October is an unstable month. The weather is very variable as the cold weather starts to settle in. We flip from cold to warm to cold again. In a few short days we moved through fog, sunshine, rain, and frost. Last week we had cold nights with hard frost and balmy 80° days. Despite the balmy days, once the frost comes, the garden is done. Just one cold night kills all the tender summer flowers and leaves them limp and black. I used to dread the frost, especially if it came too soon (by my reckoning). I wanted the growing season to go on and on. I fought the frost, covering plants and wrapping trees. Now I’ve come to see frost as a blessing (if it doesn’t come abnormally early). I don’t fight it anymore. It puts the languishing garden out of its misery and lets me clear it all away without regret. I spent most of my afternoons last week cleaning up the frostbitten garden.
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| On one of our fall leaf drives last week. |
On Monday Miriam helped me take down the tomato trellises and spread the straw bales over the garden. And with her help we brought in 15 nice cabbages that will last us all winter in storage.
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| The garden going flat. |
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| The cabbage harvest. |
On Tuesday I mowed the lawn. I wish I could say it was for the last time this year, but I think I’ll have to mow a few more times before the grass finally goes dormant. On Wednesday I tackled the elderberry bed by the back porch stairs. It was so overrun with weeds this year that the elderberries were suffering. I ripped out a huge load of wild asters and touch-me-nots and liberated the poor elderberries.
We had rain on Wednesday and somehow it changed everything. The trees that before seemed dull, suddenly took on dazzling colors, at least some of them did. On Thursday after school and work, we took a drive to look at the leaves and take pictures. It was not a sunny afternoon, so our photos don’t do justice to the vibrant colors. We drove down to a field of sunflowers and then up several of the hollows to take in the beauty.
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| The sunflower field. |
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| A monarch butterfly on a sunflower. |
On Thursday we started harvesting our grapes and we canned three gallons of grape juice. Stacey, Hannah, and Miriam wrapped the cabbages and put them in storage. On Saturday I canned 12 pints of beets. During the week I also canned two more gallons of tomato sauce and another five pints of applesauce. I’m ready to end the canning season now, but there are still more tomatoes ripening on the back porch and there are pumpkins to process.
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| Wrapping cabbages. |
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| Canned beets. |
Way back in May, when the growing season was just beginning, the maple trees bloomed. They don’t bloom every year. Their flowers are not showy. They hang in chartreuse or reddish tassels that are spectacular in their own way. That was May. Now those flowers have matured into seeds. Maple seeds are officially called keys, but we have always called them helicopters because they spin as they fall from the trees. Right now they are falling in thousands upon thousands. On a breezy day, showers of them spin down across my yard. It is exciting to see it – at least now in the fall it is. In the spring those thousands of funny little helicopter seeds will sprout everywhere they have landed – all over the lawn, in the flower beds, on the roof of the house, and in the rain gutters. Next spring I will spend a lot of time and effort preventing this place from becoming a maple forest. But that is half a year away.
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| Scenery on one of our drives. |
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| More scenery. |
We had company this weekend. Tabor and Rachel and their girls are here with Tabor’s brother Derek and his family. On Friday they drove up and toured the church history sites in Palmyra. They spent the night up there and on Saturday they went to Fayette and Harmony. They got here yesterday evening. They went to church with us today. The Derek Thayn family just left to drive home. They live in Illinois. Tabor and Rachel and the girls are staying the night and will leave for home in the morning.
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| The Illinois Thayn family. |
Meanwhile in Italy: Daniel and Emma helped with the olive harvest and then went to the place where they press the olive oil. It looks like an impressive operation. We haven’t heard much from Daniel, but Emma wrote and described the olive harvest. She wrote: “This week and next week is the olive harvest. A friend of the family owns over 200 olive trees on the steepest piece of land I have ever stood or worked on. On a scale of one to steep, I'd give it an 8. The first day we harvested only by hand. The second day two of the men started using the machines, which are hand-held sticks that shake the trees into submission and all the olives fall. The hand pickers (me and everyone else) climb the trees to pick the olives the machines miss and change the nets to catch and collect the olives. Our goal is 1000 lbs a day. All of the olives we harvest are turned into olive oil. They call it green gold. I now know why. I don't think I'll ever be able to drink Costco olive oil with much satisfaction. The olive oil here is fantastic. And so much work. We started with seven workers. After two days, a couple of the Germans staying at the house said they felt exploited and that the work was too rigorous for just an exchange of food and housing... Farm drama. So . . . now we are down to just Daniel and me, plus Felipe, our host, and the owner of the orchards. We got through around 100 olive trees this past week, and will continue to work on the next 100 in the next. I love it here. The view never gets old. I get to watch the sunrise every morning as I feed the turkeys, the ducks, the chickens, and the rabbits. Notice that the list of my responsibilities has gotten longer. Bless the exploited Germans.”
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| The olive trees. |
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| The olives heading for the press. |
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| Tanks of olive oil. |
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| The local scenery. |
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| More local scenery. |
After two days of perfect fall weather, today it is blustery. It rained during the night. The wind has stripped most of the leaves from maples in my yard. The lawn is covered with a layer of soggy leaves. Tomorrow is Columbus Day and we don’t have school. I had big plans for the day, a long list of things to do outside, but it looks like it will rain all day. I’ll spend the day indoors canning instead.
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| How things look here. |
