No post last Monday, as we were enjoying another three-night getaway to a cabin at the nearby lakeside nature preserve. So here's what's come in over the past two weeks.
I cut all the butternut squash available. This is Waltham Butternut, smaller than expected, with the biggest one just about 3 pounds.
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| Waltham Butternut (OP) |
And this is Butterbush. As the name implies, it's a bush or short vine hybrid, producing what they call "single-serving" fruits. The largest is just over 2 pounds.
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| Butterbush (F1) |
Dry shelling bush beans were picked and shelled. On the left is Monos Negros, a black bean that I've grown for a couple of years. It seems to have a fair number that are more purple than black. On the right is Jacob's Cattle, which is very attractive to me.
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| Monos Negros and Jacob's Cattle |
I cut the last of the Autumn Frost squash. This brings our total to 17 squashes of all types. This should be plenty to get us through the winter. The fact that they are on the small side is not a problem for us. Those 18 pounder crooknecks I grew last year were a lot of fun, but it's way too much for us to use at one time. We actually still have one in storage, looking fine.
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| Autumn Frost (F1) |
The Kitchen Goddess picked the first large quantity of raspberries.
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| Fall raspberries |
And there was only one "general harvest."
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| Mid-September harvest |
I had accumulated two dozen paprika peppers.
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| Leutschauer paprika (OP) |
I smoked them for an hour and a half, dehydrated them, and ground into smoked paprika, a spice I'm very fond of. I discovered this variety of paprika pepper has actually a bit of a kick to it, which is fine.
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| Smoked paprika |
A couple of wildlife notes: the Northern Walkingstick is not rare, but you never see them unless they're out of their element and their camouflage has become a liability. I found this one on Saturday.
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| Northern (Common) Walkingstick |
We had an outdoor fire one evening, and an immature Red-tailed hawk landed on a post very nearby.
It looked at us for awhile, then flew off.
So we had a great time at the lake. The nights and especially the early mornings were quite cool, and we were glad we brought jackets. But the days were warm and sunny. I even went swimming a couple of times. Sitting around a fire in the evening was very pleasant.
And here's a picture from a very calm morning.
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| Serenity on a chilly morning |
That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and thanks as always to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.
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