Saturday, September 20, 2014

Down on the Farm With Ruthy!

Ya gotta love fall on the farm! This year, a long, cool, rainy summer that wasn't one bit normal for the long, hot, cloudless days of a normal upstate summer on the shores of Lake Ontario challenged our veggies.... and kept the weeds relentless in their quest to take over the world as we know it!

But hard work by Seth and Dave prevailed.... and that was despite bouts of illness and equipment breakdowns and water in the gas and blight, and bugs and did I mention blight????

Despite all that, the fall harvest is a medley of color!

Pie pumpkins and mini-boos, and gourds!!!!!

AND: BIG PUMPKINS!!!!!


AND MONSTER GOURDS!!!!




And little gourds and eggplant and green peppers!!!!!



And Chickens!!!!!!

And here is my borrowed Pumpkin Sign, how cute is that???

Bushels of squash:



Note that I'm not showing you THE HOUSE because my scarecrows that have been living in the closet for years are.... sigh.... still there. I've been busy writing on weekends and while I know I should get those bad boys out and put them on the porch, I'm afraid cowboys in Washington have taken precedence.... DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD THOSE RANCHERS WORK?????

I am lazy by comparison!!!!

And I'm selling cornstalks for folks, but I have none on my porch... First I'd have to clean the porch.

Always somethin'..... ;)

We've been roasting squash regularly, we've tried new eggplant recipes that were as simple as dipped in egg and cracker crumbs and roast.... and that was awesome! Right now the garage has been TAKEN OVER BY SQUASH!!!!!!  There is no room for cars, so we must sell squash because I know the rain and snow are coming!

But it's so cool to see boxes and boxes of God-given food.... and know that folks will be bringing their boxes around and buying bushels of squash to keep for the winter.

I love that. I love preparing for winter, knowing it will come and knowing I'm ready.

I think I'd be a little lost without winter prep. I don't swim, I don't golf, I don't play well with others, so I can do my writing sweet book lifestyle ANYWHERE.... but I love being cozied up for the winter.

Am I weird?

That feeling of preparedness, of work to be done, of laying the groundwork for the future. I love that. Too much time on my hands makes me RESTLESS.... and then I cause trouble. Clearly this summer there's been no chance of that, LOL!

And I got my confirmation of being in "Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Power of Forgiveness" in December, this week...... SO PSYCHED!!!!  We have a LINK HERE.... but no picture yet. But in three months, it comes out! #happy!


12 comments:

  1. So wonderful!! I love fall. I love squash and pumpkins.

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  2. Oh, me too. I love the colors, I love baking, I hate the scale.... :) because baking in the fall is too much fun and then someone must eat it!!!!!

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  3. I'm an autumn person too. Something about the season brings out the nurturer in me. I want to make homemade soup and bake from scratch and I pour over magazines looking for new ways to cook the autumn harvest. And the smell of apples! Sigh. And the colours...Double sigh. And the cooler weather. Triple sigh. It could be autumn all year round and I'd be happy.

    Glad you had such a great harvest. City slickers like me appreciate all the hard work that goes into it. I love my farmer's market because it's all local farmers. I totally get the importance of their work. Wish more people appreciated where their good comes from. Up here we're losing more and more family farms to big corporation farms, many with (in my opinion)unethical practices. Gah,that's no place to get your life-sustaining food from. Sorry, just watched a documentary and it's made me even more militant. :-)

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    1. Kav, it's a changing industry in so many ways. My husband was chatting with the CEO of a major Manhattan firm at a party several years back, and he was saying how sad it was that family farms are a dying breed in so many areas and these were Dave's words.... "What young family in their right mind wants to invest a quarter million into an industry that makes you work night and day in all kinds of weather and with little return until you have big equity?" And that's the truth of it. Few farms are passed down or outright inherited these days or the farm value is split and then the one person who might want to farm is in the unenviable position of having to come up with big bucks (loans) to buy the others out. That's such a real scenario these days, I see it happening all around me. And it's sad, but you can really understand it, too. I have to say that people's excitement about all these fresh veggies is contagious! Customers love it, and that's what it's all about!

      Although I still say chickens deserve to be eaten. Crazy birds!!!

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  4. Autumn is my favorite time as well. Best food for one thing.

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    1. Tina, it's different in Arizona, though, right? Tell us what autumn's like there. Cooling down a bit... but then what???? There's no tree change or leaf fall. Are there fall crops in AZ?

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  5. A stop at the farmer's market and a visit to the library are on my agenda today. We've had a mostly sunny summer but the past two days have been cloudy and showery, so this morning's sunshine is a treat. I'm a little melancholic about this being the last weekend of summer, but I DO love fall!

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    1. Me, too Carol!!!!! That's an ideal day right there, library and veggies!!!!

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  6. Lovely pics! I'm anxious for autumn...it's 95 at my house today. Nevertheless we had pumpkin pancakes for breakfast.

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    1. Susanne, thank you!!! Where are you from? And pumpkin pancakes sound wonderful!!!!

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  7. Greet pics! I've missed visiting here.

    Congrats, Ruthy.

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    1. Anita, darling, I've missed you right back!!! We have become experts at roasting squash.... and I'm going to try a pumpkin pie from scratch this week, although I should be eating JUST CABBAGE.... but doesn't pumpkin pie sound way better than cabbage???? :)

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