Last call in the garden

Spent this weekend harvesting the last from the garden and planting garlic.

I brought in carrots and stored them. Found some volunteer onions and pulled up the last of the broccoli to give to the goats. Other stuff I pulled up to throw on the compost heap. Bryan raked leaves for the last time this year.

The Neo pagan holiday cycle makes a great deal of sense at this latitude. Samhain is the counted as the beginning of the new year. For an agrarian society, this makes a great deal of sense. It is the Feast of the Last Harvest. Anything worth harvesting should already have been harvested and the garden put to sleep. The symbolism of celebrating the dead is fairly obvious. It is the beginning of many hunting seasons and one of the best times for butchering large animals outside (they'll cool quickly in these temperatures).

On the homestead, we turn our thoughts and labors to inside work now. Cozy, evenings spent near the fire, in the glow of the computer screen...