Autumn Happenings at Vintage Home and Farm

It's time to bring out our Halloween decorations, which include orange and black pillows, pumpkins, black kitties, and giant spiders. It didn't take long to put everything in its place. We thought we'd share a few photos and give some updates on how things are going at Vintage Home and Farm.

Above, the Jack O' Lantern treat bucket is one Paul carried every Halloween as a little boy. You can also see Gray Guy, our elderly kitty boy, who followed me around as I took photos.

Loki kitty also trailed after me, then hopped up on the chair to pose. Below is one of my favorite decorations: a picture of our daughter on her first Halloween, wearing a pumpkin costume.

Mojo the farm dog, below, also followed me around for the photos. As you can see, she recently had a haircut. Mojo loves to sleep on the couch, and is known for tossing pillows this way and that as she settles down. Thankfully, all our furniture is quite old, so we don't mind the animals being on it. No sense buying new furniture when you have dogs and cats - they are just too hard on things.

Remember those kitties we were fostering? The last two were abandoned with us, as the organization doing the foster program became overwhelmed. So, Baby Kitty is here to stay (he was originally named Cookie and also goes by Bonkers). Baby Kitty is the one whose ears would turn down in fear and who would not let anyone touch him. He's come around quite a bit, allowing us to pet him fairly often now. His ears rarely go down anymore.

We also took in Gizmo, who was originally named Mystique. Gizmo doesn't want to be petted, but he's still a very nice and gentle kitty. He's just scared. We really wish we could pet him. The few times I've managed to capture him, I've noticed that his fur is incredibly soft, and he'll lay very docile for a while. He's hiding under the bed right now.

What else is new with us? We'll share a bit of personal news first. Earlier this month, we attended a murder mystery dinner theater featuring our daughter, who had an intriguing role as a professor helping research unusual paranormal activity in an old asylum. Her performance was outstanding, and we enjoyed the event immensely. We also greatly enjoyed meeting up with long-time friends, Scott and Teresa, who joined us for lunch at a restaurant located mid-way between our homes (about 200 miles separates us now). It was so awesome to see them and hear what they've been up to! 

Back to things going on around the farm, we continue to experiment with fermentation. There's often something weird fermenting on the kitchen counter in our house. Currently, we're making apple cider vinegar using some of the scraps from the apples we picked from our tree. This is the first time we've ever made apple cider vinegar. It's been fermenting for about two weeks, and we have to stir it once or twice a day. What surprises me the most about making apple cider vinegar is that, at this mid-way point, it smells like beer when stirred. Upon beginning to stir, a bunch of foamy bubbles form at the top, and then after a minute or so, the bubbles die down. Here it is after being stirred.

It will be done when all the apple scraps settle to the bottom and it changes from a beer to a vinegar smell. Since the apple scraps are still floating near the top, it has a ways to go - maybe another week or two based on how cold my kitchen is. Below is where it sits in the kitchen. I put a plastic bag filled with water inside the top of it (to keep the ingredients pushed down), and then I rubber-band a cloth napkin to the top (to keep gnats and stuff out) and wrap a kitchen towel around the bottom of the jar to keep it in darkness.

This year's first frost occurred a few days ago, but thankfully, we had already picked as many summer vegetables as possible from the garden. Tomatoes, zucchini, and green beans were the last of our summer crops to be gathered before the temperatures dipped down close to freezing. Green tomatoes are ripening in the window.

Red tomatoes are on the kitchen counter.

We also harvested quite a few pumpkins and Hubbard squash. I've given a number of the pumpkins away, but still have many left for making pies, pumpkin custard, and pumpkin smoothies. I also like to put winter squash into chili, casseroles, and soups, and we feed some to our chickens and the dog. Those Hubbard squash weigh a lot - maybe 20 pounds each - so there is a lot of winter squash here to enjoy.

We only can a small portion of our harvest, but even so, take a look at the jars lining the shelves in our cellar. I'm so happy to see those jars - all our favorite things, including cherry pie filling, blueberry pie filling, green beans, beets, various kinds of jam, applesauce, apple cider, pear cider, zucchini relish, zucchini dill pickles, and zucchini bread and butter pickles.

This only represents a small portion of the harvest. My favorite way to preserve food is simply to blanch and freeze it, since it takes so little time to do so and it retains most of the vitamins. We also dehydrate some things, like herbs.

The coyote pups are still hanging around the farm, although they are no longer visible during the day. We mostly just hear them at night (they like to howl at ambulances and they sometimes yip for a long time toward daylight to call to each other -- we think they are trying to find one another in time for their daytime nap). Below is one of the last times I saw them during the day. A couple of them were sleeping at the edge of our property near the creek.

Hope you are having a happy autumn. 🎃🧡🍂