End of the Garden

Our bountiful harvest

We didn't have much of a garden this year, but what we did have did pretty good once it started raining.Those pumpkins were enormous! I think one was somewhere around 70 pounds! The other 3 about 20-40 pounds. We got about a dozen watermelons, about the same on cantaloupes. There was only one row of beets and one of onions, but that was enough to keep us well fed for a couple months, as well as several cans of beets for the pantry. A neighbor supplied us with zucchini and chard, another with cucumbers, so in addition to eating fresh and fried squash and greens, I was able to put up a couple dozen quarts of pickles. I am not really a pickle person as far as store-bought goes, but I love my homemade pickles. I love to open a jar of pickled cucumbers or other veggies midwinter, to add some variety to our staples of rice, potatoes, carrots, onions and beans. 

Zucchini, cucumbers and onions ready for the pickling brine

As for the pumpkin, well, the largest went to our local library so they could use it for a fund raiser. If you're near Ash Fork, stop in and guess the weight for 25 cents a guess - the winner gets to keep the pumpkin and the library gets a boost to its budget. This little fellow grew right into the fence. We had to pick him before he got any more attached, but he seems to have ripened just fine.

A creepy halloween mutant

After giving away several more pumpkins, the last few will be eaten for the next few weeks and canned for later pies, breads and cookies. Sadly, we didn't plant any tomatoes. I can always use lots of jars of tomato sauce. Maybe next year...speaking of which, we will be on the road next year, looking for fresh, local produce and experimenting with our homesteading practices in a 28 foot RV and a 14 foot trailer. Should be very interesting. 

Thanks for stopping by.

If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy these:

Farmer's Market

Rose Petal Jam

Tomato Tales

Worms!

http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2013/10/homestead-barn-hop-132.html

Pioneer Days in Ash Fork, Arizona

I love living in a small town.  Once a year I don my 1890's garb and saunter through the streets, making my way with other, similarly clad characters, to the local museum.  There awaits a feast of homemade chili and pies along with local entertainment.  

     

Many small towns in the west celebrate a special day centered on their town's history.  In Ash Fork, Arizona, it is known as "Pioneer Days".  Established in 1882 as a siding of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad (now Santa Fe Railroad), Ash Fork reserves the first Saturday in May to celebrate its ranching, quarrying and railroading history.  There is also a good deal of Route 66 memorabilia involved, as the longest remaining stretch of the Mother Road runs right through town to Seligman, Arizona, 30 miles to the west.  My son and I love to pick out scenes from the movie "Cars", pinpointing them on our drives from our house to Kingman, Arizona or Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Since suffering the loss of the main line of the Santa Fe Railroad, which was moved north of town in 1960, and the bypass of Route 66 by Interstate 40 in the late 1970's, Ash Fork has remained a small, quiet community, claiming the distinction of being the "Flagstone Capitol of the World".  

Stories abound of the town's better days, when bars and businesses lined the streets, underground tunnels ran between city offices and houses of ill repute, and moonshine was quietly exchanged for cash through basement windows.  Ranchers once drove cattle through these same streets, to be loaded onto railroad cars for wealthy appetites in California and in the east.

Now the wind blows without mercy.  Cattle graze on sparse grasses and seek shade under juniper trees.  Preppers and homesteaders buy up one-time ranch lands and put up solar panels to power their trailers and pursue their self sufficient lives.  And an outlaw or two still has a hideout back in the hills where the GPS doesn't reach.

Half Broke Horses

Half Broke Horses, by Jeannette Walls, (c)2009, SimonandSchuster

This was a book club read, primarily because much of it takes place in our own area of Ash Fork, Seligman and Red Lake, AZ.  We also found out that the husband of one of our members grew up with the author's grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, who is the subject of the book - boy, that was an interesting discussion!  After reading Shy Boy, the descriptions of breaking the ranch horses was rather disturbing.  But there is one section where the truck Lily and her daughter are driving breaks down in the middle of the range and the best option is to coax a wild horse into helping them.,  It was nearly Shy Boy all over again.  But only for that brief moment.  The most interesting part of this book was the description of daily ranch life and travel during the Great Depression and the Great War (WWII).

To read about how children were reaised and treated at that time made me glad for improvements in attitudes toward childrearing.  At 15 years of age, after spending 10 years working her father's ranch and breaking horses, Lily Casey Smith rode solo, on horseback, from New Mexico to Northern Arizona to work as a teacher in the district of Red Lake.  Her courage and resolve were inspiring.  There are also stories of Lily and her siblings narrowly surviving flash floods, tornadoes, and living in a sod house. 

I could relate to her feelings about the big cities of Chicago and Phoenix.  Culture and modern comforts are nice, but too many people.  My favorite lines are when Lily tells her husband "In the city people worry about themselves.  In the country we worry about the weather and the livestock." 

No compensation was received for this review.  I checked this book out from my local library;)