Harvest's End

Late into Sept. and we were harvesting potatoes on a sunny day.  Bill dug them with his homemade digger that he pulls behind the tractor.  Next ~

 since my bender doesn't bend so well I can still handle the tractor.

I do the driving of Lil Blue while Bill fills the bucket with the spuds.

Back at the house, the potatoes are rinsed the first time while still in the bucket of the tractor. 

 The bucket is tipped slowly, that's my job, then poured carefully on the self-fabricated screen.  After they are sorted and the last of the dirt is sprayed off, ( we both do that ),

they are left to dry in the breeze before ~ we start

 sorting and bagging.  They are left in a dark corner of the garage until we finally move them to the cellar in the basement.  Normally, we store them right away, but this year, our basement is damp from all the fall rain we've been getting.  In the meantime, we have been warming the house on cooler evenings to help the drying process along plus fans.  

 This year's harvest includes German Butterballs, a few Yukon Gems, All Blues and Purple Vikings.

 The onions suffered some of the hail damage on their tops.  They've been sorted, brushed clean  of the garden soil and 

 braided for winter's many meals.  There are 5 braids all total and a small onion sack full of the one's without a stem long enough to braid.  The bruised ones were cleaned and salvaged what I could by chopping and freezing for hot-dishes.

I apologize for the length of this post, but I promise this is the end of our gardening and harvesting.  The apples too, were hail damaged so most of what we picked was sauced and made into pie filling.   

 Who needs an apple picker when you have~

 the real deal !  Bill trusts me to lift him as high as the tractor bucket will go so he can hand pick as many apples as he can reach.

 Sad, but most of these were so badly damaged that they became deer food.  I couldn't even make sauce out of all those bags of apples.  The basket and bucket were the best we could do....such a treat, at that.  

Our harvesting is nearly done.

Today I canned the saurkraut that was fermenting in the garage.  I only have last season's photo  ~ sorry, but we got the same amount.

Oh, and

we were blessed to save a total of a dozen pumpkins...mostly pie pumpkins that I baked off, pureed and stored for later use.

And that's it folks.  My pantry is full, the freezer is stacked to the top and I have no complaints.

We have no control over the weather so we are just very grateful for what we 'were' able to salvage.

Amen to that for God is Good !

Have a grateful week dear friends and family.

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