Everything is winding down. Not just in the garden, but everywhere. Folks are preparing for the quiet months ahead and I can't help but feel this is my element. I am meant for wool and slippers and tea and fire. Adam says, "You can almost always get warmer, but you can't always get cooler." We are cold weather people.

I went out to plant the garlic this weekend and just as I was about to split the heads into cloves, it started to rain so I held off and will wait a few more days. It's better this way as it is finally starting to get cold out there. Snow flurries are predicted for Saturday. I wouldn't mind that in the least.

We've created a corridor of sorts that leads from the chicken pen to the garden, so the girls can come and go as they please - scratching, foraging and fertilizing for a couple of months. They love being able to run free in the garden then head back to the coop for egg laying. Once the snow flies they won't come out of their pen, but for now they're busy doing the good work of chickens.

I still have one small section fenced off from the busy chickens as kale, spinach, beets, leeks, calendula and lettuce are still growing and being harvested. I thought the lettuce was finished after a recent light frost. I had covered it the night before, but it didn't seem like enough. The leaves looked frozen in the morning and my experience has been that lettuce doesn't tolerate freezing the way kale and spinach does. But as the day warmed up, the leaves returned to normal and we continue to harvest. 

Yesterday I harvested a half bushel of spinach with plenty more to bring in still. My body is craving greens as if it knows the end is near so I'm stocking up. When the day comes that I am set up to grow greens (almost) year round, I'm pretty sure my body will be in euphoric shock over such good fortune. Until then, thank the garden gods for winter farmer's markets. Where would we be without them?

To begin getting in the spirit of things, Emily watched the original Halloween movie last night (debuting... Jamie! Lee! Curtis!). I recalled the younger days of our family watching movies such as It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. That's about my speed. I'm heading out to source some white and black tulle for Emily and her friend. We're going to have a white swan and a black swan this year. Because you're never too old for Halloween.