October 27. No snow. Yet.

We sent the Very Large Pumpkins home with grands and gather the last inside. Cold comes. The high of 46° happened at 8 am. Only chillier from here to the foreseeable future.

The squash shall live in the basement, lasting until spring.

I stripped the Northwest Greening this week, saving the few keepers, then patrolled all trees for strays. The apple maggots use fallen apples for part of their life cycle. Once established, they stay until a very hard winter wipes the soil clean of larvae. Better to keep the orchards clean. We do not spray.

Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant. All gone.

I made a green tomato galette, layering tomato slices with thin sliced onions. Grated Parmesan over and under tomatoes. Salt, pepper and paprika. All cuddled in a savory crust. Salad rounded out dinner. Michael loosed the ducks on the last of the lettuce. They will clear that garden for us.

The chicken pullets began laying on October 10th. A pullet is a young laying bird. Their first eggs tend to be small. They are hard to incorporate into recipes, so Michael boiled a batch and we had soup and egg salad for dinner. The soup is a type of borscht I created with the last of the red eggplants. I added onions and garlic and beets and cabbage and a number of different types of peppers and paprika. Oh, and chicken and chicken broth…and a bit of maraschino cherry juice. It just needed a little sweetness. Turned out a lovely red and even lovelier to eat.

Last weekend we visited a dear friend in Western Minnesota. The trees remained spectacular. Color started with maples and is ending with cottonwood, poplar and birch. The oak leaves will hang on until spring. The Glaciers there brought down a different mix of gravel. Our roads in Western Wisconsin are paved with Lake Superior agates. Their roads incorporate Iron Range taconite, which rusts. Thank you, Valerie, for sharing your time and world with us.

These lovelies kept the animals fed while we played hooky. Thank you Artemis and Matt for allowing us a holiday.

We can hardly wait to see this guy again.