Early September

It's the first of September and days are getting significantly shorter now.  It's totally dark at 8:30, not surprisingly, coming back as we squeeze in an evening outing to the village with Woody after dinner.

It's much cooler now, too;  an evening's sojourn requires a fleece jacket and an extra layer beyond that, at least for me.

But the scarlet runner beans harvested from the garden were delicious at dinner tonight (I wrote about them yesterday on Natural Gardening).

And I'm harvesting small beets and carrots.  What fun!  I'll be cooking broccoli leaves, too, for the next few weeks, before heading back to North Carolina.

The rhythm of the seasons is pronounced here, even as we lament the passing of summer, we're looking forward to fall color.

Rosa rugosa hips

These wild-foraged rose hips (Rosa rugosa) are starting to get remarkably tasty, although they're seemly quite a bit of work to prepare, involving removing LOTS of seeds from inside, before preparing jam or drying them for tea.

We'll see...I'm interested in trying to make something out of them, but not wanting to make lots of extra effort. 

I did a first run on making Montreal bagels today with organic spelt flour (I tried making them back in Clemson some years ago).  They were delicious, but oddly shaped.  Tomorrow's attempt will be with whole-wheat flour and sesame seeds.  Hmm....