It’s that time of year when it can be snowing and cold one day and be 21 degrees Celsius the next. It’s quite discouraging to look out the window in the morning and see this on the porch. Harvest 002 We’ve had a couple of snow storms already, one of which included six inches of snow.Harvest 001I took the above picture in the attempt to make snow seem romantic and nice but in reality it’s just cold and ruined all my garden plants.Harvest 158 The potato harvest was pretty good this year. We planted Russets, Yukon gold and Pontiac reds. Some of the potatoes were fairly large. We were worried they might have hollow heart but not one so far has had that so we are pretty blessed.Harvest 153The kids have been great helpers this year in the harvest. Ringo turns ten years old soon and works like he’s sixteen. Harvest 152I think my kids are the only ones that would wear a coat but still be in shorts and no shoes. We get frequent visitors to our place and I often wonder if we are thought of as hillbillies as we are often barefoot running around the farm. Hopefully we are just thought of as trendy hippies who like to partake in Earthing. Harvest 149We ended up with nine apple boxes of potatoes which is about six hundred pounds of food. We also stored four boxes of carrots which is around 150 lbs of product. We usually store the carrots in sand but are trying sawdust this year. Sand works great but is awfully heavy. I’m getting old and can’t lift things like I used to so we are trying sawdust as it’s lighter. We’ll have to check on the carrots often this winter to make sure the sawdust is working.Harvest 148There is a picture of my dad when I was a kid kneeling down picking potatoes that is almost an exact replica of this photo. I always thought my dad was old and uncool. Thirty years later I realize that he is pretty awesome and hip. He’s still old though.Harvest 147Ringo thinks I’m old now but I keep telling him he better think I’m handsome as he’s going to look just like me in thirty years. Harvest 143Hopefully Molly will look like Millie in thirty year and not like me.Harvest 106Here’s our own Mrs. Potato head. Isn’t she beautiful?Harvest 107 We gave one of these potatoes to Dancing Queen. She wouldn’t take more as she said one potato would feed her and grey beard for two meals.Harvest 142Molly is a great helper as well. It’s fun to work with the kids. I think it’s probably more fun to harvest than it is to weed but that’s to be expected. Harvest 102We even grew cantaloupe this year. Look at these beauties. Juicy and wonderfully tasting.Harvest 105 It gives you an idea of how big the potatoes are. Harvest 103 Well, I should tell the truth here. The cantaloupes were wonderful just really small. We’ll have to start them inside next spring so they get a little bigger. We are almost ready for snow to come full time. We are going to the mountains to get wood this morning and hopefully be back in time to play down at the river this afternoon.

The Simple Farm