Pumpkin Time !

 " October is the jewel set in the hand of time."  Gladys Taber

 October finally brought in real autumn weather here in north-eastern Washington , here at our new home, in our fields, our forest, our gardens. I remember anew why autumn is my favorite season.

 Look at all the pumpkins and squashes we've harvested ! The pumpkins and squashes in the pictures are just a few of the pumpkins we harvested from our own vegetable garden.

 Here is the garden this month. The cornstalks are dry and ready for us to cut and use to decorate porch posts but before they dried up they produced a great amount of very sweet corn . The corn was truly the very best sweet corn I've ever eaten. Maybe it is true sweet corn fresh-picked from the garden and cooked right away IS the best .

You can see our fields and woods in the background. What you cannot see are the wild turkeys, pheasants, and deer we see in the fields every day from our windows. We have a hard time tearing ourselves away from the windows in the mornings as we sip our coffee while watching the wild life. We can also watch our sheep and chickens from the windows. And we watch the seasons change ...

 ...now turning green fields gold and brown, coloring the leaves bright orange , red, yellow, and brown before they're blown away making way for November's dark wet freezing ways. The pumpkins are frosted every morning and just a few days ago we had snow on the hills across our gravel road.

 I picked all our pumpkins and squashes last week to save them for our own use. We grew all our pumpkins and squashes from seed of the pumpkins and squashes we bought last year. I am particularly fond of the blue 'Meat Eater' squashes. They last for many months if stored in a cooler dry place and are quite tasty. ( I store them in the loft in my wool-working shed.)

 I decorated our front porch with a few pumpkins and squashes. During the afternoon hours our front porch is the warmest place around our home and our Viszla Hawk chooses to nap here. In the summer this porch is the perfect place for my husband and I to sip our morning coffee while watching my sheep and gazing at the hills and low mountains across the gravel road. ( The hills that had snow a few days ago.)

 " Pumpkins were a staple food for early Americans , who inherited the vegetable from the Indians, and learned many ways to cook it from the Indians , too. In those days pumpkin was cut in small pieces, strung on a cords and hung in front of the fireplace to dry, then stored for year-round use. Everything was made of pumpkin, from beverages to soup , from pie to bread, from custard to cake, and even a kind of flour. The pioneers tired of their diet of pumpkin, but they were saved from starvation in many a lean, cold winter."  from 'The New England Butt'ry Shelf Almanac by Mary Mason Campbell

My husband and I are especially thankful for our abundant pumpkin and squash harvest because not only do we love good baked squash smothered in butter and brown sugar, our chickens and sheep love the pumpkins and squashes cut up and raw. This helps us immensely with the feed bill and also provides them good nutrition to carry them through the cold winter months.

We are loving our new home and the very distinct seasons here and right now it is PUMPKIN TIME! 

" He causes the grass to grow for the cattle , and vegetation for the labor of man, so that He may bring forth from the earth , and wine which makes man's heart glad..." Psalm 104: 14,15

Thursday in the Gardens ~ Autumn Is Here !

 It doesn't look like Autumn around Cedar Pond yet.Our grapes are still producing fruit.

 The grape vines and rugosa have grown so large and strong they're bending the arbor and fence as they weave in and out of the lattice and pickets. It was hard picking the grapes that grew in the tangles and the birds are enjoying the fruit in the shady hiding places the vines provide.

 Rugosa blossoms are so sweetly fragrant and the rose hips are orangey ripe on many of the rugosa bushes. I have to remember to take a picture of them soon, they're beautiful this time of the year and quite large considering the small flowers they come from.

 My husband's veggie garden is about ready to be put to bed. We picked the last of the beans and ate them for dinner last night. The cucumbers are done , the lettuces are in their last days and bolting. We are getting a lot of yellow squashes and some zucchini, carrots and a few stray strawberries too. The onions and garlic are already harvested and we have a few months supply for fall and winter cooking.

 My husband has been painting our house . It's taking some time but one advantage to a hot and dry summer is there have been plenty of good days to paint.

It's breeding season in the sheep pens and my new ram Jonas is a happy boy. He and the ewes are so much fun to watch as they spy the large cottonwood leaves falling from the trees and race each other to get to the leaves first. There's no need to rake leaves anywhere the sheep can get to them. I am looking forward to some lovely lambs this coming spring.

The leaves have only now begun to change color, but many of the trees that are usually mostly red and yellow this time of the year have not changed color . Our Japanese Maples haven't changed color yet either. It is only the first week of Autumn though, and I am excited my favorite season has begun. Still pretty warm during the day but we're having crisp evenings and mornings perfect for sipping hot mugs of coffee on the porch . Happy , happy, autumn !

Raspberries, Blueberries, Blackberries ~ Ambassadors Of Summer

 It's that busy time of the year again, summer. The berries and cherries are ripening faster than I can keep up with them but the birds aren't complaining, they snatch up any I miss picking.

 I set aside today, normally Tea-Time Tuesday here on Cedar Pond, to make and can jam from the berries piling up in the refrigerator. But first I picked the newly ripe raspberries before the day got too hot.

 

 I set up my canning area on the back porch. I have worn out 4 stoves since we built our home because I do a lot of canning and dyeing wool, and my husband & I also love to make a lot of food for people we love. The newer stoves can't seem to hold large cooking pots without suffering for it. A few years ago we bought this camp stove for all big cooking & canning jobs and I love it ! I also appreciate canning on the shady back porch, near the kitchen, while NOT heating the house up anymore than necessary. I make the jam inside, then after filling the hot sterilized jars I process them outside. ( BTW, the stove is mighty nice for camping too.)

I made blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry jam today and the canning season has barely begun. Tomorrow I am trying a new recipe, Strawberry Margarita Jam. The pantry shelves should be full of sweet fruit jams and canned fruit by the end of August, then apple season begins and hopefully the green bean harvest from our garden will yield a big crop too. "Berries & cherries , whether harvested from brambles, bushes, patches, or trees, these tiny ambassadors of summer sweetness share one thing in common - rich, exotic, and intoxicating taste." Canning B.H. & G.

Whole Roasted Cricket Ball Squash~ Jamie Oliver Friday

My husband's vegetable garden produced 8 acorn squashes. We love acorn squash so I decided to try Jamie Oliver's recipe for them. We are pretty much at the end of our fresh garden produce supply, but there are still carrots and 1 hardy lettuce plant if I am in the mood for a slightly bitter tasting lettuce. Isn't this a pretty dish of squash? I followed Jamie's recipe completely, including side salad and garnish of goat cheese. So here is the recipe for~ Whole Roasted Cricket Ball Squash

• 4 gem or small acorn squash
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 level teaspoon coriander seeds
• a pinch of ground cinnamon
• 8 sun-dried tomatoes in oil
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• a large handful of arugula, washed and spun dry ( I used arugula in a large box of baby salad greens from Costco)
• extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 lemon
• 9 ounces tasty goat's cheese or feta cheese

"Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Slice off the top part of the squash, where the stalk comes out, leaving you with a lid for each squash. Please do this carefully-no slipping! Scoop out the seeds and discard them. Crush up all the herbs and spices in a pestle and mortar or Flavor Shaker until ground to a powder. Drain the sun-dried tomatoes reserving the oil. Drizzle a little of the oil into each squash and use your fingers to smear it around the insides. Season the inside of each squash with salt and pepper followed by a sprinkling of the spice mixture. Finely chop up the sun-dried tomatoes and add these to the squash, giving each one a little mix around. Place lid on top of each squash, place in a baking dish and roast in the pre-heated oven for around 45 minutes to an hour until the flesh inside is soft." "Take your squash out of the oven. I like to let the squash cool down for a little while I simply dress the arugula with a pinch of salt and pepper, a drizzle of good olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice. Place a whole squash onto each of your serving plates . Cut up the goat's cheese and place some on each plate. Serve with the dressed arugula and a teaspoon for scooping out the incredible flavors." "P.S. I like the fact that there's something lovely and simple about the recipe above, but there are lots of variations that can be introduced to it-you could try stuffing the squash with sauteed mushrooms, cheese or bacon." Jamie Oliver My husband and I were not impressed with the taste of this squash dish. We did taste it Jamie's way, then promptly added butter to the squash. It was tasty with the tomatoes and herbs, but I think I will continue preparing squash with butter and serve brown sugar on the side to sprinkle in. I have never served acorn squash this way, as a bowl with a lid and I very much like the presentation...so recipe? I will not make again, but I will be serving my squash this way many more times!