Autumn Rituals

The weather remains relatively warm. We are enjoying every single day. We have had some rain, however it isn’t enough that Attila need not water the garden, which is where he is right now. There is a possibility of frost later this week, so the plants will need to be covered at night. We are trying to keep the plants producing as long as we can.

After canning more than a dozen jars of Sweet Pepper Relish, we tried it. Attila had it on his chicken at dinner one evening, it was delicious. I added it to noodles and mixed vegetables for lunch yesterday, and it was delicious. When we were grocery shopping earlier last week, we noticed some half bushels of red shepherd peppers that had not yet sold. Last night we decided to see if they had any of those left, and they did. We bought a half bushel.

So today those peppers needed to be processed. We started chopping mid-morning, and took the last jars out of the canner at about 3:30 p.m. We took a short thirty minute break to eat our lunch, but other than that we didn’t sit down until we finished the job. This half bushel of peppers yielded sixteen jars of Sweet Pepper Relish. We are really going to enjoy it this winter!

Harvesting garden produce generates small canning projects, almost always one batch in the canner. Attila’s garden is not a monoculture, and our property is not large enough to accommodate producing large quantities of various vegetables. We get modest harvests of many different vegetables. For instance, tomorrow Attila will harvest jalapeno peppers, and I will can one batch of Cowboy Candy.

Purchasing fruit and vegetables in season, grown in Ontario, generates much larger canning projects. We do this type of canning as well, mostly in the autumn. This year we canned salsa, applesauce, and now sweet pepper relish, all from purchased half bushels of Ontario produce. We are canning less this year than other years, due to the severe drought experienced through July and August. Luckily last year we put by a large amount of food, canned or frozen, as the garden did very well, and that food will help tide us over until next years harvest.

Harvesting and preserving are our autumn rituals.

A few weeks ago I bought myself a new pair of work sandals. I wear Keene’s, because they fit me well, and they are durable. My old pair was coming on twelve years old, and the upper was beginning to wear out. I tried to buy the new shoes locally, but that did not work out, so I ordered them online. I found them on sale at an Ontario retailer, who shipped them to me. They were the last pair in my size. The colour is bright pink, which would not have been my first choice, but my approach to life is “form follows structure”, so I am learning to love them. The day after the new shoes arrived, the old pair fell apart, beyond wearing and beyond repair. My old shoes held on for me, until the new ones arrived.

Autumn seems to be the time of year for us when expenses temporarily rise, another autumn ritual. There were the new shoes. Attila also needed a new strimmer. I put aside the money to include in the birthday and Christmas cards I send to the grandkids. And we do our annual trek to the wholesaler to buy our year’s worth of dry goods, always including wheat berries, gluten flour, lentils, and beans, the rest of the purchase varies year to year.

While at the wholesaler I chatted with a young woman who had just purchased a flour mill, and was placing her first order for wheat berries, for milling flour and baking bread. How wonderful to chat with a young person interested in such things! It makes the world seem a more sensible and friendly place to live.

Worldly

Weather

24°C
Date: 6:00 PM EDT Sunday 28 September 2025
Condition: Sunny
Pressure: 102.0 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: 23.8°C
Dew point: 5.6°C
Humidity: 31%
Wind: NW 12 km/h
Visibility: 24 km

Quote

“What you are is a question only you can answer.”
Lois McMaster Bujold
1949 –

I rediscover a little bit of myself with each journal entry posted!