So the weather prediction was correct about the first hard frost of 2013 which occurred over night on October 24th and continued as temps dropped even further the next morning. We were not able to save the last of the ‘hangers on’ of the summer crops such as Eggplant, Tomatoes, Peppers, Okra and Green Beans. I hate to say it but enough already?!?!  The good news is that our cool weather crops of Spinach, Swiss Chard, Pak Choi, (or Bok Choi…we see this spelled several ways) Broccoli, Cabbage, Kale and a variety of Lettuces, survived the snap and are still thriving. This means that even after the large over-harvesting that we did in fear of losing all that was out in the field, we are still able to bring in the dark leafy stuff that is so good for us! I’m serving the leafy stuff nightly along with some other tasty morsels! Last night we had thinly sliced pork loin chops in a Dijon Mustard sauce (divine – e-mail me for the recipe!) along with pasta served in our tomato sauce along with sauteed Swiss Chard.

We are currently getting a nice, gentle rain which isn’t so nice for the Halloween folks, but it is helping the new grass that we have planted in the edges of the new driveway and elsewhere. Before the rain started, we had thick fog yesterday which was interesting to observe but difficult to photograph.

The trees are starting to turn beautiful shades of red. As I take my daily walk thru Kirkwood, I have been avidly looking for the Trident Maple specimen that we will be planting in front this fall. I have found several to admire and even stopped to photograph their lovely fall leaf color on a recent walk.

Perhaps these colors have inspired some of my recent knitting. I am still working on my final year of the Master Hand Knitting program and have quite a few items to compete before I will be able to send off my submission. One of those items will be a sweater of my own design in the tradition of Fair Isle Knitting. I won’t bore you with the details of this now (but will promise to later when there is less to report about this farm this winter!), but it is safe to say that this is a large undertaking which will take me months to complete in my spare time. I am currently at the stage of collecting the groupings of yarns to make progressions of color values. I have begun this project with the inspiration from one of our antique oriental rugs that is in our entry foyer.

In the midst of all of this design work, here is what my desk looked like this afternoon!

Other news to report: we have been trying to find a location to recycle the Styrofoam in our area. This is really tricky since the weekly trash collectors prohibit the disposal in the regular trash and our local Kirkwood recycling does not take it either. After quizzing several of my brightest, ecological minded friends, they didn’t have a suggestion either. So, as the volume began to grow in our garage, I did a search on line and found a company in Earth City that would take it for free. So we loaded up my car this week and made a disposal run. Not only was my rear cargo full but so was my back seats! After going thru this ordeal, I’m now much more sensitized to companies that continue to ship stuff to us with Styrofoam packaging and will be refusing to buy any store goods that are packaged that way!