This year has slipped by, and yet, felt like it has taken forever. The days go by in a blur, homeschooling keeps us busy. But even with that we spend a lot of our time on the homestead, keeping it going. The Winter Solstice is a week away, and winter has knocked ever so lightly to let us know it’s coming.
But as the summer left into fall, we kept busy harvesting flowers and seeds, to save for winter, and for next spring.
Flower saving for herbalism uses this coming winter.
Dried Rockwell Beans, a Whidbey Island bean.
Classroom work, Picking plants to dry.
Seed and plant charts for school.
For Alistaire’s nature journal, for his schooling.
Packing up seeds for spring.
Seed to preserve.
Rockwell beans we picked – and ate in soup. They are so, so good.
Scarlet Runner Beans.
I started picking up new seeds to try in late winter. All dwarfs! Forgotten Heirlooms.
Another one I picked up from: The Experimental Farm Network.
Sunset on the homestead.
Mid fall is crunchy leaf time!
The big maple tree is the best….
Working on one of the fields.
Rosemary blooming in October.
First good frost in early December, with the full moon at sunrise.
Chickens everywhere.
The baby chick isn’t so much a chick anymore. It is nearly 7 weeks old now. Of the 2 baby chicks we hatched sadly one was taken by either the owl or an eagle. This one has always stuck with Mama.
Set up a day area for the ducks to work on.
Heading home after a hard day’s work.
This weekend we built a new raised bed, near the house, using recycled bricks. We will fill it, fence it, and put down wood chips on the outside. It will be a “kitchen garden” near the house. Perfect for early spring crops.
Fall was relatively dry and neither cold nor warm. The rains have returned this week.
And in the final 8 days of fall, the days are short, and the night is long.
~Sarah