Independence Days Update: Running Behind
Sharon September 30th, 2010
I have such a long list of things I need to do this autumn. We haven’t gotten our firewood stacked. We only have half our hay in. I haven’t set up the row covers for the fall crops. I haven’t even ordered my garlic (pickin’s are going to be slim). I am firmly, wildly behind.
This is often the case as the holidays finish - the difference is that generally speaking I’m caught up in September and panicked in October, and this year the holidays came early. The good thing about this is that I have October to catch up. The bad thing is that because they came early, I feel further behind than usual. But Simchat Torah is tonight, and that’s the last of the celebrations.
The garden has mostly petered out - we harvested most of the summer crops, and all that’s left is the winter stuff and the occasional ripening tomato. The corn still has to come in, and I haven’t dug the potatoes, sweet poatoes and turnips yet, but that can wait. I have some winter wheat and cover crops to plant, but that will take time.
I’m so busy with other work that really, a lot has slid. I haven’t harvested everything I should have - but somehow the jars and shelves are filling up anyway. This is the good thing about a little bit here and a little bit there being part of our life - spates of discombobulation don’t have as deep an effect as they used to.
And we’re having fun - despite the fact that I’m prone to worrying about what I haven’t done, we had a lot of guests, laughed a lot, ate a lot of good food, celebrated, made new friends, played with old ones and have had a lot of joy. So I guess I’m ok with running behind.
Planted: Nothing
Harvested: Tomatoes, hot peppers, squash, carrots, lettuce, kale, collards, wormwood, beets, potatoes, milk, a diminishing number of eggs, eggplant.
Preserved: Made some milk into cheese, pickled some hot peppers, made some kim chi
Waste Not: Nothing special, the usual composting and feeding things to other things.
Want Not: Eric and I both got badly needed shoes. Ordered the kids chanukah fuzzy pajamas.
Eat the Food: Eggplant everywhere - baba ganoush, strange flavor eggplant, parmagiana, with pomegranate molasses. Also many apples.
Community Food Solutions: Did three talks on local food production. More coming!
How about you?
Sharon