Preparing for Fall

As I sit here typing, there is a dehydrator loaded with floral-smelling plums for the rabbits, and two crock pots full of carefully picked over windfall apples being cooked down for this year's Apple Butter.  The plums have replaced several loads of apples, also from our trees, and also for the rabbits.  I now have a huge jar of apple slices to mark the beginning of my winter preparations, and the house smells wonderful.  Jars need to be brought out of storage and cleaned soon, since it's getting cool enough to think about thawing some frozen backyard berries and making my supply of jams in a warm kitchen. 

Fall has come quickly (though it doesn't technically arrive until this weekend), with temperatures last week hitting record highs of 30 degrees - this week we might just barely break 20.  I've closed up the tomato plants, in the hopes that the fruit will continue to ripen - we enjoyed our first Black Cherry tomatoes at about 120 days after planting the seedlings out, which is almost double the time it should have taken.  They were delicious, but I think I might be taking a break from growing tomatoes next year, as I simply don't have the heart - or the sun exposure they need, since my neighbours doubled the size of their house.

The multiplier onions and shallots are cured and cleaned, and now I need to put aside the bulbs that I will be planting out this month along with our garlic. Kidney and Cranberry bean pods were pulled from the vines last week, to finish drying and be shelled and sorted, and the Borlotti beans are almost ready to be harvested. Parsley, coriander, and Celery Leaf seed are being harvested as the plants mature, for use either as seasonings in the kitchen, or seeds for next year's crops.  The tomatillo fruits are small this year, and none are yet ready for harvesting. Maybe they'll ripen with last of the tomatoes, or we can use them and some of the nicer green tomatoes for a Salsa Verde.

I pulled the amaranth and quinoa plants from the garden, as they were threatening to shatter their seeds on the ground, and they are still drying out a bit. The millet I pulled this morning, because the threat of heavy rain was making me nervous.  I'm not very impressed with the handful of seedheads from my attempts with these grains, but will try to do a bit more research over the winter, and try again next year with better soil preparation. Five row-feet of each variety, and I merely have some extra seed for the garden.

We performed a hive inspection yesterday, and found there are a lot of workers still tending brood (we were interested to see a bee emerging from a cell)  I don't feel comfortable with the amount of stores I'm seeing, so I think I will need to supplement their nectar with some syrup soon, to make sure they have time to prepare it for storage, and to make it through the winter. 

Jodie and Celine slept with the other girls for the first time on Saturday night, so we were thinking that things had finally settled in our little flock.  Sunday night, at the beginning of a thunderstorm, I went out to close everyone in for the night, and found our little twosome again perched on the back stairs, with Celine valiantly trying to shelter her no-longer-little chick.

I quickly grabbed Jodie, not wanting to spend the next hour trying to corner her in the rain if she decided to take flight, and brought her inside to ask Adrian to grab Celine down from the stairs, since my hands were full.

We took a picture of Jodie in the dining room, since it has become impossible to get very close to her during day-to-day interaction.  She is disappointingly suspicious of us!