Enjoy the season

It's getting closer and closer to fall, so the amount of daylight is going downhill. At one time it was staying light to almost 9 p.m., but now it's getting dark closer to 7 p.m. Sunrise right now is at 6:29 a.m. and sets at 7:26 p.m., which makes the day 12 hours and 57 minutes long. Tomatoes are showing they need more daylight. Spring tomatoes taste awesome, but fall tomatoes are kind of blah! Even the flies are acting like it's fall. It seems like in the fall the flies get kind of sticky and seem to want to perch on everything they shouldn't be on. We bought some old-fashioned fly swatters for the picnic table just for them. If the mosquitoes weren't so thick, these cool evenings would really be pleasant outdoors.

I particularly enjoy the coming months. Life seems to slow down just a tad, and one can relax a little. It seems like a great time to make a pot of coffee and sit as the shadows roll in as the sun goes down. Several years back, I bought a couple insulated tankards that really work for drinking coffee slow. They hold about 16 to 18 ounces of coffee, and they will keep it hot for a good while. But I still drink my first cup out of an old cup that Dallas used to have. A small fire seems to make the evening even better. It doesn't have to be a bonfire. Just a little blaze!

The work in the garden is about over where fall is coming. Watermelons and cantaloupe are done. Corn has been harvested and either eaten or canned or frozen. Most of our cucumbers and zucchini have thrown in the towel. Bugs really did a job on both of them. It's kind of enjoyable looking back on the summer and the goodies grown and eaten and preserved.

Fall is a great time to wet a line and see if the fish are biting. If they aren't, then most likely there will be a fish fry somewhere, and I'm betting the fish will taste awesome. We went to a church fish fry a couple weeks ago, and the fish and taters were darn good. I ate a big bowl of slaw as well. I didn't have baked beans though. I really like baked beans, but they normally have a ton of sugar in them so I have to be careful. I can get by with a little splurging in the middle of the day, but the fish fry was in the evening. I passed on the baked beans. As the weather cools down the fish will begin feeding to store up some reserves to make it through winter. Usually a good time to fish.

Marge and I usually start spending time in the woods cutting up some firewood and splitting and stacking it in the wood shed. Our shed is about 36 feet long and 7 or 8 feet deep. You can stack wood up to 6 feet high, so it will hold a lot of wood. We don't get in a hurry, but take our time. If we do a little every day or two, it adds up to a bunch in a month. We both enjoy cutting wood so it doesn't seem like work. Both of us and our fur babies enjoy a wood fire in the wood stove. We also have a wood stove in our greenhouse as well as my little work building.

If you are inclined to start your onions, now would be a great time. Several years back I started some in November, but they actually needed a few months more. I ordered some Texas 1015 seed as well as some Candy seed. Both are really good for this area. If you are growing heirloom veggies of any kind, you can save the seed for next year. I usually save seed from some of my tomatoes and peppers and okra.

We spent some time in one of the tunnels planting some greens. They should do well this fall. We planted some Swiss chard and some spinach. I really enjoy both of them.