summer's end

We made it through summer! and what a summer it was... we had to struggle with the drought conditions, but made it without too much damage.

This fall has already seen the birth of two new calves, a girl and a boy, with one still to come in the next day or two.

At the moment we are in that interval between seasons, where summer production in the garden slows down, and the fall crops are not yet come on. Our new raised garden beds worked wonderfully, production from them was heavy at the peak, and is still happening at a slower pace, with the shortened days after the equinox, and the cool nights. The green beans vines are still blooming galore, their little new beans swing in the air like little green earnings. They taste wonderfully fresh, when I pick them and put them straight in the pot.

Our big apple produced another crazy huge crop, we finally got it all picked, for which we are thankful...please no more apple sauce to can...(just kidding) apple sauce is yummy come mid winter. The pantry overflows with food put up this summer.

While we haven't finished it yet, the pizza oven has a good start, and the indoor market area is much closer to completion, thanks to the help of friends and some wonderful WWOOFers. So much can be done when people work together.

 Fall is a wonderful season, pumpkins, apples, pies, and lots of cheese making with the freshening of three new cows. 

This season we will be making beer, mead, and bread, as well as perfecting our own brand of Tomme style cheese, and some other hard cheeses. The weather is perfect for aging all three things, as well as fermenting  kombucha. 

Hopefully we will have a wetter fall/winter than last, we really missed the wild mushrooms last fall/winter which failed to appear in the unseasonable dry. By November we will know if we will be "shroomin".

We are hoping to find a WWOOFer (s) to help us out starting mid October, who would be willing to stay through mid November and who is into learning how to milk cows and feed calves, among other things. Chris is going back to see his folks in Va. for a week in Oct. We thought we had the bases covered, with two helpx kids, who suddenly up and left three weeks early, fresh from the city, naive about the realities of farm living. Too bad, but oh well. They were our first two helpX selections and apparently into farm living as long as it didn't require actually living on a farm, critters, hay, dirt, calf slobber, manure, spiders ...controlled chaos...you know... the whole catastrophe.