In which I come home, and it's beginning to look a lot like Harvest!

Hana was very happy to see the truck and trailer pull down the driveway! She was dancing and hollering out in the field, telling Fiddle to unload herself and get back in the pasture where she belongs.

Fee was very quiet until she was off the trailer and walking to the gate. Then she let loose with a very loud whinny. Ow. Remind me to move my head further away next time.



Dobbie and Lupin were also hopping around, flapping those gigantic ears and maaa-ing like crazy, which just confused Fiddle--the goats had only been in the pasture with the horses for a day when I loaded up my mare and took off to Oregon. I don't think she remembered them.

In the days following my homecoming, I've been busy catching up with all the stuff that hadn't been done for a week...like taking pictures of stuff around the farm!

Tomatoes are starting to get ripe.


If you don't already know Guy Clark's "Homegrown Tomatoes" song, I guarantee that you will learn it and sing along at the top of your lungs if you want any Haiku Farm tomatoes!

Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes!

What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes--

There's only two things that money can't buy:

and that's True Love and homegrown tomatoes!

There's other stuff getting ripe, too:

Plums. The tree is loaded with plums. I'm hoping they'll be ripe next week....plum jam, maybe? Plum wine? What else can I do with all these plums?

The pear tree isn't nearly so prolific. I think it only has 5 or 6 pears on it...but they are practically perfect pears. It's hard to criticize a tree that puts so much energy into producing perfect fruit. I plan to pick the pears next week and thank the tree most politely. Maybe next year I can get 6 or 7 pears?

Apple trees are producing lots, but so far not any apples that people are interested in eating. The Yellow Transparents are done, and since they got ripe during the heat wave, nobody was interested in making applesauce out of them--the horses (and the yellowjackets) ate those.

This week we've got some little mealy red apples coming ripe....not very tasty, not even the yellowjackets want them. The goats and horses like them just fine, though, so I pick a small bucketful of them every evening and toss them over the fence.

I throw like a girl, so the apples never go far, which pleases the goats tremendously. Hana seems to enjoy chasing the apples that roll, but Fiddle would be happiest if I'd just hand her the bucket and get these other hungry creatures away from Her Apples.

There are two more apple trees in the orchard with unripe apples. One tree looks like a Gravenstein, which would be wonderful. Not sure about the other--I'll have to break off a branch and take it down to the MasterGardeners table at the hardware store next weekend.

Taking pictures of stuff means I have to look at it, which means I can't ignore it. In the case of the roses, that means I have to deal with them, which I finally knuckled down to do today.

The roses were covered with blown flowers and weird branches--but the former owners clearly took care of these plants, because they are basically in good shape.

I wish I liked roses and lilacs more, because this place has several of each, but honestly I'm more of a lavendar gal--no pruning or insecticides required. Bah. If these roses survive with minimal care, then power to them...and if they die because I neglect them, then that's one more spot in the yard that's available for a nice, sturdy lavendar plant!

Fortunately for the rose bushes, there are some avid rose fans here on the farm: Dobbie and Lupin were delighted to take care of the pruned branches for me!

Thanks, Kids!

I can only stay On Task for a limited time, and when Willy and Jim got home from church today, I'd had enough Virtuous Garden-Working Time for the day.

"Hitch the truck," sez I, "let's go riding!" The goats like to "assist" when we're tacking up the horses.

Willy was happy to be left alone at home for some uninterrupted online gaming time, and Jim and I took the mares out to the Pilchuck Tree Farm for a few hours. The woods are still green in some places....

but clearly, Autumn is coming.

I'm just hoping for a few more warm days to ripen the rest of the tomatoes, the apples, and the plums. Think we'll get 'em?

It's always a race to the harvest finish-line here in the Swamplands. My fingers are crossed.