Family get together and harvest wind down.

Yard and orchard care

Of course, I mowed some!  It seems to me its time for the grass to really stop growing, but maybe I am just wishing for that!  I also sprayed the grapes for fungi and worms.  I also sprayed the cherry trees and some of the elderberries (the elderberries have some tent caterpillars).

Family reunion

I went to a family reunion at my cousins house on Saturday.  Pat & Paul hosted.  It was very good to see so many of the family together again!

Katherine made a delicious potato salad with our new potatoes and some of the cucumber relish that she canned just a couple weeks ago.  Unfortunately, due to a wasp incident, Katherine didn't make it to the reunion and the potato salad was all eaten up, so she didn't get any!  We will probably make more this week.

Wine production continues

Below are some pictures of the wine now that I removed the skins and seeds and racked it into the clear carboys for further fermentation.  The directions say to rack it once its specific gravity drops to 1.03, but when I tested the S.G. early last weekend it had already dropped to 1.01!  Anyway, I racked it and it continues to bubble away.   I am actually surprised at how fast the bubbles come since the S.G. is now almost 1!  I looked it up though, and wines can ferment to S.G.'s below 1.0, so I may have a ways to go.  It smells delicious, although the fermentation smells make Katherine nauseated.

Getting cold out!  

It was the first day of fall this past weekend and it sure felt like it!   I thought it best to bring in the squash and pumpkin from the front porch where they were curing.  Below are some pictures showing most of the crop.  I have already given about 12-13 pumpkins away and processed (dried or made leather) out of about 4, I think.  I only gave away 3 spaghetti squash and I think I ate about the same number.   Looks to me like 24 pumpkins and 12 spaghetti squash in the photo below, so total pumpkin harvest was probably about 37 and total spaghetti squash harvest was about 18.  

I didn't even bother with the zucchini count; it was a lot!  I am guessing we ate about 10-15 lbs, made relish of maybe 5-10 lbs, and dried 40-50 lbs per dehydrator load (of which I think there were 4 - but maybe 5 loads).  So  10+5+40*4 =  175 low end, 15+10+50*5 = 275 lbs on the high end!  Therefore, my best "gut-level" guess is probably 200 lbs of summer squash!

Apples 

Katherine and I went to Mile Level Market to look at the apples last Friday, but we didn't find any "seconds".  The "seconds" - or "deer apples" as Mile Level sometimes calls them, are perfect for making applesauce.  Anyway, they had apples for $12/bushel - which is a good deal I think, but I am in no rush for canning more stuff, so I think I will wait until more "deer-apples" come my way.  Besides, I stopped at mom's place and picked about 1.5 bushel of "Prairie Spy" apples from her trees.

Prairie Spy apples from Mom's trees

Carrots

I didn't get around to harvesting my carrots and beets from the paw-paw patch, but I did harvest them from the patch over at mom's place.  I got about 2 plastic shopping bags full.  I gave one to mom since she is the one who really took care of them!  They are in rough shape.  Mom says that if you plan on picking them this late then you really shouldn't plant them as early as I did.  Considering that I got as many carrots as I wanted from the half-row I planted in the front patch, I probably shouldn't have planted them at all!  I have more, I am sure, in the paw-paw patch yet to pick!  We will probably pickle some of these and dry the rest.  They dry quite nicely.  These are not in good enough shape to put in the root cellar.

Hard to see in the bag, but there are some HUGE carrots in there!  

Pyracantha Berries

While I was over at mom's i noticed bright orange/red berries on some of her shrubs.  She told me they were pyracantha berries.  I did some research and found out that they are edible and that people sometimes make jelly and wine from them.  One guy said it was one of his favorite jellies!  So i went and picked some of the berries to make a taste-sample of jelly.  It took almost all day to pick the berries from the "bunches" that I harvested.    I only extracted 4.5 lbs of berries!  I washed them and froze them - i will make jelly later in the year when things settle down more.

Tomatoes

Yes, we had more tomatoes - but far fewer than last time!  I did about 7 quarts in the dehydrator and Katherine made more sauce - 5.5 quarts.  We brought back enough to make 7 quarts of sauce/juice I think (just one bus tray load).  I tried powdering some in the vitamix.  It works, but it does attract moisture I think - it clumps and is a pain to work with.  I didn't powder it all because I am not sure how useful it will be.  I am thinking we could add it to the "juicier" sauces to thicken them up a bit!