Fall Harvest and a Cranky Mama

The weather around these parts has been making me cranky. I know I'm prone to exaggeration at cranky times, but I'd like to know when south-eastern Michigan transformed into Bangkok.
80-something degree days with 90% humidity is not okay at the end of September!

The gardens are a mess. I've been avoiding even going out back for the last few weeks because I cannot stand disorder and yet feel too overwhelmed to deal with it. The last couple of days I've been sleeping better (like nearly all night, not in an upright position! -Baby has moved much lower, making the carpal tunnel much better). So yesterday I found enough will power to at least go clean up the patch of garden in my neighbor's yard (the donated land!). I had various squashes, tomatoes and kale growing over there. Oh my, it was a mess. Armed with a basket, work gloves and a huge butcher knife, I pulled up all the squash vines and tomato plants but left the kale intact because it's fine and needs to be properly harvested. I sawed through the thick, incredibly spiky pumpkin vines and harvested 6 pie pumpkins (have a few more in our yard left growing). I got a good number of butternut squash and yellow crooknecks as well.
My mother came down and accused me of working too hard. I was literally soaked through with sweat. I crankily sneered, "What? Are you worried about me going into labor? Not gonna happen."
Sweet mother left my comment be and got the wheel barrow for me. We cleared all the squash vines and tomato plants and then picked up all the green and red fallen tomatoes that we could. The plot is for the most part, cleared. I just need to deal with the kale and then have G turn over the plot so it's dormant for the winter.

In our yard, ugh... so much to do. Really just need to clear the plots and get them ready for winter. The tomato plants are still producing a few red tomatoes, but I swear they don't taste as nice. Plus, I'm absolutely done with tomatoes this year. I keep picking and tossing them to the chickens, who love them.
There's a row of now-scrappy looking collards I need to pull out, and swiss chard that could be processed (I've been giving the chickens chard every day too-makes me feel like I'm using it despite really not dealing with it).
The pole beans are done in my opinion, and need to be pulled down. I've got 3 rows of Vermont Cranberry beans that need to be picked and plucked.
The broccoli plants, which have grown really huge this year without any sign of making actual broccoli heads, surprised me. One plant on the end gifted us with a really nice head that looked like it came from the store. I've only ever had measly little florets grow in the past (that's when a ground hog hasn't decimated the broccoli row). So yesterday despite the heat, I made creamy, cheesy broccoli soup. The kids loved it.

All this complaining and list making has inspired me to go out there and work. It's currently 66, very humid degrees outside. I know the mosquitoes will be thick and hungry for my blood, but I should just get out there before it gets too hot. This weekend promises to be a little cooler, thankfully. Here I go, we'll see if there's any pictures worth taking of whatever I can salvage out there!

Baby Garden Quilt

You'll have to click on the pictures to see the beautiful detail of this gorgeous and thoughtful quilt we received from my pal Amy. A month ago we had a small Blessingway for this baby. Amy brought her guitar and sang this great song that combined growing your own food with growing a baby. Everyone in the room was sobbing by the end! Two weeks ago, Amy brought by this quilt that she'd been working on. It has lovely swatches of different green and brown strips that look just like garden plots. Around the quilt are the embroidered lyrics to the song, and in one corner, a gorgeous, silky red rose. I love and appreciate all the work and love that went into this quilt. It's also a good reminder for me to remember that even though I put by a lot less food this year, I put a lot of energy into growing our baby. :) --Baby, I can't wait to meet you and to show you our gardens.

Lyrics:
pulling weeds and picking stones
we are made of dreams and bones
feel the need to grow my own
for the time is near at hand
grain by grain
sun and rain
find my way in natures chain
tune my body and my brain
to the music of the land

Big Days Going By...Thankfully, Less Veg

The last of the counter-top tomatoes! Soo excited about this! There are more in the garden, but they're not as plentiful. I've even been feeding tomatoes fresh off the vine to the chickens, just because I'm tired of tomato labor. I have many, many pounds of roasted tomato glut sauce in the freezer and many canned jars.

A handful of pole beans, a scrawny cucumber, and two gorgeous, huge red peppers.

Some more carrots, yellow squash, and sigh, more tomatoes.

Two kids on their first day of school today! S is starting 5th grade and Little E, kindergarten. Neither was sad to see me leave this rainy morning. Which is great, I'm glad they're so excited about school. Little E is my baby though (at least for a few more weeks). I kept asking him as he sat at his spiffy new desk with his name tag on, "Are you okay? Do you need to use the restroom? Here's your water bottle. Are you all right?" YES, MOM! I managed not to cry until I made it back to the car. Bittersweet, but exciting!

In other news, we picked up two new pullets last night from a lovely local woman with a lot of chickens. Our current birds are two Rhode Island Reds and two silver-laced Wyandottes. The reds are awesome layers. The Wyandottes, not so much. One the Wyandottes lays maybe 2 times a week if we're lucky. The other gal, not at all. She's huge and lovely, but completely daffy as chickens go- which isn't saying much. So sadly, she's stew pot bound. Having an ordinance on the number of chickens we can have makes keeping a non-layer sort of difficult. I really don't mind paying for her room and board, as it were, but I'd really like to have all our birds be layers. I just read about "lazy layers" in the recent issue of Backyard Poultry. Their physical characteristics totally match Spot's (our non-layer). Big bird without a comb on her head, hard abdomen, pubis that doesn't have a palpable separation... sort of interesting.

The two new birds are Black Australorps. If the garden weren't so wet, muddy and full of mosquitoes right now, I'd walk out and take a picture, but I can't muster myself to do so. They're beautiful shiny, sheeny, healthy teenage girls who are just starting to lay.
Spot the lazy layer will be processed soon. Dotty, the hit or miss layer might just be relocated to my friend's farm very soon. Hopefully she'll be goaded into action by being surrounded by so many happy, laying chickens, or at least like free-ranging with a couple handsome rooster around.

In the meantime, we've made it through birthday parties, a blessingway, back to school night, the first day of school without any births upsetting the schedule. 3 more women due ahead of me. I'm looking forward to finishing up the garden once and for all, to having a freer calendar, and to meeting this baby. I'm so ready for it!