An Unexpected Visit

Shortly after returning from the wedding of our daughter Jenny to her new husband Steve up in Minnesota we were sitting in the family room on a Sunday morning when there was a knock on the door and it was them. They were on a driving honeymoon and had been to Niagara Falls, they swung by North Carolina to visit youngest son Alex and made the trek to see us and we couldn't have been more delighted.

Steve grew up on a farm in Minnesota but Jenny finds everything on our farm new and fascinating and its a lot of fun watching her explore and interact with the animals. She may be almost 30 but she hasn't lost her sense of wonder at the beauty of nature and I like to think she got that from me.

We got a kick out of her taking pictures of everything from the big animals to in this case a grasshopper Steve found for her in our pasture.

We used some ripe Juniper berries in a roast recipe we fixed for them and she was amazed when we just went out and got some off the trees and of course she had to take pictures. We did a lot of hunting, fishing, crabbing and gathering when she was growing up but the bounty of this area is something she finds unique.

Halloween is a big deal in our house because Holly and I married on Halloween and to us its a joyful day and marks the start of the holiday season. We may all be adults but we all still like to carve pumpkins and we have a blast with the kids who come for trick or treat. So, since they were here we all carved pumpkins.

Steve is a bit more artistic than most of us and carved an Insane Clown Posse pumpkin (I had to Google it) that looked just like the pictures on the Interwebs.

We are thinking that in the not too distant future there may be 4 generations here on the farm carving pumpkins..hint, hint

And so this is what our Trick or Treaters were met with when they came to our door, from left to right, Steve's Insane Clown Posse, mine, Jenny's, Judy's traditional, and Holly's rabbit jack-o-lantern.

 

It was short but it was a good visit.

 

Fall is Here...Gardening and Halloween Decorating

Hauling the hay for the front Halloween decorations Holly wanted.

Hay from our pasture, corn and sorghum stalks from our garden and pumpkins from our pumpkin patch...the scarecrow from Walmart!!

We started plowing the lower garden for next years croips and we plan on planting winter weat next week.

It looks cold in this photo but it was about 75 degrees...but it does look like fall which is my favorite time of the year.

It was time to knock down the corn field and plant winter wheat.

Throughly enjoyable task; brought back memories of the great corn harvest we had this year.

The sorghum patch in the background will remain for a bit longer. We have been cutting stalks and sucking on them like you would sugar cane..very sweet. Once we cut it down we will use it for silage for the horses.

We have composted regularly and have several good piles that actually steam when you turn them. Next week we are going to pick up a truck load of manure we were offered to add to some of our piles and to spread in the garden...prepping for next spring.

The supervisor

The boss with some of her carrots. She planted a variety of colors and though they look cool, I cant tell the difference. We still have a lot of carrots in the ground yet to harvest.

The bell peppers, turnips, beets, and carrots are all still doing well (we use row covers when frost is possible). We also have broccoli, cauliflower, and spinach in another garden and a bunch of herbs, tomatoes, lettuce and raddishes in the greenhouse.

The old corn patch ready for winter wheat sowing.

The new plot, less grass to mow, prepping for the spring, and ready for winter wheat.

The oaks are really changing colors too.

The new patch from the barn, the grass on this side of the big tree is where the leach field is so we cant plant there....I will have to continue to mow it.

We had a huge crops of persimmons off of our two persimmon trees. Once the frost hit them they went from bitter to sweet almost overnight but we had so many we couldnt give them away.