2nd week of September 2007

September is a full month for us. We are still harvesting summer crops while getting more cold frame areas planted. The ones I don't get planted exactly on time may not produce big plants for winter harvest but will be good for "overwintering" and give us a beautiful crop of greens early spring. Doing demonstrations at Lehmans store every Thursday adds to the schedule plus this week I'm busy preparing for the Harvest Festival that will be happening at Pioneer Farm around the corner from us on Saturday. Need to get my Heirloom Veggie seminar talk polished up for that as well as prepare children's activities and my vendor table. Fall Decorations Plus I got an order for fall decorations made of cornstalks, sorghum tops, and sunflowers for the Picket Fence store open house. I think I'll need a nap after all this is done!

My children discovered a monstrous caterpillar in the garden last week, even bigger and uglier than a tomato hornworm - ugh. They grabbed the butterfly book and identified it as a cecropia moth caterpillar and it is now living in a gallon jar on our porch all nestled into its cocoon amid remains of elderberry and cherry leaves. Another thing waiting to hatch is an incubator full of chicken eggs. Our daughter Elizabeth loves chicks and we borrowed a friends incubator to give her a chance to try to hatch her own. She read through a pile of library books and is faithfully turning them three times a day. We'll keep you posted on hatching success.

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