Tis the Start of a New Season

Autumn's here!  We're having Indian Summer weather, though, so when we went to the farm this weekend it was packed with suburbanites getting a little taste of agriculture.  I grew up in an area with a lot of farms, so this was part of my life growing up, but it isn't part of my kids' lives.  Most of the farms where I grew up were sold to make way for housing developments, and I think the same is true for the farms in the area where I now live.  The farm we visited used to be a dairy farm, but there aren't any cows now, as they grow fruit, vegetables, and trees.  The land was placed under a protective covenant and can only be used for agritourism now.  We love to visit here, and the family who have owned the farm for generations were friends of my great-aunt who died this past winter.

As you can see, we picked pumpkins.  We looked at the tomatoes and raspberries, but didn't pick any.  We also went on a hayride, fed swans and deer, played on the playground, picked apples, and fed a couple of llamas.

I never used to think of autumn as one of my favorite seasons when I was younger, probably because it meant the end of the freedom of summer and a return to school.  As an adult, I love fall, even when it is warm.  I love the changing of the leaves (though I *detest* raking them), the crispness in the air, and the various smells and tastes of fall.  I love almost anything with pumpkin in it, and I love the spices that go along with pumpkin -- nutmeg, ginger, cloves, allspice, mace.  I grew up in an old apple orchard and spent a whole lot of hours picking fallen apples off the ground so my dad could mow the lawn, so I'm not a huge apple fan, though I do love cider and apple pie.  We picked a peck of Macintoshes (my favorite apples, along with Granny Smiths, which we did not pick).

We also had delicious Treadwell's ice cream (I had ginger, a favorite of mine.) and a raspberry lime rickey.  After that, all the fun was done and it was time to go home.  Our car was parked in that expanse of vehicles and it took us 45 minutes to get out of the parking lot.  The traffic was horrendous.  I made a mental note to not go back again on a weekend unless it's raining (in which case the field you park in is really muddy but hardly anyone is there, so it's a trade off).  I didn't think that the crowds made most of the farm experience bad, but the parking lot was awful, and I wasn't too happy about the wait to get cider doughnuts at the bakery -- 90 minutes long.  We decided not to wait for them.  What I should have done was placed the doughnut order, then gotten in the car and tried to drive to the bakery -- by the time I got there, my order might have been ready.  Hindsight is 20/20, as they say.

Who am I kidding?  I love cider doughnuts so much that I am hatching a plan to go back to the farm very, very early in the morning one of these weekends, get the doughnuts, and get out of there fast.  I will not bring the kids.  They will only want to get out of the car and do stuff, which will cause inertial drag and submarine my doughnut mission.  I might bring the dogs, though, as the ice cream stand sells dog sundaes, with all proceeds going to help an animal shelter.  The dogs will eat their ice cream in a most expedient manner, and will even eat the paper cups the sundaes come in if I don't intervene.  On the other hand, if I don't bring the dogs, I can bring the knitting. . .

I have been knitting, but it's too boring to photograph, so I'm going to keep with my agricultural and seasonal theme and give you a poinsettia update.  My poinsettia at work is still alive and I'm getting it ready for my experiment to see if I can get red bracts by December.  Two things need to happen in order for this to be possible.  First, I made a box for the plant, as starting next week, it needs to spend 14-16 hours a day in complete and total darkness.  This actually works out well because the plant lives at work and I can just put the box over it when I leave at night and uncover it when I arrive in the morning.  On weekends, the plant is just going to have to think that it's dark for a really, really long time.  I haven't been able to find anything that says that's a really bad idea, but if it is, I know some knowledgeable reader will set me straight so that I can revise my plan in time. 

Here's my plant box.  Very high tech and complicated, I know.  I snagged an empty copier paper box from the copy room, taped the top to the bottom, and cut off an end.  Before someone warns me, let me say that I will not be boxing the plant on the window sill.  I know it will be too cold for that as fall turns into winter, so the plant will be boxed somewhere else in my office.  I only did this for illustrative purposes and to take advantage of the natural light at the window.

There was one other thing I needed to do to help the poinsettia along in my quest for red bracts.  I had to prune it.  It shouldn't be too spindly when you start trying to force the red bracts.  Also, I had to trim it so that it fit underneath the box.  I have to say, this was a trauma, and you might not want to look at the photo at the right too closely.  When I cut the plant, it started to bleed (for lack of a better word).  Gooey white stuff started to ooze out of the cuts that I made.  I was horrified.  I had to go wash my hands and get a Diet Pepsi.  Then I studiously avoided looking at the poinsettia for a while until I felt a little more calm about what I had done.

Somehow, I don't see myself cutting a steek any time soon. . .

Comments

[Danielle]

You are so totally in my neck of the woods! I recognized the farm right away.

We were there not this weekend but the one before, and we saw the little set up where you took your kids' photos and thought how cute it was. My mom gets her holiday pies at the farm every year -- my dad likes the apple ones with the big domed tops. One of my high school classmates is now married to one of the kids from this family -- he now runs a small business in town putting solar panels on homes. My cousin takes his twin 3 year olds here to feed the animals. Of course, most of this stuff wasn't there when I was a kid. We used to eat our muffins in the greenhouse, before the picnic tables were replaced by merchandise.

We bought our house from a retired couple who moved to the homes that were built in the orchards across the street from the main part of the farm.

Wow. Small world.

[Beth]

OK - soooo painful to trim back the poinsettia. I remember seeing the rows and rows of red poinsettias ready to buy at Christmastime when my mom worked at a nursery while I was growing up. I must have missed that traumatic part of the trimming. Yikes!

[Alarming Female]

hmmm. . .ginger ice cream. . .ginger anything. . .

[Karen]

Hey I've been there! Small world! I've been thinking of apple picking. It's such a fall thing to do.

[Ruth]

Young'un's class is taking a field trip to an orchard today ... we'll do our family outing in a few weeks, when the baby and I are more travel-ready.

Cider donuts ... mmmmmmmmmmmm.

[Felicia]

Lots of farms lost to housing developments in my area too. Makes me wonder where are food will come from in the future. Love all those pumpkins!

[Sonya]

One of my favorites things about fall are the beautiful colors. Pumpkins, straw and mums are wonderful backdrops for pictures.

[heather]

first..I can't believe that Poinsetta is still alive and kicking! wow. Cool!

ahhh...time to investigate harvest festivals and punkin patches!

happy autumn!

[Cookie]

What's a little plant blood? At least, it wasn't crying. ;^)

[Rebekah]

Fall is my absolute favorite season, because it means winter isn't far behind, or the hope of winter at least.