Hello and welcome to the land of fall. We have had our first snow, followed the next morning by our first deep frost, which squashed the tomatoes flat, shriveled up the pepper plants, turned the basil black, and shrunk the eggplants. Two days ago, I went out to my summer garden and pulled up all of the plants the cold had ruined, loaded them into the tractor scoop and hauled them away. I have a laundry basket filled with ripe and semi ripe tomatoes, as opposed to the basement room full last year. That's okay. I thought I'd never get through processing all of those tomatoes last year. Now the garden is bare again, except for a few surviving lettuce leaves, some surviving parsley, chives, and ciantro, and the strawberry patch. And, of course, for the plant and straw material that will rot in/over it this winter to feed it for next spring.

Our plans for this winter are in the process of being finalized. Bobby will take Daniel and me to the Garden City airport in January, drop us off, then hit the road for Orlando.  I will fly to Ft Myers along with Bobby's sister and his brother's family, thus saving little D twenty carseat hours, we will all rent a car or perhaps borrow his dad's vehicle, stay with his dad in Ft Myers for a few days, then drive up to Orlando and meet B, where we all have a resort condo rented for a week of theme parks for the kids (big and little) and poolside lounging. Then we will all drive back to Ft Myers for several more days, the rest of the family will fly home, and B and I will stay as long as we can. My parents will be dog sitting during this time, so we won't be gone for longer than two months. Work will determine when we need to return to the land of howling winter wind.

I am tempting myself with registering for the Naples or Key West Half Marathon in January. Even though I have not run 13.1 miles since before little D was born. I dont think I'll die. I might uncontrollably crap my pants or projectile vomit on a palm tree, but I know I could at least finish. I wouldn't be going for a record time, just as long as it took. I have done several 10K runs since D was born, and they felt good, even though my miles are several minutes longer now than they used to be. I just have no time to train for a half marathon, and it occurs to me that the way to still be able to run a half marathon when one has no time for training is to simply cut out the training. Sounds like a solid plan. No way that could go wrong.

So where are we in our grand process of searching for sustainability and self-sufficiency? Well. Glad you asked. I feel like there have been wins and losses this year.

Separating my garden-big win. Even though grandma's garden plot is not far from the house, it is too far. I absolutely loved having fresh vegetables literally two steps from my kitchen door. We wasted not and wanted not, with it so close. However, it was the first year in a new location, and the soil came from an area that was chosen for aesthetic reasons- you can't see the big ugly hole- than it was for it's natural nutrient profile. So it ended up being very bland soil with lots of thorny weed seeds I had to really work to stay on top of. The soil profile I could have worked with, had I done even the smallest amount of research into which sorts of plants require which sorts of soil. As it was, I planted strawberries, which need a lot of nitrogen, next to eggplants, which do not tolerate rich soil, next to watermelon, which climbs on everything and takes a lot of water, next to peppers which are easily overwatered. I also planted basil next to cilantro, and the basil exploded and covered up my cilantro,  which burned up and went to seed about the time I needed it, and then, after fresh salsa season was past, all of those seeds sprouted and grew all over my garden. Actually, the only complete failure was the eggplant. I applied turkey poop over the whole garden mid-summer, which pretty much everything loved except the eggplant, who's fruit turned from deep purple to sickly yellow within a week.

And in the meantime, my winter root garden just grew up in weeds. We mowed close around it. This was planned, since last year, I fenced it in and spread out my plantings with little thought to what order they would be harvested in. This year, I kept it compact and tried to plant with harvest times progressing from east to west so we could harvest, then mow and not need to weed anymore in the areas already harvested. I went out about three times since planting it this spring and weeded, and the nightmare weeds just immediately came back. This, of course, is mostly thanks to me overextending myself garden-wise last summer, then not feeling much like dragging my giant pregnant butt out there to care for it, and the weeds going to seed. I don't know what the weeds are out there. Some sort of bastardization of wild amaranth, it seems like. The seedy tops are somewhat the same, but instead of bristly seed heads, they are stickery, thistle like tops that scratch and tear and leave you wanting to remove your skin along with your clothes when you come inside.

However, the soil in the winter garden is..mwaaah. Benissimo. Black and loamy and loaded with earthworms, and just sandy enough that roots go crazy in it. It has grown the vegetables to feed my family for many, many years. That soil is written into my DNA. It fed my grandmother as my mother was forming inside her, it fed my mother as I was forming, it fed my son as he was forming. Our cells are formed of the stuff we feed them, and the cells of this family are formed at least partially from that plot of dirt. It sets one's mind to complemplating circles of life when one kneels in the family homestead's garden. All of the energy we borrow, then give back when our time here is done, and where that energy comes from. And then you realize that without nutrient, there would be no life, and then you realize that you are not only standing in a vegetable garden, but in the cradle of life itself. And then you realize that you are close to making some some illusive, profound connection, one that will leave you the next time you flippantly grab a bunch of bananas and a gallon of ice cream at the supermarket.

Actually, my intention for the day is to go out to the winter garden and harvest. I have three rows of potatoes to dig- a row of red potatoes, a pow of white, and a row of purple. Plus some sweet potatoes we optimistically stuck in the ground. I am hoping to find they did what they were supposed to do. Three rows of carrots, a row of beets, and two rows of onions need to come in, be washed up and then go to my mom's "root cellar", which is actually the cement lined hole that houses the well at her house. This is much harder to access since the twister tore through their yard this spring, playfully picking up the well house and tossing it through a tree, which splintered it, then into the neighbor's freshly re-stuccoed, freshly painted house and the vehicle parked in front of it.

At which point, the mower will come out one more time, and I will mow it close to the ground, and hopefully this winter we will get some moisture and a deep freeze to break up and soften the ground deep underneath it, because we did not have enough moisture followed by a deep enough freeze last winter and as a result, my carrots could only go as far down as the prongs of my spading fork, since that was as deep as I loosened the soil.

I am both relieved and sad that at this point, the only animals on the yard are Andy and a succession of barn cats. And Marvelous Marvin, the big yellow neutered tomcat, who has decided to come home again. He was gone for two weeks this month. I had been mourning his passing for several days already when one morning, there he was in the barn, awaiting catfood. Where he goes, he's not saying. But he comes home lean and clingy and covered in scratches, his ears shredded, his chin and neck rough from scabs hiding under his thick fur.