The seed saving adventures began in earnest yesterday and I have my eye on a handful of gorgeous beefsteak tomatoes in my greenhouse, whose seeds will also be collected. My Amish paste tomatoes did really well, and paste varieties are a favorite of mine, so I’m excited to grow from saved seeds next season!

I’ve saved flower seeds before, but this is my first real intentional seed saving project, with the goal of growing my seed collection with varieties that do well in our troubling region, and not being reliant every year on seed companies (as much as I enjoy trying new varieties and poring over catalogs!).

And so the anticipation for next year has already begun.

One of the best things about autumn is the way the colors invade the house, overflowing the countertops, sparkling in hot jars and bringing the summer sunshine in.

Most of my tomatoes were grown from Baker Creek and Thresh seeds, and I was impressed with the germination rate and now the vitality of the tomato vines and how well they set fruit. Essentially no disease, either, which was a pleasant surprise. Beautiful colors, great flavor and texture.

What a harvest!

What a beautiful end-of-summer it has been. After a struggle with the yearly grasshopper infestation early on, and a number of summer storms that threatened hail and definitely left their mark, after weeks of witheringly hot weather, the end-of-summer sweetened through September and into this beginning-of-fall. And now it is October, and the first of the real fall weather happened as suddenly as that turn of the calendar page. We know it is coming, but it always happens more suddenly than we expect, even when we’re anticipating it.

And with that sweet end-of-summer and beginning-of-fall comes all the work and the reward that is the harvest season.

The simple bounty of fresh-picked fruits, plums and apples and wonderful-ripe tomatoes, flame-colored pumpkins and whimsical blue Jarrahdales, and of course baskets of fresh eggs – It is humbling and enlivening and fosters a sense of connectedness to the past. To a simpler time. To, in many ways, a more challenging time, but a time of reliance upon and deep appreciation for God’s earth, and the bounty that can be cultivated from it, through the work of our hands and sweat of our brow. The experience, the work, the flavors and colors and textures, give me a greater understanding of the Dominion Mandate of Genesis, to fill the earth and subdue it, to cultivate and steward all the bounty and beauty that God lovingly placed here for our good and for His glory.

I think it happens every year, but this year was…more so. Just like that, summer wraps to a close. The first day of autumn is imminently approaching. The fall cow work is well underway. The garden is producing like there is no tomorrow, but every tomorrow arrives with more produce than I can keep up with.

Soon I’ll wean Posey’s calves and start milking again, a slow rhythm I am looking forward to. I’ve missed the hour in the morning with my head leaned against her warm flank, listening to the milk singing into the pail, taking in the sweet smells of cow and milk and hay.

Soon, though maybe not for another month or so, the garden will take a frost and officially come to an end for the year. But planning next year has already begun and the anticipation will only grow. It is a sweet occupation for the middle of winter!

But for now, there is more than enough to do, more than enough to occupy. The summer isn’t completely gone and what time is left is precious.

When I walked down this evening to close the greenhouse and lock up my chickens, the moon, huge and red, was just clearing the horizon and losing itself in a bank of clouds from an incoming thunderstorm. Lightning flickered in the south and a little thunder rolled in the distance. Rain is just now starting to plink musically against the windows. Summer is almost gone. But not quite.

It hints at fall for weeks, with subtly changing light and softly lengthening shadows, with the changing colors of the grasses and the golden palette of the wildflowers. The rosehips are suddenly scarlet, the pumpkins just wait to be picked. The meadowlark no longer sings, but the doves do, sweetly and quietly.

And then the apples! Over the next few weeks they’ll get sweeter, but they are blushing and weighing heavy on the boughs. The house smells heavenly, with the wonderful aromas of autumn.

This is probably my favorite time of the year. I love the change in rhythms and routines, the fall work, and seeing springtime and summertime work finally come to fruition. Whether it was something I nurtured from seed or a wild thicker of fruit I kept my eye on or the plum trees planted by previous owners of the ranch, it is delightful to finally find ripening fruit, and to begin to metaphorically water at the mouth imagining what lovely delicacies will result, when summertime is a memory.

So, plums. Usually I am just chomping at the bit to start canning, but I’m being a little more moderate this year, partly because it was a weird growing season so harvest is a little low, but partly because I actually really enjoy having fresh-frozen fruits to make into pies and purée for things later. Thus, the three sacks of plums I picked yesterday are now chopped and pitted in the freezer, right 5-cup bags. Plums make the most succulent pies and crisps!

And I can’t help but reflect on the fact that someone else’s foresight is why I am now enjoying (and sharing with others) a harvest. It is rather poignant, isn’t it? What a blessing.