Fantastic Fall Fun on the Funny Farm

It was a very fall-ish weekend at Blackrock. The autumnal activities began with the splitting and stacking of wood on Saturday morning. Then we continued the fun with the harvesting of a row of potatoes. We had one row of a baking variety of potato that grew faster and died down sooner than the all-purpose variety planted in the other six rows. So the Bake Kings were ready for harvest. I like to harvest potatoes when A. is home so he can dig them up and I can pick them up. This works out well for both of us, because I don't like to dig and he doesn't like to bend over. We got well over a hundred fairly large potatoes from that one row. Would anyone like to do the math to figure out what that means for the total potato harvest when we get to the next six rows?

Let me save you the work: It's gonna be a shitload of potatoes.

But the fun did not end there! Oh no! Next on the autumn agenda: Picking pears. This was also a two-person activity, as I needed A. to both hold the ladder for me and fend off the ram with a stick when he got too interested in the pears. The chickens share the pasture with the ram (and the pear tree), so they were scratching around in there, too. We decided to let Mia in with us, figuring it would be a good opportunity to teach her to leave the chickens alone. We needn't have worried about her bothering the chickens--she was far too interested in the pears. She and Donnie the Ram were both quite interested in the pears. In fact, they came to blows over them at one point.

So picture this scene: I'm balanced precariously on a tilting step-ladder, getting my face ripped up by branches and stretching for all the pears I can reach. Below me, the ram and the dog are waiting expectantly for a pear to drop. When a pear does drop, both go for it. If the ram gets it first, Mia lets him have it. If Mia gets it first, Donnie tries to butt her to get it. She snaps at his face and he runs away. He runs to the wheelbarrow where the pears are being deposited, prompting me to yell at A., who is holding the ladder so I don't fall down and break my crown, and A. lets go of the ladder to fend the ram (and occasionally the dog) off from the treasure trove of pears in the wheelbarrow. Meanwhile, the chickens are running around and the ewes are yelling in the next pasture because they're not getting any pears.

What a peaceful, bucolic rural scene.

Anyway, there was a lot of harvesting. I also picked some grapes and made some more grape juice. Oh, and we picked some apples. And let us not forget the tomatoes, which have not yet surrendered.

After the harvest comes the canning. I anticipate a week full of sugar syrup and peeling of pears. Yay. Luckily, my sister arrives on Thursday for a visit, and you'd better believe I'll be putting her to work. Isn't that what family is for?

P.S. I promise I'll begin answering The Questions tomorrow. Or maybe Wednesday. Definitely this week. Glad I could clear THAT up . . .