Fezzik the buck is visiting for a few weeks, so we’ll probably have another crop of kids in the spring.

We have tons of orach sprouting in the garden from the stalks that went to seed. We’ll see if it lasts through winter. The Chinese broccoli is still going, and doing better, in fact, with the aphids diminishing as the weather gets cooler.

We haven’t had any mushrooms so far this fall, but we still have plenty preserved from last year.

We decided that try harvesting black walnuts from the tree across the road. They are notorious for their hard shells. First we gathered them and removed the meaty outer fruit, which can be used to make ink or dye. Now we’re letting them dry for a few weeks. Then we’ll try cracking them and extracting the nut meat.

We’re down to five chickens at the moment. We’re still getting some eggs.

Heather is doing the pumpkin drop-off site again by road, and the pumpkins are pouring in.

The garlic Heather planted a few weeks ago is barely sprouting. We’ll see what happens.

I planted about eight feet of Blue Lake bush beans on the west end of row 1. It’s been a grass-infested corner of the garden, so hopefully the bean plants and wood chips will keep the grass out.

Heather harvested garlic from the garden and in front of the house. The bulbs from in front of the house are small, but better than nothing.

And we still have mushrooms coming out our ears.

I worked on the mushroom bed. I removed the straw bale border, which was filled with grass and spreading into the walking path, and replaced it with wood that wasn’t able to be used as firewood.

An endless summer. Today’s high was about 65°. More mushrooms are still coming up. I picked a few more small peppers and some kale.

Heather made some grape juice from Merrie’s Concord grapes.

I was wrong about the mushrooms being done. We got one more flush, probably a couple pounds. They seemed to be fine through our first frost, too, which was last night. But it was a light frost that even the tomato plants survived.

We harvested a few acorns, and some Jerusalem artichokes that voluntarily grew by the outside water faucet, today.

We lit our first fire of the season in the woodstove yesterday. We still have a lot of splitting and stacking to do for next season’s firewood.

I think the mushroom harvest has finally ended. Wow! I’m pretty sure we have a year’s worth of dehydrated mushrooms thanks to Heather’s work.

The new growth on the artichoke plants looks great. They’re over two feet tall. Im excited to see what next year brings.

As of yesterday, we were still harvesting tomatoes and the late summer planting of peas. They’ve definitely slowed down, though, with fewer hours of daylight.

Heather pulled two potato plants today and got several pounds of potatoes. Here’s the biggest one:

She also harvested a rutabaga. There are several more out there. Plenty of kale and chard, too. And we haven’t even touched the leeks yet

Heather planted garlic in the garden and around the grapes around the beginning of October. It’s already sprouting.

We started moving some firewood into the carport for this season’s burning. We still have a lot of wood to split to get ready for next season.

Wow, the first rain of the season, and the winecap mushrooms are fruiting. It’s like magic! We’ve probably picked a gallon in two days. They’re huge.

The mushrooms got “planted” (or whatever the word is) today.

Heather seeded rutabagas in the garden about a week ago, and they’re sprouting.