I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
Autumn Harvest
The chicks no longer stay inside their smaller coop, although they haven’t yet gotten brave enough to venture outside. They are gradually integrating with the older flock. I saw all but one of them roosting with the older ones tonight when I went out to shut them all in the coop. With twenty chickens and three cats living in the coop, it is getting happily crowded. EJ says it makes him smile when he sees all the animals. Me too.
Thursday I walked to the edge of our property to see how the work was progressing at our neighbor’s. I really do not usually spy on the neighbors, but the rumble and vibration of the heavy machinery had made me curious to see what on earth they were doing over there. The machines have finished their work and quiet has returned to our Enchanted forest. I saw a flat area with boundaries marked with stakes. They are definitely going to build some sort of structure. Maybe a house? Or a storage building?
We’ve had a series of warm autumn days–in the high mid- to high-60s but today the temperature was only in the high 40s and itis forecasted to dip down into the 30s for the next few nights. Brrr. We are playing our annual game of waiting as long as we can before we turn on the furnace. So far we have done nicely without turning it on, but with temperatures getting lower I think it won’t be very long before we give in.
Today we drove to the eastern side of the state to visit EJ’s friend–or, rather, it’s the 100-acre woods where EJ’s friend’s elderly father lives and where EJ goes hunting every November. EJ has known the family for so many years that he is actually an honorary member of the family.
The autumn colors are nearing their peak, so the drive was very beautiful.
The friends have an over-abundance of apples and pears on their old trees so we picked several baskets of various sizes and a birdseed bag of them to take home. The guys stood on the little utility vehicle to reach the higher fruit while I picked the lower ones–and when I couldn’t reach anymore, I held the baskets for them to drop the fruit into. I also took photos. 🙂 It was very fun, and we feel richly blessed.
Tomorrow we will begin processing the fruit. I will dry some of the apples, EJ wants to make pear butter, and we will probably can some of each.
I Love To Go A Gardening 