Fall Fermenting With Pictures!

I purchased Sandor Katz’s The Art of Fermentation and I have fallen in love with fermenting everything.  Well, I have stopped at fermenting the dogs.

Pickles, relish, I’ve even started doing naturally fermented root beers…have I mentioned that I love fermented stuff?   Oh, I see I have.

I just looked back over my recent posts (not many) and I have mentioned my new passion, I also see  I’ve neglected to post many pictures.  

Which is kinda funny because not only have I acquired a new food art,  I have also acquired a new camera.  (Bartered a Nikon for a Market Basket subscription, so I will be in this veggie delivery business a very long time). 

You may wonder why, with a new camera, you have not seen many pictures, okay, any pictures then.  Let’s just say, “New cameras are hard!”

But I‘ll share what I have. With the sad unfixed photos I’ll share a tiny bit of what is going on.

September and We’re Mostly off the Farm.

Right at about the same time as my camera came to live with me, Bet, Anna and Baby Scout were still living at the State Fair.

Our turkey display in the Animals of the World Barn had been moved to the beginning days of the fair instead of the end.  After the turkeys and I came home, Dirt and I were at the farm alone for nearly two weeks.  Together.  All day.  A few times Dirt and I did grandparent duty down at the fair when Anna and Bet pulled a few shifts together.  The very last few days of the fair included getting together with the Bowermans while Anne and Abby were showing poultry.

Stormy Weather

Right after the State Fair was over we went into storm mode here in the PNW.  Wind and rain.  More like our November and December weather than our typical September weather.

Bet and I went with Dirt to his school to stuff airplanes into the hanger to keep them from flying away in our big predicted wind storm.

It’s always fun to go on these errands with Dirt, in spite of all the work he had to do, Bet and I had a lot of stand around time. There was a little goofing off to be done.  Bet wants me to PhotoShop the one photo so it looks like the plane is in the sky and she is hanging on to the prop.  We’ll see if I get to it.

Back to the Farm and October…

The onions had been sitting in the Hippy Hot Hut curing far too long.  The onions were being braided, slowly.  A good frost was predicted for the morning of the October ninth.  Dirt and I hustled picking up all the squash and pumpkins the evening before.  They spent that night blanketed in the tractor, of course no frost arrived that morning but the work still needed to be done. The onions were moved to boxes waiting for their bags. Then the three of us spent the next afternoon and on into the evening polishing soil off and arranged the squash in the Hippy Hot Hut the best we could.  (Need more curing space)

It was an abundant harvest, though as always, never as good as it could have been.  The refrain “Next Year!” can still be heard.

Implying that improvements should definitely be made next year.  In order to make improvements I might need to do some record keeping of sorts here on the blog. 

I need to go over varieties that I intend to never plant again and why I liked those I will plant again.  I’ll do that soon.

Along with evaluations of varieties, techniques and structures in and out of the garden should be recorded. 

And detailed news of some of the new things, like the bridges Dirt built for me, Bet’s new livestock and the progress she is making with her horses.

For now I just wanted to let you know Dear Reader that we are alive, well, still working and havin’ fun doin’ it.

See you soon Dear Reader! In the mean time stay healthy, warm, dry and right close to God.