aiyana's birthday party went well. she had a lot of fun and seemed to genuinely enjoy herself, which made up for the stress i mentioned in my previous post. also, the post party clean-up was a lot easier than the pre-party preparations, since my mom did most of it, which i am grateful for.

things are really winding down in the field. we only have 3 weeks of CSA left, which as always, i have mixed emotions about. i welcome the change of pace in the winter, but at the same time, i need to be outside in the field, and there will be less of that.

we've already pulled a lot of crops out of the ground, although quite a few remain. we still have tomatoes in the greenhouse, which we now keep closed to keep the temperature up. i'm really surprised that we still have tomatoes at this time of year, and they still taste great. i made a delicious tomato garlic salad today for lunch, a treat for mid-october. we still have lots of greens in the field, plus root vegetables, and we're just about finished digging up the sweet potatoes, which did great this year.

this season, we really made a special effort to get cover crops in the ground as early as possible, so as to give them enough time to grow before the winter, and have nice ground coverage until the spring. i love doing cover crops because they're one way to care for the soil.

we've kept a fire going in the woodstove over the past few days, not for us, but because we want to make sure that the storage crops, such as dry corn and beans are really dry. but i am enjoying the smell of burning wood as i walk outside into the crisp air, and the coziness that the fire brings to the house. i do welcome this colder season.

peace