Gleaning

I would have passed these vegetables by, just a few weeks ago. Big old beans gone too mature, missed under heavy leaves somehow and forging into to leathery toughness. At the other end of the spectrum, tiny beans, no more than threads, but succulent and sweet.

I should not pick them. They will fit right down the sink drain in a swoosh of water. I'm sure that isn't good for the plumbing. I should just eat them right off the vine instead. Or leave them.

Left to grow they would only get fatter and better.

However, there is no more left to grow this year. What the meteorologists euphemistically call "the end of the growing season" is upon us.

Killing frost.

The big freeze.

It will fall tonight sure as November, unless somehow this icy wind holds it off. I don't think so. But maybe

Minuscule squashes, barely more than blossoms, a single grape that the wind tore off the apple tree. One apple just to see if somehow the Winesaps taste better this year than last.

I know better than to test them before frost, but they always tempt me beyond reason. It will be dry and bland and mealy, just as they always are until the frost turns them tangy

We will have a stew tonight of mostly homegrown. Beef from the big steer, the beans and squash, and a few store bought carrots...ours are all gone alas...though they surely were delicious.

After a breakfast of French toast made with eggs from the kids' hens, topped with jelly made from apple cider that Alan helped squeeze....delicious stuff, think i'll have some with dinner...we will feel well-fed indeed.

The electric fencing is holding so far, down on the chicken coop, although there were reports of an outlandish howling out there in the night, as if something had tried to crawl through and got zapped.

And zapped.

And zapped.

And zapped again.

What a shame......