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.