There is a definite shift this week. Cooler air, shortening days, things are slower to ripen. I may just be able to catch my breath. Well, atleast I can stop canning tomatoes. I have opened my garden to a couple of friends to come glean the Great Wall of Tomatoes. It is hard for me to leave a vegetable unharvested. I have an intense compulsion to put up everything even when I already have enough. I have more than enough! Sharing and letting them do the picking allows me to let go of some of that obsession. I have gardened too big again this year. I continue to search for a good balance. I am happy to share but, by growing too much, other things in my life are neglected...including my very own body! So as the harvest continues and I check things off the final Grand Garden List I am also taking careful notes on how I can do less next year. I only managed one beach day this summer! What's the point of living near the coast and not swimming in the ocean?
Soooo Many Tomatoes!
Some Potatoes Harvested ~ More among the weeds
Another fall activity, DH mowing the back field so it remains a field.
It has been more than 2 years since that last mowing.
He does enjoy his tractor time!
Here is a haul that actually took very little of my time. Just 2 hills of each produced all of these Butternut Squash and Long Pie Pumpkins. My first time growing these pumpkins. I am excited to have found so many while I harvested....lots of weeds among the vines! They are supposed to be good keepers and great for pie! Here is a link to FEDCO Seeds with a description--> http://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/search.php?search=long+pie&item=1723&inde
Went out a few nights ago looking for the Aurora. No luck but still very beautiful.
A moment of stillness that was much needed during the frenzied fall.
One of my most favorite bits of writing ~~~
THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry
