harvest time

It is fall, though it doesn't quite feel like it.  We are having unseasonably warm temps--high 80s and 90s--though it's gorgeously cool at night (mid-40s) and the sunlight is beginning to slant in a long, southerly kind of way.  School has begun, Greg is busy teaching, I am busy finding volunteers for MNHC's school programs . . . and we are both busy eating the glorious abundance of food from our garden.  It's tomato season, friends!  And boy, oh boy, are we rejoicing.

Pounds upon pounds of tomatoes, guarded by Basil:

And here, those same tomatoes cooked into sauce, along with our very own onions, peppers, garlic, basil, oregano, and parsley (the only thing in this sauce that did not come from our garden is a tablespoon of olive oil!):

Beautiful corn, tomatoes, peppers:

A meal made almost completely of veggies from our garden (except for the eggs): corn on the cob; an eggy scramble with tomatoes, onions, and peppers; and a saute of kale, onions, and carrots.  Yum.

Our own personal "CSA" box for my birthday weekend in Hamilton:

And, oh, yes, let's not forget about our Very First Peach Harvest--two, count them, TWO, peaches!  Yeah, they didn't last long.

And, perhaps most exciting of all, is this little brown jewel we found in the henhouse last week.  Folks, the ladies are layin'!

YUM.

Tonight we had edamame made with our very own soybeans (a new crop this year), and we are almost ready to harvest all our dry beans--black beans, red beans, yellow Hungarian beans, garbanzo beans.  Our onions are drying, we have fall carrots and beets and spinach and broccoli planted, and we are overwhelmed with cherry tomatoes.  I am amazed by the abundance.  Some crops have done much better this year than last year; some have done worse.  But we are still growing a satisfying amount of food.  I love being hungry and not having to go farther than the backyard to satisfy that hunger.  Isn't it incredible?  And we even have the ability to preserve our food, so that we can enjoy the tastes of summer in January.  We've blanched and frozen spinach and garlic scapes; frozen rhubarb and raspberries; cooked and frozen tomato sauce; canned crushed tomatoes; dried garlic and onions; put potatoes and beets into the cold cellar.  Isn't food amazing?  And isn't it amazing that we can grow it ourselves?  It still seems like a miracle, even after our third summer of gardening.  

The biggest of excitement of last week was, of course, the EGGS.  We've been caring for our ladies since they were four days old, in mid-April, and now they're grown up and starting to lay eggs.  We THINK it was Buttercup who's been laying the eggs, but it's hard to tell since we're not always around when the eggs are being laid!  The first two were laid right in the nest box, where they were supposed to be, but the third was laid in the middle of the coop (after a day's hiatus), and today there were no eggs.  Greg and I are sincerely hoping that the chickens aren't eating their own eggs (which we've heard they'll do sometimes), but we're a bit confused about the lack of eggs these past couple of days, especially when Henrietta and Buttercup are squawking and clucking emphatically about once a day, as chickens generally do before (and while) laying eggs.   Any insight from chicken owners out there?  I'm sure it will all work out, but I'm impatient to start eating eggs exclusively from our very own chickens.  Fingers crossed.

Here's to fall, to harvest, to life and abundance from our beautiful earth.  Here's to the richness and sweetness of this part of the cycle.  Yum.