

Our Black Sea Man tomatoes got a late start, as the first batch of seedlings got killed off by a frost when I forgot them outside in the spring.  But even being late-bloomers, they were doing very well through the dry heat of July.  Earlier this month, we got two days of heavy rain, and all of the almost-ripe fruit on the vines split open and rotted.  Very sad.  They are by far the tastiest eating tomato I've had, with tons of acid and a great texture... and I was disappointed that we lost so many.  Next year!

Our potato harvest was not as large as it could have been due to my neglect... I failed to mound them up properly and just kind of let them do their thing.  Even so, we got a nice big heavy paper sack of yukon gold taters from a very small bed of plants, so I have to say that I'm pretty happy.  I've never grown potatoes before, so I'm calling it a success.

Lammas

These days, I have a hard time keeping track of what day it is.  I work different days every week, I don't get the newspaper or watch TV.  Especially after a weekend, I find that I often have to check the lower right corner of my computer to remind me of the date at work.  So the fact that important days go by, unnoticed and uncelebrated, isn't much of a surprise.  However, I really am more in tune with the Wheel of the Year than I think!

Wednesday night, I came home from work, changed out of my scrubs, and poured a glass of wine.  Before I could even take my first sip, I was overcome with a tremendous urge to run out to the garden and harvest everything I could.  Hubbybunch came home and there I was, piling tomatoes and basil and carrots and onions into the garden cart by the pale light of dusk.  We watched the full moon rise and grinned.  We came inside and made a giant batch of pesto, and sliced the many pounds of carrots to start them in the dehydrator.  I stayed up WAY too late for a work night, preserving the harvest and thinking about Autumn.  I went to bed happy.

It wasn't until yesterday that I realized... of course, it was the Lammas full moon.  I suppose that explains it!

Today I canned peaches, and turned many more peaches into sweet yummy nectar that I then bagged and froze for winter morning refreshments.  I still have a big load of Roma tomatoes that need to be sliced and roasted on low heat for hours on end until chewy and leathery, then bagged and frozen.  I have lemon verbena and chives dehydrating now.  I'm feeling a bit stressed, as we're supposed to leave tomorrow morning to go to a hoopdance festival, and there is still so much to be done!

I suppose I should stop blogging and get on with it then, yes?