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Signs of fall
I've been feeling autumn
looming all week. Don't get me wrong --- I love autumn --- but on
the farm autumn means that winter will be here soon. No more
drifting through summer. It's time to get serious about stocking
up the harvest, burying our water line the rest of the way, finding
firewood, and building our shed.
For this weekend, though, I'm just enjoying the floral abundance. The seeds I tossed in the ground this summer are finally starting to bloom, like the brilliant red zinnia on the right. At the edges of the woods, goldenrod, joe-pye-weed, wingstem, thistles, jewelweed, and ironweed are blazing.
In the garden, we're eating our first crisp lettuce with none of the summer bitterness. Butternut squash vines are dying back as sugars concentrate in their fruits and the last of our staggered corn plantings is starting to tassle. Even the air is starting to smell of autumn --- that first tang of falling leaves. The dog days of summer are over. It's all downhill from here.
For this weekend, though, I'm just enjoying the floral abundance. The seeds I tossed in the ground this summer are finally starting to bloom, like the brilliant red zinnia on the right. At the edges of the woods, goldenrod, joe-pye-weed, wingstem, thistles, jewelweed, and ironweed are blazing.
In the garden, we're eating our first crisp lettuce with none of the summer bitterness. Butternut squash vines are dying back as sugars concentrate in their fruits and the last of our staggered corn plantings is starting to tassle. Even the air is starting to smell of autumn --- that first tang of falling leaves. The dog days of summer are over. It's all downhill from here.
Shame-faced plug: Check out the chicken
waterer that funds this blog.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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