While listening to rain

November 1st? How did this happen? Where did the golden summer go? Yesterday, I prepared my garden for winter, cutting down tomato plants, removing green tomatoes, layering the soil with the tomato vines, chicken pooh, straw and cover crop seeds. I planted crimson clover, vetch, and fava beans.

I left my green tomatoes on the vine and boxed them with newspaper. I've been told that some will rot, but some will ripen, so I'm curious. A few of them seem too immature to do much. Tonight, I'm going to cook up a batch of fried green tomatoes. If I notice that the others aren't ripening, I might make some chutney or relish with them. My tomato crop was less than mediocre. I had delicious tomatoes, but not the plethora that I hoped for. Never really enough to give away, although we dehydrated some. No canning, no preserving. No sauce or salsa in the pantry. Boo to wet springs and wet falls!

Still, I had many successes in the garden, such as hollyhocks and foxglove grown from seeds, a jar of chamomile that was homegrown, and healthy oregano, sage, thyme, and tarragon.

I still need to plant my garlic and scallion bulbs, but in the front garden, I planted (two weeks ago) tulip, iris, and crocus bulbs as well as one of those tall poofy alliums. The bulb cost $5 and was bigger than my fist, so I hope that it grows and successfully blooms.

The chickens are molting their summer feathers and growing in their winter plumes. Apparently, they eat each others' feathers and recycle the proteins in order to regenerate new ones. Ew.

Yesterday, we harvested a basketful of figs from our neighbor's fig tree. They aren't the sweetest figs in the world, but we're going to dehydrate most of them. I'd also like to make a fig mustard for sandwiches and can that, so we're going to revisit the fig tree throughout the week in hopes of collecting enough. Tonight, I want to cook some figs and tarragon and citrus with some chicken.

For Halloween, I sewed furry ears, furry boot cuffs, and furry tales, and Brian and I showed up at our friends' place dressed as brown bears with black noses. We ate nachos, danced around, shaking our tales, in their living room, and watched a semi-scary movie, followed by some Frank the Tank and  Lloyd Dobbler. Dreamy Lloyd Dobbler...sigh.