September 2013

This past month has been exceptionally beautiful. Warm by day and cool at night. Apple trees have seen bumper crops and hay farmers are stacking high. I'm drowning in tomatoes and produce and have no rest. There is no end to it all, especially the weeds! God has rebuked the devourer for sure , but like Joseph in Genesis, I'm no fool.Gather the produce in while you have it and let nothing go to waste. Who knows what next year will be like? I remember a few years ago when tomato blight hit from central USA throughout the entire east coast. In only a few days all tomato plants were dead.  Another year I had all green tomatoes and very few turned red. It was a cool rainy summer and many many overcast days.Another year I trashed my knee and could do very little gardening.  Why buy produce when you can gather it for free from your own land ? It lasts for years if it's canned.

I began pulling out the spent produce. Cauliflower was beautiful and most is gathered in.The enormous leaves are pulled out of the ground and given to the horses, sheep and goats. Great calcium,etc.,food source.Of coarse, Gus immediately leapt in front when he saw the camera and posed for a picture.....again. What a wierd dog. 

 Today I canned up sausage and peppers and onions in tomato sauce. Sounds like a cozy winter.

 Grapes are gathered in, de-stemmed , rinsed and ready for grape jelly making and juice.

 Rolling pin works just as well as the $200.00  grape crusher. Takes only minutes. I bought a plastic storage container for $4.87 and I was done in minutes.

I have 2 gangs of turkeys....YESSS, GANGS ! They fight with each other over territory and behave the same way that street gangs  taunt each other. There is the 'Chicken Yard Gang' and then there are THESE guys....the "I Can Go Any Place I Feel Like It' ~ Gang.  Today they first visited my kitchen from the garage roof. "Hi!!  What's going on in there??  Anything I can eat??"

I tossed out a couple tomatoes. They rolled down the roof and are probably stuck in the gutter.Suddenly, I heard a brawl~~~  turkeys challenging each other!!  These guys were in the Chicken Yard turkey territory and a fight was underway!! The meat turkeys dwell in the chicken yard and are twice as heavy in weight as these Heritage turkey guys.They were getting pounded. I had to quickly separate them or broken necks would ensue.  Once separated, they shot back rebukes and smart snotty remarks at one another.The same as any street gang would do.....once safe out of harms way on the other side of the fence.