Fall is here. Pumpkins & buntings & ducks

No longer can I deny that it's officially fall.  The nights and mornings are downright cold and it's been overcast for about a week. The wool blanket is on the bed and the scarves have come out.

The porch got decorated this weekend.  Usually this is done totally from the garden, but not this year.  The orange carving pumpkins were grown here along with the patty pans but the rest were purchased from a farm up the road from us.  Winter squash is beautiful, versatile and my favorite vegetable to grow.  I think I planted 8 varieties this year but they were all scratched up and killed by the chickens and turkeys.  All except the carving pumpkins which we can't eat.  

So little man and I went to the farm.  It's a little family run operation up the road that has an honesty box for payment and little wagons for children.  The blue squash are great to eat but the rest not so much.  I would consider the gourds an unnecessary expenditure but I'll save the seeds and the chickens will eat them over the winter.  There was another family also buying one of these blue squash and when the ladies struck up a conversation, I mentioned that the squash they were buying makes an amazing pumpkin pie.  There was a long and slightly awkward pause.... "Does it make a blue pie?" The one finally asked. Um, no. Just a regular one.

Another bunting was made and hung.  These are so quick to sew up and so cheerful to look at.

And this lady is insisting on sitting on a single egg.

I'm making my last trip of the season to the local processing place tonight and these guys need to be there shortly. 

A story to end the day.  I'm sitting on the couch late last night trying to enjoy a moment of peace and a cup of hot tea when I hear the god-awful noise of a cat fight on the front porch.  A snarling and screaming and hissing worthy of a PBS documentary.  So I go outside in my nightgown to find Bee and the neighbor cat (who is elderly and has a lazy eye) fighting over a mouse carcass.  Neighbor cat runs off.  Bee is hell bent on coming inside with the dead mouse in her mouth. "No way" I inform her.  But she's blocking the door and I can't get inside and she's growing and pacing with this thing in her mouth so I have no choice but to stand there, in my nightgown and wait while she makes loud, wet crunching noises eating the dead mouse.   

Ugh. Happy fall everyone.