In the garden

I haven't provided a dispatch from the garden in awhile, have I? Well, it's feeding us like crazy. The storage crops I've harvested (garlic, onions, shallots, potatoes) have been wonderful. SUCH a good potato year, and I think I finally grew enough garlic that I won't have to buy any next year. Under the leaves, I count 18 butternut squashes. I've pickled eighteen pints of bread and butter pickles, and four quarts of dills, and still I've eaten about a cucumber a day for the past month. Finally, the rebounding green beans are coming in, and going into the (NEW!) freezer. I have a nice row of carrots under row covers, because grasshoppers. It took me all summer to figure out THAT's why I wasn't getting any carrots. A billionty grasshoppers this year, and a grasshopper's favorite food is, apparently, carrots. 
We've been getting cherry tomatoes for a few weeks now, and are just starting to roll in the full-size tomatoes. What a long time coming, but come it almost always does, and it is joyous. 
I am very much looking forward to greens season, and to making scalloped tomatoes next week, and to soup weather. Oh, fall. I'm feeling bummed about letting go of summer (so soon, it seems) but fall is always so lovely, it's hard to stay mad at it for coming.
Also I am looking forward to shelling beans. Call me crazy, but that is my idea of a good time. A podcast, a mug of tea, and a basket of beans. Yeppers.
This weekend I am horsesitting for our next door neighbors the Exleys. That is a first. I am not a capital H capital P Horse Person, but I like them. I like animals in general, and horses are just damn impressive. Today was Day 1, and it went fine. And I got to haul home a wagon full of shit, and really now. I am easy to please. Just give me a pretty barn to do chores in (they have the nicest barn) and let me take home poop, and I will be fine. 
Meanwhile, the canning. Meanwhile, the house painting. LordEE. I'm feeling good, though. Not crabby. Maybe I was a little crabby on Tuesday, when I got all the way up to the peak of the house and realized I'd left my brush on the ground. Maybe I was a little crabby yesterday when my canning kettle sprang a leak all over the stove (thank goodness for having a backup kettle!). And maybe, just maybe I was a little crabby this morning when I took one of hardest falls of my life in the horse barn, on loose hay and shiny wood. Okay. But overall, I'm feeling like I got September under control. And that's all I want. And it's pretty sweet.
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