Susan writing to our ministry parters.By Susan Shanklin

By Susan Shanklin

We had a good hard frost last night. Yellow and red leaves are dangling off branches by a thread and praise the Lord the mosquitoes are DEAD!

There is a toasty fire flickering in the living room wood stove…not blasting, but a comfy cozy flame to keep the furnace from kicking on. We start out with what we call “junky” wood (wood from fallen trees and branches from the farm site). Some of it is rotten and soft, but for days like this it will do.

I’m always so glad in the spring to shut down the wood stove. Gone are the ashes and tiny pieces of wood sprinkled about the living room, ceiling and walls. Gone is the endless filling of water into the pot on top of the stove. Gone is the large silver metal trash can for ashes  that sits outside the front door. How tacky!

Now that it is fall, oh how wonderful to be starting up the wood stove! Out comes the silver metal ash can from the garage! How marvelous to set it outside my front door. Ha ha.

I have gathered all the vegetables that couldn’t handle a frost days ago, just in case in frosted without warning.

In came the green peppers, hot peppers, tomatoes and eggplant. I saved some green tomatoes and wrapped them in white napkins and put them on the dark cool cellar stairs. Every other day I turn on the light to see if I can see any blushing pink through the napkins. For those blushers I place in a basket on my counter where they turn red and beg to be made into a cool refreshing oil and vinegar salad. Folks, there is nothing better then to be eating a refreshing tomato salad in late October! I even found some cilantro the other day that must have reseeded itself. That’s called the second coming :).

The eggplant I have picked is getting a little soft on the cellar steps, but not much is left and I haven’t heard any complaints from “the Man” at breakfast time. Breakfast is when we eat our eggplant—seasoned and fried in a sprayed pan with lots of spices–and you’re good to go in the morning! Eggplant is Tom’s favorite or is that beet greens?

Garlic was dug and hung a month ago so that’s nice and handy along with the 5 gallon buckets of beets and carrots packed in sand. The cabbage all went into the fridge.

Winter squash ready for storage.

Sage, rosemary and dill were hung to dry in the kitchen. This year is my first time drying dill. I began by hanging the dill from a wooden ladder hung horizontally from the ceiling with the sage and rosemary, but finished drying it on a sheet of foil on the old hot water radiator in the kitchen. I just finished sifting the dill a little while ago. It will be a treat for making dill ranch dressing—another of Tom’s favorites. I just take a half cup of yogurt, two tablespoons of light mayo, one teaspoon of onion power, 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper. You can add two tablespoons of milk to make it more runny, but we just use the ranch for dipping…like meat and potatoes. Never have used it on lettuce. Ha.

The butternut squash came in October 1st and I baked one up today. I was hoping it had cured long enough. Baked it sliced length wise in half, de-seeded and rubbed with olive oil at 375 degrees, for about 45 minutes, I guess. OH my, yum!

We will have “OH my yum” many times, for we have eight clothes baskets of butternut squash! I think our daughters will have some “OH my yum” times too.

What’s not in from the garden is the ever so hardy kale and broccoli.

I still have kale growing from last year going gang busters, plus what we planted this year. Maybe manna from heaven was really kale. It never stops! I cut. I whack it. It keeps growing. I have froze it but what’s the use…it never dies!

The Arakara dried beans are hanging in big orange fruit bags from the rafters in the basement. Sometime when I am longing for a pot of beans, I’ll send Tom down to grab me a bag and  winnow them. In the end we usually glean about 15 pounds of dried beans.

Yep, seed time and harvest.