Last Weekend of Summer

What a busy time as the change of season begins to take place. The chimney was cleaned and swept, the wood is all stacked in the shed, but the garden has taken its time ripening. We are keeping our fingers crossed (when they aren't busy picking, washing,peeling, chopping, slicing, stirring, canning, shelling, mixing, and freezing) that the warm days of summer will last a few more weeks. Here are a some pictures from the weekend.


The hot tub isn't hot right now, so we call it the pool tub. It was the perfect weekend to relax in between the harvest and preserving!


The first twenty pounds of apples were picked. There are at least 500 pounds to go! Everyone will be getting applesauce for Christmas!!


The late blooming and late ripening fall raspberries are such a treat right now and so very sweet. Some were frozen and others were made into treats and frozen.


The amazing walnut cracker! It does the job quickly and easily. One of us cracks and the other one cleans the walnuts, as in takes the shell off!

These nuts will go into the freezer. We are nearing the end of the walnuts in the mesh bags and that is just in time for them to start dropping again. We actually used the nuts several times for our river lunches this summer.

Collecting basil and eggs. They can go together in cooking, but they just happened to be part of the same trip to the barn and the garden.

The eggs were needed for the raspberry peach muffins. The recipe called for the sugar to be added last. It gives the muffins a different texture.

Here they are packaged up and ready for the freezer. They can be taken out one at a time or served all together later in the year.

Tomatoes, eggplant, and squash were picked in the garden today. If the tomatoes had a hint of red, we picked them. They will ripen slowly in the kitchen.

Part of the vegies went into Eggplant Parmesan for dinner.

Many of the vegies went into a pot of Garden Sauce that is cooked down to a wonderful thickness and then frozen for fresh from the garden spaghetti sauce.

The rest of the tomatoes were canned for use over the winter in soups and casseroles. Tomatoes are one of the easiest vegetables to can.

Pears were picked and ready to core and slice for the dehydrator. They make such a surprisingly tasty snack. They dry in about 12 hours.

Just four racks of pears filled three pints. We slice them as they ripen so there is less waste.

Finally, the treat at the end of the week end: raspberry peach cobbler. There are 49er peaches, white peaches and raspberries.

Here is the last weekend of summer raspberry peach cobbler. The peaches and the berries are perfectly ripe and taste so good together and the cobbler is so simple to make. What a lucky week end to be able to work on the farm.