Fall is a time of change, and as is often the case with change, with it comes good things. As the days get shorter and the nights get colder, trees are ripe with fruit, vegetables are ready to harvest, and wild fruits are ready for the picking. Gathering it all up can be a lot of work, but it’s a fair price to pay for enjoying all the season has to offer. As we head into this busy time on a modern homestead, and in a household with a teacher starting a new school year, I wanted to give a few updates on what’s happening this September around the homestead.
Looking around our place, most of the apples, plums and Asian pears have been harvested. The late season Ozette potatoes will be next, and then it will be time to plant garlic. There is probably some weeding I should be doing in the garden, but with a lot of other things on my plate, that can wait.
One of our biggest changes is having these two start their first day as Freshman at our local high school last week. I watched them walk off down our driveway for their first school bus ride since Kindergarten, and only managed to get this blurry photo before they disappeared around the corner, off on their new adventure. After years of a long commute to the Waldorf School in town, this is a huge change for us. Now that my work is 100% telecommuting from home, and I don’t have to drive into town for school, I am looking forward to spending a whole lot more time on our homestead. Granted, I’m busy working so I have to wait until evenings and weekends to actually do homesteading things, but I can still enjoy just being here. My highlight so far was being able to have freshly baked pumpkin oat bars ready for my kids when they got off the bus on their first day of school and ask them about how it all went.
Another change around here is that we finally finished our farmhouse back porch. It took over a year from the time we tore the old rotten one down, but it was totally worth it. I wanted to go for the Victorian farmhouse feel with turned balusters and scrolled brackets, and I think the whole thing really gave the 70’s era addition to our 1940’s farmhouse some character and vintage flair.
After a little thrift store scouring, I finally have my back porch rocking chairs for banjo picking in my old age. Life goals realized. I even found a rocking ottoman. Who knew that was actually a thing.
Now everyone has a good spot to put up their feet and rest, which you really need at the end of the day around here.
With the repurposed brick patio project finished, Corey added another woodshed so we would have a stash close to the house. It holds about a cord, and is very conveniently located next to the campfire pit and the back door. We now have three woodsheds, but you really never can have too much firewood.
We also finally finished the arbor at the end of the sidewalk that went to nowhere. Now it feels like an entrance into our yard.
I had some extra turned balusters I had found at a salvaged building supply store when I was searching for deck railing, so we turned them into the top of the arbor to tie in with the Victorian farmhouse theme. I got a really fragrant white honeysuckle training up over it, and by next summer it should be a great hummingbird hangout.
When we have not been busy finishing big homestead projects, we have been harvesting things and putting them up. This year we picked A LOT of apples at our friend’s orchard, and made some mighty fine applesauce and many gallons of hard cider.
Usually we do a few different batches with various yeasts and one with ginger, and this year I decided to play around with different herbal flavors like fennel, hawthorne and juniper berries. We also made a small batch with blackberry added that turned out to be delicious.
We canned a lot of dilly beans, bread and butter pickles, peaches, jams, and jellies. I could probably have canned more things, but hit a point of canning burnout.
We also canned enough corn relish to feed a small army. We like to use it as a side dish, in place of salsa in a lot of meals, and as a zesty addition to salads.
This September is shaping up to be a golden time on the homestead, and I am trying to remember to take a minute out of the busy days to sit back and appreciate it in the midst of everything going on around me.
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