The house is quiet other than the wind chimes on the porch and the soft sound of Kali reading. Jason is out putting a thick layer of mulch on all the plants that are especially vulnerable to a hard freeze, which is coming our way tonight! We've covered a lot of lettuce in hopes that we'll continue to enjoy fresh salads for awhile yet. The only other things that looks relatively green still are the perennial onions. Otherwise, we are starting to dig into the root cellar, pantry and freezer supplies. And it's about time since all are pretty much full to the brim. I chopped up the last green peppers this morning so a few more salads and we'll be on to dried or frozen ones. I guess these "endings" could feel sad or we could choose to just switch to buying from the grocery store the things we can't grow fresh in November. Instead I gravitate so much towards living by the seasons and love to see our girls naturally doing the same. They don't seem at all bothered by the fact that we won't be eating fresh tomatoes again until about July. When July comes they will taste oh so delicious! In the meantime, who can complain when there are bright orange sweet potatoes awaiting us in the root cellar!
Since the last posting the little pond has been completed and we have continued to harvest leaves as fast as our arms and legs will let us, and with as much spare time as we have available. We have more or less an abundant supply at our fingertips (due to several neighbors with lots of trees and no desire to use the leaves), but I think we are about out of time to gather more for this fall. Jason used one load of leaves from the city to mulch in the kitchen garden for the winter and it is looking rather sharp! You can see in the background of this picture down near the composting chicken coop the growing pile of leaves from our raking endeavors. That is one of two locations where we have stock piled ones we weren't ready to use immediately.
We ended the month of October together as a family in West Virginia with friends - a great way to ring in November! The night before we left, we hosted a blood drive in honor of Nora and the place was buzzing with action (as well as some buzzing lips for those donating platelets). I think it was our highest number of donations of any drive we have done. It was a special gathering of people that knew Nora and some that have only gotten to know her through us since her death. I did not try to donate as I still didn't feel able to honestly answer the question "do you feel healthy and well today" with a "yes" so I left feeling grateful for all who gave but sad that I wasn't among the actual donors. Hopefully my time will come again, and in the meantime I hope to help facilitate others giving more regularly - most notably my hubby! I've been enjoying taking more time lately to play with the girls. The cold outdoors and less daylight helps. And maybe my mindfulness class is instilling some new patterns and habits in me - I hope! I have also chosen playing backgammon with Kali over my mindfulness homework a couple of times, attempting of course to play backgammon mindfully! The girls and I did some organizing, sorting and paring down of our toys and games recently and decided that we are going to go through our game cabinet and try the games we have never played and decide if we like them or not (rather than just letting them sit there). We've tried out 3 thus far and 2 of them are in the Gift and Thrift bag. Kali is such a delight to sort things with now that I'd have a hard time remembering our struggles when I tried to get rid of surplus stuff IF Alida wasn't coming along behind and currently deeply embedded in the, "I like that" and "I want to keep it" phase.
The leaf raking has kept Jason from getting on with the winter construction projects so we are not on target to have our bed done by Thanksgiving in order to dive into the bathroom project in December. I usually come around, and at this point I've settled on not worrying too much about our self imposed deadlines. I may have to be reminded of that resolution, but currently it feels more worth it to enjoy the process of the things we are doing, which are highly enjoyable when not under time pressure, and get to the construction projects as we are able. So the occasional game together all four of us, or not setting an alarm in the morning (though recently Jason has been up before dawn heading out to the tree stand to welcome the day from his perch - thus far he has come in noting "lots of luck but no deer."), or including the girls in our activities even if it extends the time a certain job takes feel so very worth it. It was really fun this morning to work with Alida on shelling out her popcorn and selecting the pinkest kernels for seed for her to plant next year. Our girls have a good dose of Jason's genes, that's for sure. As Alida and I are working at it, she makes it very clear that she is not interested in any candy stripe kernels so I needed to hone my selection skills a bit more. Kali also can talk for about as long as anyone will listen about her breeding plan with her corn. I love it!
And we are getting some seeds in the ground even yet. Jason and Jonathan worked up some new soil that the ducks and chickens had a first go round with. This area will be in electric fencing by the next growing season since it housed our mostly failed three sisters planting this year (thanks to the critters). Jason got all the shallots planted there recently. The main gardening tasks now needing attention are a continuation of weeding and mulching. We had hoped to get to the garlic before the hard freeze but we'll have to just hope it makes it until we get around to it!
Clearly there are not "enough" hours in our days but we'd probably fill any additional ones we had. We just won't get all the leaves raked or all the weeding done or... I'm attempting to be ok with that and enjoy the time we do have together to work at the things we love being part of. It's a good life! Now if we (Jason and me) could fit a few naps in here and there, we'd be even better off! Alida is the main one that still gets to sack out for a few hours each afternoon, and she is the one most vocal about not enjoying naps! Speaking of naps, the jury is still out on whether reading or a nappy walk will do the trick!
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