Winter preparations

Yesterday was the last day that our roadside stand was open for business in 2004. I made a lot of pumpkin sales on Saturday, and we sold out of all our apple cider. The weekend was unseasonably warm, in the 70's, so no need to clean out the pellet stove in my house quite yet.

All the garlic has been planted and mulched. Now we are cleaning up the stand area, taking down tomato and bean fences, mulching blueberry bushes, and picking for the farmer's market and the Tuesday CSA shares. Still plenty of delicious greens, cabbage, broccoli, winter squash, sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, turnips, and even some stray eggplant. What is it like taking down bean fences, you ask? Pretty much like heaven, if you are lucky enough to do it last Wednesday when the air was crisp and the sun shone through perfect white clouds on golden trees ahead and brilliant flowers behind. There was something very peaceful about clipping all the old vines off. Of course I got only about a third of the way through since speed is not my forte, but I was so content out there.

We are selling live chickens for $10 each now that we won't be selling the eggs at the stand. Last week three of the parent chaperones from one of our many school tour groups (we give about 5 tours a day to inOctober) purchased one chicken each. The teacher was horrified, and the bus driver refused to let the chickens (safely tucked away in feed bags) onto the bus. So Hana did some quick bargaining and asked another parent, who had driven his taxi, if he would take them in his car back to the school. He agreed and took home a huge squash in exchange. Never a dull moment. A woman asked me on Saturday if we would kill a chicken for her. She said it was her life-long dream to cook a fresh chicken for soup. I said I certainly was not the right person to talk to about that, and evidently no one else on the farm is interested in the butchering business either. She went home without a chicken.

Peace and lots of leaves under your feet -