Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful time visitng friends in Sandpoint for Thanksgiving. Our visit was cut short unfortunately becuase I am sick ;o( so we came back last night in the rain. But I was able to to sleep in till 10 today...so nice but alas, I am up late.... David and I have so many things to be thankful for but one thing, the most important thing is we are thankful that we serve an omnipotent triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thank you Father that you love us and you seek us out to know you so we can experience your abundant grace, love and perfect peace!

The garden is put up and the trees have dropped all their leaves. Seems like fall came late and hit hard this year. We had the opportunity to go to Green Bluff with the Woods this weekend before the snow, which they say will be likely by Thursday. Was fun...we just hung out , took in the air and scenery. A little hot apple cider and carmel apples were an added bonus.

Looking forward to sharing these cherished times with Eva one day.

Wo men ai ni Eva!

Fall Pumpkins

This is the first year we grew pumpkins. I made the mistake of planting only one seed of each variety though. The two larger pumpkin plants only produced one each of the jade and one of the orange while the mini jacks yielded a bakers dozen. Those are so fun and easy and make great fall decorations. I will definitely do pumpkins again next but to increase yields, I think will do three plantings instead of just one.

David and I will still go up to Green Bluff to get carvers for Halloween. One each of us and one for little Eva too!

I harvested the cornstalks and used them to decorate the front stoop since that was all they were ever going to be good for . Again, it was an obvious pollination issue since there was no shortage of ears. They were just not producing kernels. Grrrr....after two years I feel kind of guilty about giving up but I think corn is just too fussy for me. I will gladly use that extra space for more potatoes next year.

One of many summer harvests....

This years summer harvest far exceeded expectations. Still have some things to work out but all in all we were pleased. Tomatoes, squash, potatoes, onions, carrots, beets, strawberries, herbs, flowers and eggs all in abundance.

We had our first frost yesterday, October 7th. I still have carrots and beet seedlings under cover in one bed. I wonder if I was too late. Celery and strawberries seem unaffected by that first frost but as with everything, they will be soon enough.

Preparing for fall with cleanup and composting. Leaves have not turned on the big maples yet.

Before & After

We should get a bumper crop of cucumbers (huge lush plants on the right) based on all the little ones I can see already...we have slicers and picklers. The baby doll watermelons...not too sure if we'll get any(grey plants front left). Hard to tell on the Hales Best muskmelons...(back left) I cant get back there to see but we had and still have tons of flowers! So much for my handy pathway...We will have to re-think the green hut in the spring...maybe have it so the back window could lift open so I can check on things without having to climb through... ahhh..trowel and error!

Walla Walla sweet onions...
these toppled over on Friday so I pulled them and laid them out yesterday to cure in the sun for about a week. There are still some onions scatteresd here and there that aren't ready yet but I think I'll plant a few more sets to see if I can squeeze out one more end of season harvest.