FALL

Soon the days will be shorter than the nights, soon the frost will come to the salt marsh, then to the lawn by the shore, and last to the garden. The tomatoes are just about done, a few green ones remain and will be picked hurriedly the evening of the garden frost. The onions and potatoes have been dug. The squash has been harvested. But the collards and the brussel sprouts are just coming in to their own ready to sweeten with the first hard frost. We should be picking brussel sprouts till December provided the deer don't find them before we're through. Papa and I have enough wood put in for the winter (thanks in a large part to John's help this summer), and are working on cutting wood for two winters from now as well as scrounging up some old dead pine to burn in the shop to keep Rollo and Merlin warm this winter. Mother has twenty quarts of dried tomatoes in the pantry, about as many quarts of peaches, and ten or more quarts of peach sauce. The bulk food is safely stored in 5 gallon plastic buckets in the first cabin's window seat. Apple sauce lies ahead maybe about 200 quarts will do for this year about two days work if we process it outside in the maple syrup evaporating pan over an open fire. Then let the winter come and do its best, it'll not likely shake us loose from our snug corner of life.