Harvest Season

It's been a month since I've checked in here, and I miss my blogging friends and readers.
But my posts are going to be few between now and May 1, 2013, which is my deadline for a top secret project that I have been sewing madly for since last January. It is hard not to share what I've been doing, but I hope you feel it will be worth the wait.
There are some big surprises in store!!!!

Meanwhile....
There has been a whole lot of gardening going on by my Food Supplier in Chief Robert, and harvest season is upon us....

The deal is, he grows it and I process it.  Pear sauce and tomato sauce have been cranked out in mass quantities, with more to come...

I don't add a thing to this sauce, and I don't peel those tomatoes, either!  They are simply terrific as is off the vine.

Thankfully, once the onions are cured we just store them in the basement.  It was a banner year for the onions!

Same goes for the winter squash.  For some reason (a pre-natal tendency is my opinion), my husband is compulsive about growing all sorts of winter squash: Delicata, Carnival, Ambercup, Marina de Chiogga.  We will be eating off these til next summer. (Shown is a fraction of the harvest, believe me.)

The potatoes are all stashed away downstairs...

But we are still waiting on the Bosc pears...

This is only a part of the tree...I'm amazed at how great a crop we have, considering the weather is so lousy while the trees flower in the spring, and the bees are down in numbers...These will go into the chutney, along with all those peppers we also have coming ripe.  I'd like to try drying some, too.

And after planting some Asian pear trees 18 years ago....we have our first decently sized crop of them.  They are incredible...and it's nice to know we didn't completely waste our time with those trees!
Here's Robert filling a bucket for us...

There are also some out-of-it apple trees that we don't harvest...but our neighbors here are waiting for me to chuck some windfalls over the fence.


That big cow with the horns gets first dibs on everything, that is for sure!


I will check back in with reports of some upcoming travels....off to Columbia, MO next week, and then Wichita, Kansas for the Victorian Stitchery Retreat in November (there are still openings in the classes by me, Judith Montano, and Candace Kling, so contact Valerie Bothell if you can come.)

But....a few more moons will pass before I can blog about my studio work....here is a little glimpse though...can you find the Big Dipper?

Happy Harvest to you all!