The Last Crops Of The Season

I love these fall days. These days when just the last gasps of leaves remain. The showy Maples are mostly over by now, but the hills still have trails of yellow from the Aspens and Birches, and the bronze of the Oaks are striking. The geese are winging it south, as are the songbirds of summer. And the dogs, who love to laze in the summer sun now are content to spend their days in the house.

The garden is mostly over too. We still have carrots and potatoes to harvest for storage.The spinach is covered for extra warmth so it can get a bit bigger.

And we're about 1/4 done with selling fall Broccoli. The Middlebury Coop sells all of our crop. It's amazing that they can sell almost 500 pounds a week. It comes at a time when most of the fresh produce comes from warmer climes, and it's always a great source of pride to us that we are still harvesting big beautiful heads during these short days.

Each head is cut, and trimmed in the garden

Then driven down to the sinks where they are washed and put into boxes for market.

A lovely way to end a growing season. And in the next 2 weeks, we'll be getting ready for cows and calves and cheese.