I also love fall because it is harvest time, and harvest time came a few weeks early this year, on labour day weekend actually, I went out to the garden to find everything in sight dead. It had went down to minus 3 that night, and perhaps if I had of read the paper, listened to the radio, or even turned on the dang T.V. I would have known. But I didn't see it coming, and I woke up to a dead garden. I really wasn't overly upset, it has been a long trying summer, and I am ready to start bringing in my bumper crop ( I hope!) of veggies. It began with all of the dead tomato plants, from my pretty boat, and picking the 10 lbs or so of cherry tomatoes. I did that outside in the sunshine and warmth of a nice fall afternoon. I made my 9 jars of green tomato Chow Chow 2 nights later, it is just too good to resist, but to make a mental note that you all will witness, next year remind me to purchase a dang food processor! All of my beans and pattison were already inside the house and most of it was already pickled in the pantry. I had run out of jars, so I had to go out to Canadian Tire to buy another case or, 2, ha ha actually 3! But I should have enough extra ones now to do my beets as well. So that must have me up to a good 75 jars now, but they aren't sitting around empty, they all have good food in them, or will very soon.
My next mission is
to begin digging my potatoes 4 - 65 foot rows to be precise, that is a lot of taters to dig, let me tell ya, but the bright side is that we don't really have to buy potatoes for a good 10 months of the year, we have a nice little cold room in the basement and they all go in there on the floor, in their original dirt. Next will be my beets, all of them will be canned and I might even go and buy a big bag of them when they go on sale for cheap at the grocery store, because pickled beets are a real favourite here in this house. Last out will be the onions and garlic, they will be hung to dry in the cold room above the potatoes, to be used for the winters cooking.After the whole garden is out, I will till the soil, toss on my compost pile, clean the chicken coop and for good measure spread all that manure and shavings finely on top. I will till again so it is all together and composts properly over the winter. Then I will plant my garlic, you see I married an Italian, and although my Mom was a very simple cook with very little to no spices at all other then salt and black pepper, in my house we really enjoy our garlic, herbs and spices. But garlic does best if you plant it in the fall, you have to think of it like a yummy tulip that needs that cold spell then the very early and wet spring. That is what makes it happy, and the only way to grow it up this far North.
If you were to come to my house this time of year you can usually smell the kitchen out in the yard, the boys step out of the school bus and smell the air, and on top of the smell of poplar in the fall (another favourite around here) will be the smells wafting from my kitchen window, they come in and take a little walk around the kitchen to see if I happened to have any extra little pieces hanging around for them, I usually do, and it will tide them over till its time to sit down for supper. The smells are of canning and preparing winter meals in bulk, I do my meat pies and cabbage rolls in the fall as well then again in January. Normally making a good dozen meat pies in one afternoon, then I am set for the first half of the winter and Christmas. Cabbage rolls are made by the hundreds, then frozen in meal size portions so that I can have those quick and easy meals in the winter when the weather is just too nice to spend the day inside cooking.
Christmas baking doesn't usually begin till later October, after Thanksgiving has passed and it has cooled off some more in the house. Our woodshed should be full by then and a few of cord of firewood will be tossed into the basement because we will be lighting a fire at night here and there, especially if I wasn't using the oven that day. Hockey will have begun and we will be looking forward to waking up to that first snow fall, the kind that makes little boys giggle like little girls, and the kind that makes my hubby grin ear to ear because he gets to get out the snow plow and play in the yard in 4x4. Then hens will all be locked in together and relying only on me to provide food and water for them, the extra roosters will be butchered and made into soup for cool winter Sundays. Yup, I sure do love fall.
Fall means winter and that means time to dig out all the winter gear, and/or go buy new coats, boots, hats, mitts, and vests, I would like to take this opportunity to mention something close to my heart. PLEASE do not buy anything with real or fake fur on it. The "faux" furs that come from China where the majority of our clothing comes from is not fake, and very often the furs are from cats and dogs, they are skinned alive and left to die with no remorse. It is estimated that10 million dogs are slaughtered annually in China. Real furs often passed of as fox, lynx, wolf and rabbit, are also very often from dogs and cats, just dyed and trimmed. At Chinese fur farms the animals are abused and neglected to the extreme. Please don't buy any furs, real, or fake. Even the fur trim around your boots or mitts can be from a dog or cat! We as privileged folks must quit supporting such barbaric practices and then it will end feel free to do your own research, I actually encourage you to. Look up videos on You Tube about the Chinese fur trade, but be forewarned these are not for the faint of heart and not for a true dog or cat lover unless you are willing to make a stand and quit supporting them and to pass this message on to your friends and family. This is an excellent and informative video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkw_OUnVXqM
Thank you evryone, and keep warm this winter without the furs. We do!
May you always walk in sunshine.......
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