On Wednesday we will arrive at the Autumnal Equinox, the first official day of fall. The season has already gotten a head start. The trees are changing fast. So far the colors have not been very bright. I hope that changes as the season advances. Fall can be a spectacular season here. In a good year, the colors are unbelievably beautiful. But it is always a short season. All it takes is a storm, a windy day, a hard rain, and it all goes away. Already the days are short enough that I have to turn lights on when I dress in the morning to avoid wearing mismatched socks. With the shrinking daylight the chickens have slowed down on egg laying. We only get a dozen or so a day now. Soon they will lay even fewer until we arrive at the bleak days of December, January, and February when they lay none at all. Dark days indeed.
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| The garden this morning. |
I finished processing honey on Monday. We got a gallon of honey and pound of beeswax. It wasn’t a huge yield, but better than last year when we got none. The weather was cool on Monday and the bees seemed to have settled down. They’ve been so aggressive the past few weeks that I haven’t been able to do any work in the garden without being chased indoors by them. I’ve been planning to move the hive out to the orchard and I thought Monday just after sunset when it was cold and dark and the bees were inactive, we could do that. I was wrong. We all went out in the last light of twilight. The hive weighs almost a hundred pounds and sits on a platform and I knew it would take all four of us to move it. There are three entrance holes on the hive. Two of the holes were clear of bees and I plugged them without any problems. On the outside of third hole, however, there were some bees loitering. When I tried to plug the hole, a bee flew up and stung me on the neck. We all fled to the house. My neck swelled up – another bad reaction that took four days to subside. So the beehive is still in the same place and I’m still unable to work in the garden. Tonight the temperature is supposed to drop into the 30's and I’m hoping they will all go into the hive and we can move them at last. I have so much I need to do in the garden. I’m pretty frustrated with these bees. I’m thinking I may have to give up keeping a hive.
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| A gallon of honey and a pound of wax. |
I cleared out my pumpkin patch on Monday. The vines were already dead and I didn’t want to leave the pumpkins so exposed. It was a meager harvest. I only got eight of the small, but delicious, Winter Luxury pumpkins that I planted and babied all summer. I also harvested eight compost pumpkins that I didn’t plant and there are six more still growing in other parts of the yard. They came from a decorative pumpkin that got tossed in the compost pile last year. I don’t know if they’ll be good to eat. We’ll see in few weeks when we process all the pumpkins.
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| Pumpkins and a few squash. |
The pears we got last week ripened quickly and on Tuesday we began canning them. We finished the last batch late Saturday night. We canned 33 quarts. In a week or so we will have grapes to can. We ordered several flats of them from the Amish. We will turn them all into juice. After that, canning season will be over.
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| Watching Doctor Who while canning pears. |
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| Thirty-three quarts of pears. |
I’ve begun bringing all my potted plants onto the back porch. The nights have been chilly and I try to make the plants last as long as I can. Some of them – the geraniums, polka dot plants, and coleus I will bring into the house and try to get them through the winter. The rest will perish with the first freeze hard enough to penetrate the back porch.
The mornings of late have been so lovely. All week as we’ve driven to school in the mornings Josiah and I have been awestruck by the beauty of the sun shining on the forested hillsides and fields of ripe corn and the valleys filled with low fog that glows in the golden sunlight. On those weekday mornings I never have time to stop and take pictures, but on Saturday morning I set out with the camera to try and capture some of the beauty. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a foggy morning, but the sunshine was bright and it was beautiful enough. I drove up to the top of the Gazdag Road and then down to the Young’s farm on the Pusher Siding. Then I came home and took a walk around my own property. I have to remember now to take my camera with me everywhere I go.
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| The view from the top of the Gazdag Road looking toward Ulysses. |
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| The Young farm. |
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| The beaver pond. |
We had a storm last night and it is sunny but chilly today. I think we might get our first freeze tonight. This afternoon we will have to bend our Sabbath rules a little and pick all of the tomatoes still on the vines. I don’t want them to freeze. Our new wood stove has its pipe now and is fully functional. We might get to try it out for the first time tonight. The garden is on its last legs now. There are still dahlias blooming. The autumn blooming crocuses (colchicum) are in flower now, the garden’s last hurrah. The morning glories on the front porch seem in a rush to bloom all they can before the end comes. The end may come tonight.
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| Dahlias still blooming. |
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| Autumn blooming crocuses. |
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| Morning glories at the end of summer. |
