For The Beauty of the Earth

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns."
- George Eliot

There is something of magic for me at this time of the year. My soul is full of gratitude to God for all the bounty we get to enjoy from the earth. For me autumn has always been the reward after a long, hot, summer. At the first taste of autumn my mind brings me back to my mission and the joy that autumn brought me then. I arrived to Connecticut in the middle of July and was assigned to a bike area. It was hot, humid and wet...I remember thinking "What did I get myself into?" But then late September came and with it a cool breeze, apples from the tree right by our apartment, homes decorated with mums and corn husks and leaves of every color. That was one of the happiest times of my life...complete joy...riding through the leaves on my bike with the brisk air flowing through my hair and beauty, bountiful beauty all around me and a complete love for every human being I met. It seems like that love comes back to me every year at this time...how can it not when I'm surrounded by so many reminders of God's love for me? He is truly a kind and generous Father.

Here's a little taste of what our harvest has been this year:

The apples this year have been amazing. We pruned the tree in the spring and cut off a lot. We were a little bit nervous that we cut off too much but boy were we wrong...the apples grew at least twice as big as they were last year...just so beautiful and yummy!


We discovered grapes last year on the side of our property but they weren't very abundant so we thought the vine was just old. This year however, they really did well and are so sweet! I'm still trying to figure out what to do with them, I'll probably just make grape jelly.



We decided to plant our own baby pumpkins this year. We did white and orange to decorate for Halloween. They did well although they kind of took over the garden.
Tomatoes always do well here and this year was no exception. We planted a new variety (at least to us) called Cherry Roma's. They are like mini Roma tomatoes...very tasty but hard to do much with in the way of storage. I think next year we'll just do one or two of this plant.

No, we didn't plant this wheat but we are finally storing some of it! I just thought it was so beautiful as we poured it into the storage bins. I'm posting a wheat/bean storage tutorial here (based on these instructions) if anyone is interested.