Evening Walk & A Simple Gift

Hello, friends, and happy November!  Last week, I switched the warm and cold weather clothes in my closet, and added four things to the donation box.  We were expecting a killing frost on Wednesday.  On Monday, I picked all the cold sensitive vegetables... tomatoes, squash, peppers and eggplant.   Also, a cucumber, chard, two winter squash and small amount of basil.  The purslane returned, so I harvested a good bit, combined it with the basil, and made pesto.  J & I harvested all the lima beans.  He shelled all the dry beans.  While he was out of town one night, I shelled all the green ones, while watching a movie on our Roku TV.  I did manage to cut a little bouquet on Tuesday, and harvested a bag of sweet potato leaves for smoothies, to stretch the store bought spinach.  The lettuce was covered, before the cold temps.  The sweet potatoes that had been curing were brought inside.  

No matter how many times I've seen the gorgeous designs inside squash, they never fail to delight me.  They really are a work of art.  One recent dinner from the homestead was sweet potatoes, sauteed chard with garlic, and a new eggplant dish.  Neither of us was a fan of the eggplant recipe, so it wasn't kept.  After discussing the potatoes in grow bags, knowing we'd have little to no harvest if we dug them now, we decided to act as if they were fall planted, and see if  there might be a harvest in spring.  Taking advantage of the woodstove heat, I pulled three gallon bags from the freezer of veggie scraps, simmered them, and canned broth the next day.  Though it's only been a few minutes here and there, I've worked on a cross stitch project I started early in the year.  A pot of tiny sweet potatoes was boiled, partially on the woodstove, for the chickens and pups.

For a simple gift for some littles in my family, I made play dough, using this recipe (scroll to the end).  If you haven't seen Annabel's blog before, it's one of my favorites, with excellent, encouraging information shared, both in her posts and within the community's comments.  A recent soup used home canned garbanzo beans and broth, and our onions.  All laundry was dried on the line.  Pans of seeds that had been drying... rudbeckia, calendula, tansy, bachelor buttons & mullein, were placed in envelopes.  I continue making chicken mash, using whatever I can come up with.  Last week, I boiled up some pastina that was in the pantry for them.  In addition to chopped banana peels and sweet potatoes, I chopped some pickled peppers that weren't being eaten, and some days, a fig or two, or small tomato.  They still come running, whenever I bring it out.  Many wishes for a lovely week, friends.