We have been busy planting garlic and putting the garden to bed — pulling up the drip irrigation, trellis fences, stakes, and hoses.  The only things left in the ground are the rutabagas, some carrots, some parsnips, and of course the freshly planted garlic.  We will leave most of the parsnips in the ground until the spring thaw.  Usually at the tail end of maple syruping season we will go harvest the rest for a sweet spring parsnip feast (or three).

We also spent quite a bit of time picking the last of the raspberries.  We often felt like bears, ambling by the patch and getting distracted by the berries for a couple hours.  Our friends and hunting companions stopped by to set up their deer stands, and ended up at the raspberry patch too!  We sent the berries home with them, and last weekend for deer hunting Heidi brought back raspberry jam to share.  What a treat!

My dad, Darwin, went on his first elk hunting trip to Colorado for two weeks in October.  It snowed a lot while he was there, but it ended up being a good thing because the elk came down to lower elevations where they were easier to find.  He came back happy and with some elk to put in the freezer.  While he was gone my grandma Vangie and mom Carol and I (Chris) had a great time working together in the garden:

Advertisement