Deer hunting, Thanksgiving, family

It's almost 9:00 on this Saturday morning in November. Weekly wash is on the clothesline and the noodle dough is done that I will make into noodles tomorrow. A lot of things will be done today that I normally spread across the 2 day weekend because it is deer hunting season and if Mike shoots a deer today, tomorrow we will butcher and that will take both of us all day (minus the time I need to make the noodles--have an upcoming order for them). My middle daughter got her deer last week on the first day of season--she has only missed one year getting her first deer of the season on the first day of season in all the 15 years she has hunted. She brought summer sausage and jerky to me Thursday evening. We will have our granddaughter for the night tonight. Christmas presents to make and she would like to do something special for her mom. I hid the evidence of the striped stocking cap that I am making for her and while she is here I will work on a knitted purse for her mother. So many things to do. This year, I am giving everyone a copy of the cookbook I am putting together from 2 old church cookbooks from this area. My grandmother and other neighbors and relatives now long gone contributed to those and I want my children to have the recipes. Have some clip art and more recipes to add before I am done, but it will make nice family gifts. Next week for Thanksgiving, there will just be 6 of us at the table. #2 and #3 daughters are going to Iowa for Thanksgiving with their father. My sisters have their families for dinner. So # 1 daughter, granddaughter and Mom and Dad will be here. Even though #1 daughter has been without work for a year and just recently got a 2 day per week job, we have a lot to be thankful for. All of us are healthy and we are certainly grateful for that. Dad had 2 hip replacements this past year and he is ready to run a marathon to hear him talk. Mom has had a few problems with a hernia that they are still working with, but she will probably be just fine. Mike and I have our jobs. #2 daughter still has her job although it is uncertain if her company will lay her off at the end of the year. #3 daughter is finishing her Ph.D. So, I would say, while it hasn't been very economically profitable and disaster still looms on the horizon, we will get through it. Very difficult to tolerate those who keep telling us that the economy is looking up, but that's my other blog.

Indian Summer weekend, finishing the harvest

The past weekend was absolutely beautiful. Mike dug and stored 10 bushels of potatoes. Guess we won’t run out and neither will two of my daughters and my parents. Our granddaughter (age 9) helped me to pick up all the winter squashes left over in the Garden B. She worked like a trooper. After all of that, she searched through the old sweet corn stalks in Garden C for cobs with corn left on it to shell it and feed to the chickens. Then she helped Mike with potato digging. Needless to say, she fell asleep at 7:30, barely having enough time to eat supper. She still looks at “work” as fun! We wish that we could keep that feeling all of our lives. To top off a beautiful Saturday afternoon, we looked up and there was a bald eagle soaring towards the river. Our grain farmer friends are busy harvesting as much corn and grain as they can get out before it rains again. As we went to bed last night, I could see the lights from their combines in the field across the road.
Already, we are planning next year’s gardens as we finish the harvest of these. We talk about what not to plant, how much to plant, what did well at the Farmer's Market, how much fertilizer we will need, what spots could use extra compost, how we need to rotate the crops. Broccoli is finally done and we gradually feed the stalks to the chickens until they have all been pulled from the dirt. A large pile of spaghetti squash (don’t ask—an experiment gone haywire) is at the chicken house gate to cut up for the chickens every evening. We try to have at least something fresh to give to them until winter truly sets in.
Liberty and I made pies to take to my daughter’s house for Sunday supper. I roasted butternut squash in the oven the day before and, after they became soft, set them out to cool. By mid-afternoon, I made “pumpkin” pies and an apple pie. I learned a long time ago that butternut squash can be used exactly like pumpkin because it also is a winter squash. Now I make all of my pumpkin recipes with butternut squash--a lot easier to handle than pumpkins. Mike was anxious to get the potatoes in, not just because the cold weather is coming, but because deer hunting starts soon and he wanted to be sure to have all the garden prep done so that he could concentrate on that. We will need another freezer in the barn for that. This year, especially, we want to have enough meat stored. There will be a lot of people trying to keep warm and fed this year and maybe we can help. Of course, some smart guy keeps telling us on the news that the recession (ok, if you want to sugarcoat it, you COULD call it a recession) is winding down. I think that was just about the same time that the U.S. hit 10.2% unemployment—the worst in 28 years! Don’t get me started. I have another blog for that.