Harvest Heaven

I have never lived on a farm but I assume that harvest time is the same there as it is here -- lots of work to get everything in at the perfect level of ripeness. Between our garden and the wild berries, there is no end.

Wild raspeberries have been wonderful this year. I have about 50 jars of jam and Bruce still wants more. He was out picking at 7:30 this morning. You can be assured that the Kerfoots will have lots of raspberry jam to share.

Blueberries are a different story. Either we picked too early or too late or after everyone else. The upshot was there will be no blueberry jam for us this year. We did get enough for pancakes throughout the winter which is really more important. Bruce is our pancake maker and his combination of banana, blueberry and walnut pancakes can't be beat.

That leaves the garden. The lettuce has gone to seed. There are enough cucumbers for the entire neighborhood. Green beans are wonderful and will be frozen this afternoon. Basil is the best every. After the lodge uses it, I will be making pesto and freezing it for the winter. Parsley will be dried for use throughout the winter. Zucchini is abundant and I make enough relish to keep us all going plus we have enough to supply the lodge with all it's needs. We can't eat the broccoli fast enough.

Several things still need to ripen. Corn looks good and I freeze all we don't eat. We will have Indian corn to decorate around the lodge with. Pumpkins are going to be huge. Bruce went on a squash planting binge. So we have acorn, hubbard, and spaghetti squash coming in like there is no tomorrow. It will be interesting using all of the squash. I binged on peppers. There will be big crops of sweet bell peppers, chili peppers and jalepeno peppers. Potato plants and carrots also look good. We have 15 garlic plants that are huge. Garlic is a first for us so we will see what happens. Finally, we have lots of green tomatoes and will tax even the lodge's ability to use them all up.

As I read back over the blog, even I am amazed at how much there is to harvest. We really are enjoying eating every bit of it. During the winter, it will be heaven to empty the freezer..