Harvesting, And Other Fallish News

It's been a long time since we've had an autumn as beautiful as this one. There are still lots of colored leaves on the trees in my section of town, which is unusual for late September in the Yukon; and the weather is good, making outdoor adventures more appealing than indoor activities.

I've been busy cranberry picking and harvesting the garden. There is a large bowl of uncleaned cranberries in the kitchen, waiting to be rolled on a towel to get rid of the debris. Let's just say I love picking them more than I do cleaning them. Or baking with them. Eating them? I'm fine with that, too.

The potatoes are all out of the ground and drying under a tarp in the basement. I don't have a good way to cold store the carrots, so we've been eating lots of them raw as I pick them. The good news is that we are still less yellow than the leaves. I've been freezing some carrots, too, sliced on the diagonal to use in stir fries. There is, as I write this, a big bucket of carrots in the kitchen waiting for cleaning and slicing.

The brussel sprouts are huge, but I don't think it has frosted enough yet to pick them. They're better--sweeter--if they get at least one good frost before they're harvested, but they're also better if they don't get too big. To pick, or not to pick? It's a brussel sprout dilemma.

Youngest son flew out yesterday morning for a volleyball tournament in Vancouver. The kid's done a lot of travelling this year, some with me and some with his sports teams. This is, I think, his fourth trip to Vancouver since January.

Oldest son has moved his blog to Squarespace. (That his photo of leaves, by the way.) He really likes Squarespace, for many reasons. I'm tempted to move, too, but there are downsides to moving. I've collected links and visitors to this site over the years, and it'd probably take a lot of time to build things up again at another URL. Yet another dilemma, this time a blog dilemma.

I'm off now to pick cranberries again. I'm taking the dog along to keep the bears away.