This Autumn has been full of beauty. Along with our new neighbors, Kirsten and Shaun, we have been putting much of our 2009 farm beds to sleep, deeply mulching and planting cover crop seeds. Our Fall and Winter "To Do" list just keeps getting shorter, that is, it is now two pages instead of three. We are just recently finding time to feed the little creative fires inside us as we look forward to letting them blaze this winter.I gathered a flaming yellow and green branch from our stand of hickories the other day and placed it in a river rock vase in front of the shower house. The hickories were planted by an early homesteader, clearly someone fond of the east coast natives. We just discovered a month ago, however, that there are two large American Persimmons peeking out from the west side of the hickories. Another East coast native, I assume they were planted by the same folks. They ripened in small supply over this last month but just last week, I was able to make daily trips to pick a handful each time. It was like bringing David sweet, mushy treasures. It turns out that several persimmon seedlings have made their way into the world in the past few years. We'll probably transplant them this winter, finding a spot where they can be near their East coast friends but in fuller sun where they'll develop more lushly.
We also discovered that our patch of edible lepiota mushrooms had expanded by 500 percent this year! They span the entire length of our stand of firs. It was like coming downstairs at Christmas and seeing 5 Christmas's worth of gifts under the tree! We wondered if letting our chickens free range under the trees in the late spring this year had anything to do with it? Spreading the mycelium around or adding nutrients? A mystery...