The Season of Transition

It is time for I, Jason, to take a turn putting a bit of our farm and home life into words while Janelle plays Rook with the girls (while she also knits and Alida crochets) and we all munch her excellent experiment: Parmesan Popcorn. This is with the "Parmesan" we make from the dehydrated, ground rind of homemade unwaxed cheddar. She tried it stirred into a batch still in the popper at the end of popping--which resulted in some yummy melted cheese and a lovely toasty flavor to the batch--and stirring it into a finished batch that had been dumped into a bowl--which was less of a mess. Both were great! I am partial to the former, but I didn't have to clean the popper.

The cooler temperatures of fall have been working their magic around here, bringing the summer garden into obsolescence and ushering us into the season of breathing a bit easier. And what wonderful air it provides for that breathing! Still, there are a few things we've been wrapping up, including the last of the winter cereals/cover crops, the last frost-sensitive harvests, and garlic planting. Later than almost ever this year, but we had to wait for the P.A. Dutch squash and Red Flour corn to be finished before we could transition the patch, and the late arrival of first frost (currently expected for the night following Tuesday Nov. 2) allowed us to squeeze a few more weeks of maturation for them from the year. We hope we're not compromising the 2022 garlic crop by the delay, and we think not. It was a group effort this year, with me prepping the soil in the rows and opening furrows, while the three generations of females in the household took on the job of placing the cloves and then doing most of the covering. With a poorer garlic yield this year, we had less seed cloves than we wanted, so we went back to an older pattern of 8-inch spacing in the rows, which was a good idea anyway since this particular section seems to have less fertile soil than the other three that comprise the root patch.

We hosted (outdoors, at safe distance, each family mostly furnishing their own food) our Small Group recently. We took advantage of the lesson we learned on our July vacation to WVA and reheated our homemade pizza dinner over the fire while we waited for others to arrive. It just felt great to me to simply socialize, with no agenda. COVID has helped me not take those opportunities so much for granted. Folks enjoyed a visit to the piglets, which did have an agenda since one of our group members manages the bakery at Magpie in Harrisonburg, which furnishes pastry and bread scraps to our pig operation. She wanted photos of the feeding for their Instagram. The piglets were happy to oblige. Is this what you call an Instagram feed?

The day before Halloween is always a special day around here: Nora's birthday. Kind communications came in throughout the day from several quarters, and our family took the day to remember her and act on some of what her presence with us taught us: We are the most precious things to each other, time is short, moments well-inhabited are generous moments, love is not a matter of earning, and each of us is valuable just because we exist. We are enough. This bouquet of dwarf marigolds from Nora's garden reminds us that all the beauty one could need can be found in two square inches of space. 

Alida and I took a few moments to giggle along with Dilbert for no good reason.

If two square inches is enough of beauty, what shall we make of the sweep of fall color in the valley, and the clouds on the mountain? 

We took a brief excursion to John and Christen's place to bring some chocolate persimmon muffin-loaves. I was struck, on the way, with how much fun we have together. Of course, the mood was probably helped by the fabulous colonnade of color and the cool temps. Speaking of cool, aren't these cool kids? 

On the way back we meandered past the pig pen and decided to chuck them some of the squash that had sprouted out of spilled slop and/or manure in their summer paddocks. They are not shabby gardeners, really, and they sure relished their produce! Janelle loves it when a pig uses a paw to hold food while tearing off a bite, and was tickled with herself for catching this one in the act. 

Further along our circuit we brought pleasure to the chickens by releasing them for free ranging. Their enthusiasm was obvious. In no time they were off into the underbrush to forage. 

Then we did a little foraging of our own. White raspberries! They are perfect right now, and we are getting about two quarts per week from our 35' row. 

Lastly, a little snuggle time in Nora's garden on the rock seating.

After a little rejuvenation inside, we headed out again for a very different excursion...Kali's first full driving lesson (on the farm lane below the blueberry patch)! Did we know what we were getting in for? Who knows, but it was bound to be interesting, so I'm all in! She did very well, actually, especially for learning on an overdriven manual transmission on gravel, dirt, and grass surfaces in a light rain. Her sisters did pretty well keeping quiet in the back seat (even better than her mother) - the three of them headed back up the house after the first spin and the two of us did a few more rounds. She even hit third gear once! 

All told, Nora's birthday was a success, and a bond-building time for all of us.

It is maybe a blessing that Nora's birthday is so close to Halloween. John was telling us recently that in ancient European belief, this is the time of year when this world and the other worlds pass closely by each other as the season of light transitions to the season of darkness, and this allows those who have transitioned to the afterlife to visit the living, so it is a time to call to mind those we've lost and still love; those recently lost and those long gone. We hold those dear ones close who are feeling these losses presently and keenly (if you are reading this, you know who you are, friends!). It was good to feel close to Nora's memory again, and we are grateful for any ways our ancient, nearly forgotten cultural traditions may exert a pull towards that connecting.

And that brings us to today: These kids get excited about Halloween, and they are just about the cutest black cat, pumpkin, and penguin around! We had planned for an outdoor version of eating donuts off of strings again this year, with the usual suspects invited and attending. Janelle was the potato donut chef, and she had some excellent help from the cat and the pumpkin. Alida's rapidly expanding, innovative crocheting skills came in very handy for creating custom costume accoutrements. Every pumpkin needs a stem, and what's a penguin without a pointy beak?

Many donuts were eaten not off of strings too and accompanied by hot chocolate. The warmth of the day started leaving as the sun set. John and Christen said they were burning last year's yule log for the first fire of the fall, and we decided that was a good idea. Lacking a yule log, we just made a nice, cozy fire. As I write, it has faded to coals as we relax and enjoy our evening in this peaceful room warmed by the cascade of stored light that poured its energy out through glass and iron and into the air gently swirling around us unseen.

Two weekend highlights!

Terah and I have a lot less hair!

She was very eager to finally join the ranks of hair donators! Everyone else in our family has done it multiple times and she had finally grown enough hair to give away.

Aunt Karen did the honors of trimming up after I did the major chops and then she chopped mine! We even had a bit of an audience - so grateful for these beautiful days for a few more outdoor gatherings.

Following the haircuts, some very late birthday presents were distributed. This was a gathering for the August, September and October birthdays in the family - which was 6/9 of us!

And, of course, a visit to the piglets for some pre-dinner entertainment, which was us watching them swim in their dinner. The three of them have very different personalities, which is clearly apparent when eating. The one piglet dives in up to his eyeballs. 

We then savored a delicious meal of injera and wat (thanks, Mom!) around the fire, which felt better by the passing minute as we inched our chairs closer to make use of the heat.

And then today, we savored our first family hike up to Hensley's Pond in ages. We went with enough time for some fishing and some Rook playing by the pond. It's one of the most beautiful times of year to be up there with the changing colors.

Jason pulled in two fish. The first was pretty small and he was about to throw it back in but our youngest was adamant about eating it! Thankfully, once Alida found a grasshopper for bait, he pulled in a second one that was larger. So we went home with two!

As we walked up the driveway, Terah told me that one of the fish was for her and the other one was for the rest of us. That's about how it went down!

p.s. Kali's hat has seen better days. I told her that it could be part of her Halloween costume!