Harvest thoughts

I just found out the the Hilltown Ice Cream Man is selling his truck. He told me that it was just too expensive a hobby... It's too bad, because I loved his Gingersnap ice cream. No, really it's too bad that it's so hard to make a living doing things you just love.

I thought about him as I was walking through my pumpkin patch this afternoon, trying to see if there would be enough pumpkins even for our annual pumpkin illuminaria. I could never have a business selling pumpkins. Especially not this year. I was overrun with squash bugs (who have no compunctions about chewing on pumpkin plants). But more importantly, the month we spent in Barcelona (June, to be exact) was the month I should have been here weeding the pumpkin patch, and when I got back, there were more weeds than even squash bugs.

I'm excited about my gourd harvest though. I have huge bushel gourds that I am hoping to be able to dry for next year. There are also many, many canteens and swans, and a few tall triangular ones whose name I forget.

What we do have an inordinate quantity of is apples. They fall off the tree faster than we can pick them (literally). This morning we made dried apples, apple cider, and I thought about making apple butter, but I was tired of peeling and cutting. Tomorrow.

There were two bright spots in all this harvest news. Xana, the cow, loves apple peels as much as she does whole apples, and they are pretty much guaranteed not to choke her. And the pigs love pumpkins, even, or perhaps especially, ones with smushy spots and misshapen bodies.