Well, here we are, a few days into fall and I’m loving it! My week was a little different than usual in that I went up to my sisters house near Portland for a few days as she was due to give birth at any moment. I made sure to make her some of my Herbal Diaper Rash Salve while I was there, but mostly we just walked. She was trying to walk that darn baby out, so we would often go for many miles in some beautiful locations around where she lives. Walking is my meditation and my comfort, so I was happy as can be with this situation!

Oregon in the fall is one of the best places to be, ever! I realize that there are wonderful places in New England for fall colors, but my heart and soul is in Oregon. In the past week we’ve had such beautiful weather, it’s been so nice. On one of our walks around the neighborhood I came across some very large and juicy rose hips, perfect for making tea.

On yet another walk in a local nature preserve, we came across literal fields of rose hips! I’ve never seen so many in one place. What you see here is just a fraction of what was there!

As I’m writing this I’m also getting updates and seeing pictures of my new, sweet little niece, because I had to head back to Ashland before she was born. But, I can say that I’ve already walked many miles with that little girl! I can’t wait to walk many more with her.

I came home yesterday to a garden that is pretty much done for (except the fall veggies that we planted, of course). It’s a beautiful sight in and of itself, even though everything is pretty much on it’s way out. We picked all of our green tomatoes as they weren’t ripening at all with the cool nights.

They should start to turn red once inside, but if not we’ll just make some fried green tomatoes. Or maybe I’ll ferment them. Or we could also can them as a green tomato relish. So many options! The orange cherry tomatoes are still ripening outside, so we left them be for the moment.

Here is what the permaculture swale bed looks like. Not the prettiest thing in the world right now, but it’s done pretty well for us this summer.

Squash have all been harvested, sunflowers are hanging low, and the amaranth is still amazingly hanging on by a thread.

We still need to try and harvest at least a few sunflower seeds before the squirrels get them all.

That’s about it for this week, lots of walking and a spent garden. Can’t complain about that!

One last thing that I want to mention to you is that I may be more sporadic with my posts in the coming months. I’ve been pretty good about sticking to my rigorous schedule of three posts a week since I started, and that might still happen for the majority of the time. I just have tons of ideas that I’ve put on the back burner, and now I want to move forward with a few of them. Trust me, these are things that you will like, I really just need time to implement them. So, some weeks I may be blogging a bit less so that I can work on these other projects. Don’t worry, though, I’ll still be around! Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?