Up early the day after Thanksgiving, camera in hand to catch the frost and mist (and Roy’s new gate), I thought of this poem I wrote a few winters back. Figured I’d share it with you today for a sense of calm on a Monday morning.
Winter Relief
What use is the world
without
the quiet breath of winter,
that bare-branch season
of a thousand greys
and a smattering
of blood-red berries?
—Susie Middleton
We left the pot-luck early with an empty platter. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, but still I was surprised at the sheer snarfing speed of the crowd. The party was really just getting going when we had to dash off to take Libby to the boat, but somehow, between the freshly shucked oysters, the beer bottles twisting open, and the first bites of juicy roast pig, the crispy potatoes had evaporated. I’d never even taken the tinfoil off. But someone had, and a flashmob of snackers had downed 45 crispy potatoes in no time.
When we got in the car, Libby was grinning and wide-eyed, clearly ready to give me credit for this disappearing act. But I told her, “It’s a dirty trick, you know, putting a platter of fried salty potato thingies in front of hungry people, people who’ve probably been raking leaves or rounding up sheep or wading in freezing waters for scallops all morning. They don’t stand a chance against a crispy potato. Once you eat one, they’re like potato chips or popcorn—you have to have more.”
So, yeah, I did not invent potatoes+salt+oil, but I did noodle a fun variation on this theme some years ago for Fine Cooking magazine, and I noodled the idea a little further for The Fresh & Green Table, where I turned the crispy smashed potatoes into a warm salad with a bit of Asian slaw. And somewhere, some potluck along the way, I also discovered a bonus: These crispy smashed potatoes don’t have to be served hot. They’re just fine at room temperature, which makes them ideal for a buffet, or, say, something like Thanksgiving dinner, when keeping everything hot seems to be one of the biggest challenges. So after the potluck, I began to think I should hand over the recipe here at sixburnersue.com in time for turkey day.
Now I am really not suggesting that you replace the mashed potatoes with these smashed potatoes. (They are literally smashed—you boil little red potatoes until tender and then gently smush them down with the palm of your hand. Then you toss with lots of oil and salt and roast at very high heat. Because they’ve already been boiled, they wind up with a fluffy texture inside and a very crispy texture outside.) But if you have a big crowd and serve lots of different kinds of food, there’s no reason not to make these, too, since they can be partially done ahead and popped in the oven when the turkey comes out to rest.
Or, heck, forget about Thanksgiving day and make them over the weekend or some other time during the holidays. They’re pretty good with roast beef. Or just about anything else.
And if you need some other great side dish ideas for the holiday, see my top ten suggestions from last year or browse Fine Cooking‘s terrific collection of Thanksgiving menus and recipes.
Recipe copyright Susie Middleton, adapted from The Fresh & Green Table, Chronicle Books, 2012
Baby red potatoes—about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 ounces each—are my favorites here. You can use slightly bigger potatoes, but keep them all about the same size for the best results. I used to toss these with olive oil, but I found that some olive oil got an offer flavor from the very high heat. Now I use vegetable oil. Canola is fine, but lately I’ve been using Spectrum’s high-heat safflower oil and that has a really clean taste.
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16 baby red potatoes (consistently sized)
kosher salt
1/2 cup canola or safflower oil
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Preheat the oven to 475°F. Line a heavy-duty rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and a piece of parchment paper on top. Arrange a double-layer of dish towels on a large cutting board or your kitchen counter. Put the potatoes (preferably in one layer) in a large Dutch oven and cover with at least 1 1/2 inches of water. Add 2 teaspoons kosher salt, cover loosely, bring the water to a boil, and reduce to a simmer. Uncover and cook until the potatoes are tender all the way through, but not falling apart, about 18 to 20 minutes. (Check with a paring knife.)
Using tongs or a slotted spoon, transfer each potato to the dish towels, arrange them a few inches apart, and let them cool for a few minutes. Using another folded dish towel, gently press down on each potato to flatten it into a patty about 1/2 inch thick (or up to 3/4-inch). The patties don’t have to be perfectly even, and a few pieces of potato may break off (no matter—you can still roast them). Let the patties cool for a few minutes more, transfer them to the baking sheet, and let them cool for 10 to 15 minutes longer. (Or, at this point, you can hold the potatoes in the fridge for up to 24 hours, covered with plastic. Bring to room temp before roasting.)
Sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt on the potatoes and pour the 1/2 cup oil over them. Carefully flip the potatoes over, and season this side with a scant 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt. Rub with some of the oil, making sure that the potatoes are well-coated with oil on all sides. Roast (turning once with a spatula—carefully—halfway through cooking) until they turn a deep orange brown (a little darker and crisper around the edges), about 28 to 30 minutes.
Our Thanksgiving turkey is walking and talking less than a quarter mile up the road. She is ranging around in a big pasture with a few hundred friends, enjoying the fresh grass, salt air, and rosy sunsets of rural West Tisbury. Even closer, a few paces down the road in the other direction, tasty lamb shanks graze in a spent hayfield. I drive by them every time I leave the house. Of course, I don’t necessarily think “rosemary and garlic” when I look at them. I think about how gorgeous their chocolate and cream-colored wool is and how funny their faces are, with their feral eyes and grinding jaws and devil’s ears. Baby lambs are cute; adult sheep can actually be sort of strange looking.
Cuteness factors aside, we are really fortunate to have uber-local, humanely-raised (delicious) meat available to us. And even though we can see how these animals are raised, they’re still living on our neighbors’ property—not ours—so we don’t have to deal with the whole personality issue. Yet.
Yesterday I was staring into the face of a charred pig with a spit in his mouth. It was the second Island pig roast we’ve been to in the last few weeks. As Libby and I nibbled on a particularly sweet and juicy hunk of pork, I said to her, “Do you really think we could do this—raise a pig and then eat her?” Libby just sort of giggled nervously. This is a girl who pays attention to what’s going on around her, and she knows. Knows how most meat animals in this country are raised (heard me talking about it enough) and knows what humanely raised animals look like (dozens of visits to Island farms, don’t you know). And she understands the difference between a farm animal (one that you spend lots of time and money feeding and watering in order to get a certain return on it) and a farm pet (like our dog Farmer, whose sole purpose in life is to be cute and provide lots of kisses and snuggles on the couch—and to chase chickens).
But still she is an animal lover. And she is 10 years old. I, on the other hand, am not 10. So I’m not sure what my excuse is. I’m just awfully afraid that we’re going to get piglets (already in the works for next spring) with the intention of raising them to slaughter weight (sometime next fall) but wind up with a couple of 600-pound sows (a decade from now) that have become the hugest hungriest farm pets ever. I keep thinking of James Taylor’s song about his pig, Mona, who he bought expressly to raise for meat and never was able to slaughter. “Mona, Mona, so much of you to love, a little bit too much of you to take care of.” This famous pig actually lived on the Vineyard. Some of my friends remember her. And she was huge.
Not eating our own pork would be hypocrisy at its worst. I am (at least I think I am) 100 percent in favor of more locally, humanely raised animals. And 100 percent in favor of eating all the parts of those animals and making that meat stretch over many meals. Choosing to eat a little less meat overall and a little more locally-raised meat are the only ways I see to help fuel the shift away from factory farms.
And I am especially excited about a movement on the Island to build a USDA-approved four-legged humane slaughterhouse. This would be a big incentive for Island farmers to raise more meat animals, because they wouldn’t have to take the animals on an expensive and stressful ferry ride to a facility hundreds of miles away (and wait weeks to get the meat back). And by definition, an Island animal is a pastured animal—there’s no such thing as a feedlot here.
Most ludicrous is the thought that I might disdain eating our own pig and then turn around and go to the grocery store and buy a package of bacon (which I will do—there is certainly no point in pretending that I will never eat bacon again). This would be like giving the factory farms a big thumbs up and poking a stick in the eye of all the efforts to return animal raising to a natural and sustainable system in this country.
And here’s the kicker. We wanted to be farmers. So we started to grow vegetables. Then we got a few laying hens. Then we got some more laying hens. Then we decided we might actually like to get serious about farming as a small business. Then, just a few weeks ago, our landlord invited us to use the three acres of fields behind us for farming. So now we have 200 more laying hens arriving here—tomorrow. And once you decide to make eggs a business, you really have no choice but to “trade in” your hens every couple of years, because their productivity declines. It’s way too expensive (and not a smart business move) to feed hens that aren’t laying many eggs. (No matter how much pasture the hens graze on, they still need supplemental feed.) So your two-year-old hens go off to slaughter. They become chicken pot pies.
Ah. It appears we have already crossed the line into raising animals for meat. Making the leap from a chicken to a pig shouldn’t be that hard, should it?
P.S. The three acres are the reason why the pigs are now a possibility. And stay tuned for more about the arrival of the 200 chickens and photos of Roy’s new coops. The chickens are 17-week-old pullets, so they’ll be ready to lay in a few weeks. We’re skipping the baby-chick phase this time, so at least we don’t have to deal with that cute fest!
And thank you to The Good Farm, Cleveland Farm, and Mermaid Farm for letting me photograph their turkeys and sheep on State Road.
All I can think about today is soup. This may be because I have too many vegetables crowding up the fridge. After another round of recipe development and a pre-hurricane sweep of the garden, I am left with the clear makings of minestrone—everything from a five-pound bag of carrots to three awkwardly space-hogging baby fennel bulbs. I have a big basket of winter squash I keep stumbling over in the pantry, and I have a little handful of green beans I just plucked off the dying vines this morning. I even have a few cranberry beans that are finally ready to harvest, from plants that miraculously show very little storm damage.
Our storm damage, in fact, was minimal. Had circumstances been different—if Sandy hadn’t taken a left turn when she did—we would likely be facing a very different winter here on the farm. Instead the hoop house is still standing, the animals are all fine, and in fact, we have another flock of laying hens due to arrive here this week (more on that soon). So thankfully, Roy is building—rather than rebuilding. Now, of course, I hear that a big Nor ‘Easter is coming up the coast this week. So maybe we are not out of the woods yet. But still. I can’t stop thinking about Staten Island and the Rockaways and Seaside Heights. All those folks still without power and nights getting really chilly. And lots of friends on the coast of Connecticut with serious flood damage. We did have plenty of coastal erosion up here on the Island and flooding in the lowest harbor areas in the towns, but most homes were safe and dry (and warm).
Everyone knows it could have been different, though. One Island friend posted an idea on Facebook a couple days ago for a coats-and-warm-blankets drive, and seemingly overnight, boxes outside of Island businesses filled up with donations, and volunteers have come forward to drive the items down to a particularly hard-hit neighborhood in Queens.
I will be here, making hot and comforting soup, sort of a crazy response to feeling for other people who are cold. It’s like I have a sympathetic and not entirely imaginary chill that must be chased away. We human beings have strange responses to things—I know I can’t share my soup with those folks, but I’m hoping someone else will share their hot food with someone cold and hungry, and in the meantime I’m sending comfort-soup-karma out as best I can.
Here’s my Fall Farmers’ Market Minestrone recipe from The Fresh & Green Table. Deeply flavored without any meat at all, it’s a good starting point for comfort soup, but feel free to vary the veggies as you please.
Fall Farmers’ Market Minestrone Recipe copyright Susie Middleton, from The Fresh & Green Table (Chronicle Books, 2012).
The secrets to this meatless minestrone include lots of aromatic veggies and a Parmigiano rind. I usually finish the soup with grated Parmigiano and/or a bit of gremolata (a mix of freshly chopped parsley, lemon zest, and garlic). But if you don’t want to bother with the gremolata , it’s perfectly delicious without it.
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1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups medium-diced onions (about 1 large or 2 medium)
2 cups thinly sliced Savoy cabbage (about 1/4 small head)
1 cup thinly sliced fennel bulb (quartered and cored first, about 1/2 small bulb)
1 cup thinly sliced carrots (about 2 carrots)
Kosher salt
1 cup peeled, medium-diced butternut squash (about 4 to 5 oz.)
1 cup large-diced stemmed Swiss chard leaves (thinly slice stems separately and include them, too)
1 Tbsp. minced fresh garlic (plus 1/2 tsp. if making gremolata)
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh thyme
2 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
1 14 1/2-oz. can diced tomatoes (I like Muir Glen), well drained
1 2-inch Parmigiano-Reggiano rind
½ cup ditalini pasta or other very small pasta
1 cup thinly sliced green beans (about 4 oz.)
½ to 1 cup fresh corn kernels (optional)
1 to 2 tsp. lemon juice
½ tsp. lemon zest (if making gremolata)
2 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley
1/3 cup coarsely grated Parmigiano Regianno
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a 5- to 6-quart Dutch oven or other large soup pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, fennel, cabbage, carrots and 1 tsp. salt. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are softened and mostly translucent and the cabbage is limp, about 6 to 8 minutes. Uncover and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until much of the cabbage is browning and the bottom of the pan is browning as well, about another 8 to 9 minutes.
Add the 1 Tbsp. garlic, the thyme, the rosemary, the coriander, and the tomato paste. Stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the butternut squash, the chard, the diced tomatoes, and 1 ½ tsp. salt and stir well until incorporated. Add the Parmigiano rind and 8 cups water.
Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Add the ditalini and cook another 8 minutes. Add the green beans and the fresh corn (if using) and cook for 4 to 5 more minutes. Remove the pot from the heat, remove the Parmigiano rind, and stir in 1 tsp. of the lemon juice. Let cool for a few minutes; taste and adjust for salt, pepper, and lemon juice.
For the gremolata (optional), combine the 1 tsp. garlic, the lemon zest, and the fresh parsley in a small bowl.
Garnish each portion of hot soup with some of the gremolata or chopped parsely and some of the Parmigiano.
Yields 8 cups, Serves 6
I’ve lived my whole life within a few miles (sometimes a few feet) of major coastlines, so hurricane prep is something I’m accustomed to. However, the possible combination of frequent 70-mile per hour gusts, 60 live animals, and a recently constructed parachute-like structure called a hoop house is a new one for me. And I noticed yesterday that Roy was being particularly meticulous about nailing and weighting and tying things down. Hmmm. The last time we had hurricane warnings, he seemed fairly nonplussed. This one, not so much.
So it is safe to say we have a healthy degree of concerned anticipation (I wouldn’t call it anxiety) about what Hurricane Sandy might bring our way. Frankly, I’m more worried about my parents in Delaware and my friends in Connecticut, where the storm will bring much more rain and flooding. But we do have a responsibility to protect live critters. We’ve done our best to secure the hoop house, and even if the greenhouse film rips and writhes in the wind, leaving us with a mess, we can replace it and fix it, no problem. The hope is that no other supposedly immovable objects start acting like projectiles around the yard, with the potential to hurt us or the animals.
Moving Cocoa Bunny into the barn was the first and most obvious precaution. (We’ve done this with previous storms.) Her cage is easy to lift, and she will be happy and snug through the two days of high winds. (My lifelong friend Liz Pardoe Gray is here visiting and snapped the pic of Susie and Roy.) Also obvious this time was clearing the farm stand completely and turning it over before the wind has a chance to do that (like it did in last fall’s Nor’ Easter). We had to wait until later in the afternoon to do this, though, because we had the farm stand open to sell eggs today. We put out 7 1/2 dozen—everything we collected yesterday and today, thinking we wouldn’t put out any tomorrow or Tuesday—and they all sold. Not surprising, really—Vineyarders may be hunkering down, but they’re still going to eat well!
For the seven older chickens, we’ll let them go into their coop tonight, supply them with extra water and feed, and not let them out into their yard in the morning. They have spacious digs, so they will be fine hanging out inside the coop. This afternoon we corralled the bigger flock of 48 into the small permanent pen adjacent to their coop—much less area for them to roam around in, but also much less chance of breaking tree limbs crashing down on them. (Some of them needed more convincing than others to leave their new grazing area, so Roy helped them along.) We will probably let them go back out into that limited area in the morning, though we’ve put an extra waterer in the coop in case that turns out to be a bad idea. They’d probably rather wander in and out of the rain and wind instead of being “cooped up” together all day. We’ll also need to get in the coop to collect eggs and that can be difficult with all of them in there. But we’ll have to see what we think in the morning.
Most importantly, Roy has filled a big trash can with water for the chickens in case the power goes out and we can’t use the well. Chickens drink a lot of water, and going even a day without is not an option.
There wasn’t much I could do in the vegetable garden. Nature will take its course out there and I am fine with that. I harvested some lettuce and arugula and green beans for our dinner tonight (first bay scallops of the season), and picked the prettiest zinnias, as I know those plants are going to get nailed. But otherwise, I mostly just picked up any tools or random stakes I could find and tucked them in the shed. I moved pumpkins and potted plants under the covered front entry, and I stacked random outdoor furniture in the outside shower.
With everything as secure as we could manage, Roy and I moved inside to enjoy the kind of Sunday afternoon only possible when a good friend is visiting and a hurricane is threatening (even the ferry boats to and from the Island have been canceled so we are essentially marooned!). Being forced to slow down for a few hours is actually a gift for us; so no matter what Sandy brings, we are glad for the interlude.
The chickens got to see the inside of the covered hoop house before I did. While I have been otherwise occupied (a funeral, a photo shoot, a TV filming), Roy has been humming along on the hoop house. Maybe humming isn’t the right word–more like whistling. Last week he reinforced the ends, put in a door, and nailed wooden battens along the hoops, and this weekend he slipped the cover film on so quickly that I’m still not sure how he did it. This is a task that usually takes a few people. Hmmm. 
Anyway, he then moved the chickens’ temporary fencing so that they could wander into the hoop house during the day, cleaning up the weeds and kicking up the dirt in the process. A nosey hawk has been circling around lately, too, so it’s a good time for the hens to be under a little more cover.
Finally this morning, with no big task ahead of me, I was able to get out, poke around, and take some pictures. I never get tired of watching the chickens, and the light inside the hoop house was lovely on this clear October day. It feels cozy and peaceful in there. I can only imagine the life it is going to take on when plants and hoses and boots and trellises and pots and buckets take over. Nothing like an empty space for the imagination to fill. But in the meantime, the chickens get the honor.
You know I have been talking about this hoop house for a long time, but I had no idea that Monday morning (Columbus Day), Roy would get up, head outside, and start building the thing. In fact, he got so much done that by the end of the day, all the hoops were up. I posted some pictures on Facebook and my friend Eliza said, “That’s huge!”
It does look big, but that’s what we planned—30 feet long. There will be a potting table running down the middle of it and two raised beds on either side. Roy is also planning some exterior raised beds on either side as part of the support structure. Staking is next; while it might look like this thing is ready for the cover film to go on, there’s still much to do. That’s no problem, I thought, we’ll finish up in spring. No, says Roy, he’ll have it all done by Thanksgiving!
In the meantime, just standing underneath the hoops feels special. They have a magical way of capturing the outdoor space without containing it. I really can’t get over how cool it is.
We picked this spot for the hoop house because it’s a little microclimate—sunny, warm and less windy. Of course that might mean that it will be extra-hot in high summer, but our big hopes for the hoop house rest in the shoulder seasons—seed starting in the spring and season extending in the late fall. But we’ve heard that heat-loving veggies like cucumbers and basil do well in warm hoop houses, so you never know—we may try that, too.
It’s safe to say now that we’ve had a good season on the farm (though it isn’t over yet, we have already met our goal for the year), and with the addition of the new chickens (all laying consistently well) and now the hoop house, it feels really good. It’s gratitude time, so I’m off to bake Roy (and Libby) a batch of sugar cookies!
And, oh, here are a few photos of how it came together. (Sorry, they’re not in order–couldn’t quite get that right!) One cool thing to note–the pole bender (also called a High Tunnel Bender, available from Johnny’s Seeds). This great tool makes bending electrical conduit (available at home stores) into hoops a breeze (says she who watched and took pictures!!).
The spiders and I were up early yesterday, weaving our webs for the day. I didn’t really think of it that way when I tiptoed out the door, camera in hand, trying not to rouse Farmer from his puppy dreams, wanting only to capture that big orange orb hovering over the trees. Maybe taking pictures at sunrise is just another way of trying to make time stand still, something I still haven’t accomplished, no matter how hard I try! (At least I can laugh at myself.) But I suspect there’s more to it than that. Just as I suspect the spiders are not weaving those incredibly intricate webs that string from one zinnia to the next simply for the purpose of catching a bug or two. The webs are just too beautiful, too painterly, too fanciful to be merely functional. And they are never more beautiful than when the low Eastern light refracts through the tiny dew drops scattered across them like diamonds. This you notice at sunrise. When you are traipsing through the garden in your pajamas and boots, hoping the beauty and quiet will last forever.
Alas, when the sun gets high, the sparkle dims, and the webs become harder to notice. They are still there of course, just like your best-laid plans. Meant to be broken. The day goes on the way it was meant to go, regardless of your direction. And the garden grows on the way it wants to grow, regardless of your supposed choreography. You know this when you open the gate at the end of the day and walk the paths again, noticing all the surprises it worked up for you. You wouldn’t have it any other way.
The pros and cons of living in a small Island community year-round are hotly debated, but I am forever in one camp. There is almost nothing I dislike about being on Martha’s Vineyard in the fall and winter. The hiking trails and beaches are wide open and that killer natural beauty I’m always writing about is just one big backyard to play in (if you, ahem, have the time!).
Yes, but what do you DO all winter, people ask? (Other than the obvious things, like work!) We see our friends, for one thing. We gather together after a summer when everyone is too busy to give more than a passing wave at the grocery store, and we catch up, and, well, trade notes. When your friends are farmers, fishermen, cooks, gardeners, landscapers, artists, craftsmen, yoga teachers, carpenters, and small business owners (usually two or more of those things, since everyone does more than one thing to cobble together a living out here), you have funny conversations about what everyone is doing to make a go of it.
I was reminded of this yesterday when we hopped across the street to the Ag Society (the Fair grounds) for the third annual Living Local Harvest Festival, a very cool free event that promotes sustainable living. Our conversations with friends went something like this: “How many turkeys are you raising this year?” “Where do you get your baby chicks?” “How are your hens laying?” “How many of those herbal soaps did you sell this summer?” “How’s the marketing going for your new sea salt?” “Can you donate extra garden veggies to the school?” “Are you scalloping this winter?” “Have you tried that compost tea?” “Did you do the seaweed tasting?” “Are you selling your wool this year?” “How’s that book going?”
The generous exchange of information is part of what makes living in a small community so wonderful. And watching friends get creative with their businesses is inspiring. And I think, too, there’s a little bit of reassurance in knowing that no one has it all completely figured out, but that everyone is going to keep trying, no matter what. And in the mean time, we’re going to eat well, let the kids have a great time, take care of the animals, and enjoy being outside.
For a brief moment earlier this week, I felt a huge sense of September-style relief. I had just met a big deadline. Whew. Then suddenly the nights got deliciously chilly, the mornings even chillier, and the cool, crisp dawn air seemed to wrap around me like clean bed sheets, letting me know the peace and quiet (and rest) of autumn and winter were on their way. This was a calm feeling I needed to imbibe, because in a flash, my dance card began to fill up again, and I found myself anxious and wondering why my so-called simple life can get complicated so quickly.
The truth is that while I should feel grateful for the success I’ve had as an author, many days I am resentful of the corollaries that fall out from that. Not only is my time not my own right now, but I have to force myself not to work in the garden—my Zen place—because it is too time-consuming, and too low-down on the priority list. Of course I still do my farm chores and harvest for the farm stand every morning, and it’s then that I try not to think too much about looming commitments—book signings, photo shoots, media events—and stay in the moment as much as possible. I wish I could keep that feeling all day, but I just don’t seem to get it from other activities. I’ve written about this before, but I often feel a distinctly spiritual aura when I’m outside on a beautiful, breezy day, maybe walking Farmer down the long path through the fields behind us, goldenrod blazing in bloom against a cartoon-blue sky, bees buzzing, geese honking, milkweed crackling. Or simply just crouching in the bean bed in the garden, picking and tossing, feeling my hamstrings stretch, chuckling at an overgrown bean the size of a small corn cob.
Right now I am capturing (and holding) little bits of joy in a couple ways. First, there’s lettuce. Roy knows how much keeping the garden going means to me, and in only a few evenings of work, he dug and hauled away the dead tomato plants, re-dug the beds, and planted six new rows of lettuce for me to make salad mix for the farm stand. He’s also been clearing a lot of brush and junk with the tractor, building a new storage shed for my garden stuff, and getting ready to build our hoop house. And just today he re-fenced a new area for the chickens so he could move them on to fresh grass; they look so lovely and happy milling around in all that green. When we stop to look around, it is nothing short of exhilarating to see the farm we are building with this little opportunity we’ve been given.
Secondly, there are the flowers. I am tickled to death by all the blossoms in the garden who are turning up their noses at the threat of cold weather. (They’re smart, really—they know frost is still a long way off.) The eggplants are still blooming, the cosmos are rioting, the beans we planted in August are flowering like crazy, some of the cherry tomatoes are still blossoming, and Libby’s Ring of Fire sunflowers just started opening. There are zinnias aplenty, and marigolds and nasturtiums, and garlic chive blossoms and borage. Russian sage. Coneflowers. Cucumber blossoms. And my birthday rose—the one that nearly died from a delayed transplanting, is not only once again covered with leaves, but it just offered up a new bud this morning. Maybe it will bloom when my next deadline is past. I can’t wait.