We have our first freeze warning tonight! Note the exclamation point at the end of that sentence-I'm trying to get myself excited about this! I really do love fall, it's my favorite season. But in early June our central air conditioning bit the dust. That made for a looonnngg hhhhoooottttt summer. (Did you know we had a drought here?) Anyway, while examining the air conditioning system we discovered our furnace was unsafe as well. We have to get the whole she-bang replaced. But not today. So brrrrrr!
Our tradition for the day before the first freeze is to strip the garden of any produce that is still hanging around. This is something I actually look forward to. We (DH and I) usually spend a pleasant day together in the garden-he is my digger, I delegate where stuff goes. He tells me how much he is looking forward to the chow-chow I make with the leftovers. I remind him to be careful where he lays the shovel. But this year he is out of town. So I sadly went out to the garden alone. I really didn't expect to find anything at all. After some of our neighbors wells had dried up, we decided not to water our garden to save the water for the livestock-praying that we would make it through the summer without having to haul water. I stayed in motels with DH to escape the heat and save water-no showers, laundry, etc.. and payed someone to take care of the critters while I was gone. It worked for us. But the garden was pretty much abandoned.
I bet you can imagine my surprise when I waded through the jungle of weeds (I took my trusty Girl Scout whistle in case I got lost!) and found this:
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| green tomatoes |
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| a few potatoes |
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| white and red onions |
I also found a few jalapenos and a couple cabbages! Woo Hoo! I'm thinking that canning up a batch of chow-chow will be an excellent way to heat my house this evening!
