The wind and rains are rolling in on these late fall evenings – a reminder that winter is rapping on our door. Here are some snippets of what autumn has looked like on our homestead.
Fall creates a mix of cool blues and gray-greens in the front yard, dotted with yellow leaves from our trumpet vine and quince shrubs. Scarlets pop up here and there from the small dogwood and aronia bush. Morning dew hangs on a spider’s web that keeps growing and growing in the dogwood.
I decided this year that I wanted one HUGE pumpkin for the front porch. Thankfully, my dad helped this little dream come true with a 70 pound pumpkin he grew as a gift for Juniper.
We could barely roll this sucker into the back of our car…
We visited a local farm to fill out the rest of the gourd collection on our porch. We’re planning to eat them one at a time over the next few weeks.
This warty, bumpy beauty is a Galeux D”Eysines. I’m especially excited to cook up this French heirloom.
Other tasty varieties include Rogue Vif D’etampes (also called a Cinderella pumpkin), some small pie pumpkins and ghostly white pumpkins.
Last week I had a dream that I was standing in the garden in the middle of the night during the first hard frost of the year. I so vividly remember seeing the tomatoes slumped over, finally to sleep at last from the temperature dipping below freezing. I woke up the next morning, realizing it was a dream. (Of course it was – I pulled out my tomatoes weeks ago!)
The crazy thing is that night had indeed been the first hard frost – marking the end of the season. Daybreak greeted me with that low light that is so familiar to winter. It caught the asian persimmon on the side yard and just made it look electric with light. I’ve loved autumn this year, but I find myself ready to welcome winter with open arms.
