Perfect September days
This is such a blissful
time of year. It's not too hot; it's not too cold. The huge summer
preservation push is mostly over (although I've still got a few things
left to pack away, like these peppers, recently blanched and fated for
the freezer); the fall crops are starting to come in. And even though
the garden needs some weeding still, I'm starting to feel like my work
is making a difference rather than just pacing along on the summer
treadmill.
Meanwhile, the oats
I planted over the last six weeks are getting big enough that I'm
starting to let our goats eat the largest plants even though there's
still plenty of greenery elsewhere. The early feeding isn't really
spoiling our herd, nor is it being wasteful. Instead, I know from
experience that if I let this fall cover crop flower, the plants will
perish faster when the cold weather hits. By grazing the oldest
plantings now, our herd will set the cover crop back into vegetative
mode so the goats can graze the same ground once again after winter
comes knocking.
I owe you some photos of the front garden renovations
I'm still in the middle of, but you'll have to wait on those. Instead,
here are some of the carrots I harvested to clear out beds so I could
shovel dirt around and create one long row. I took the time to rinse off
each root so I could easily sort the imperfect goat carrots out of the
perfect human carrots. The picture above is the latter --- all straight
and spotless, perfect for winter cooking.
If I make it sound like
it's all work and no play around here...you'd know I was lying.
Sometimes, the goats suck me out into the woods two times a day instead
of just one, in fact. So maybe our hooved friends aren't the only farm
residents who are spoiled in late September.