Will is busy raking and baling hay. Yes, he’s late but so are most of the other farmers in our area, due to our crazy weather. And breakdowns! It’s a beautiful fall day for it with highs in the 70s F, and lows only in the high fifties. We’re so grateful.

On Monday, we had a wonderful homeschool group from up north come for a homestead tour. The kids and their parents got to taste test a lot of tomatoes, we dug some potatoes and explained how we saved seeds. It was so much fun we’re still talking about it. I love the kids’ excitement.

I’m busy shelling beans in the mornings when it’s too cool and wet to work outside.

Yesterday, we pulled in more beans, thanks to our friend, Dara. We were getting ready to pick her a crate of tomatoes to take home and can when Will motioned to the west. Thunder? It wasn’t supposed to rain. He was all hooked up to rake hay! Dara, Mike, and I headed out to the Wolf Garden, lickety split, in the solar golf cart and picked tomatoes like mad, all the time watching the clouds overhead rolling closer and closer. We got about half a crate full and called it quits, hearing thunder rolling closer. We didn’t want to get struck by lightning! We got to the house and got them loaded when it started raining. Fortunately for Will’s hay, it didn’t rain hard or long. So, today, he’s out raking and baling.

This is the crate of assorted tomatoes I picked just ahead of the three days’ frost advisories that the cows ended up eating most of.

I shelled out the last bunch of Chippewa dry beans this morning. They are such prolific, fast-drying, tasty beans! And a pretty golden tan too. Later, it’s out to the front porch to seed out more tomatoes before they rot on me. The dratted cows escaped and got into the green-nearly ripe tomatoes and munched a bunch down. It’s lucky they didn’t hop onto the porch and eat them all! Of course, then I would have heard them as the bedroom window is right over the head of the bed.

One of the beautiful fall wild asters, blooming along the Wolf Garden fence. We value our pollinators, year-around.

— Jackie

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