Indian Summer CSA share

Many of our succession plantings that failed to germinate with the drought came up once we had some rain at the end of August, meaning that we're now enjoying summer harvests even though it's late September/ early October. Luckily the warm weather is cooperating even if the days are getting shorter. This is the CSA share we delivered to our members the last week of September. This share offers the last of the yellow summer squash, but the Costata zucchini is still coming, as are the watermelon and muskmelons.

Share list:

• 1 1/4 lbs. mixed beans
• oxheart carrots
• French breakfast radishes
• onion (ruby ring or New York early)
• Costata zucchini
• yellow squash
• bell pepper
• Serrano hot peppers
• Brandywine heirloom slicing tomatoes
• German red strawberry tomato
• green zebra tomato
• bright lights swiss chard
• red salad bowl lettuce
• oakleaf lettuce
• mixed baby greens (kale, simpson, oakleaf, romaine, raab, tatsoi, beet, speckled bibb)
• strawberry watermelon wedge
• 1/2 muskmelon (Hale’s best/ old time Tennessee)
• sorrel
• basil
• thyme
• citrus thyme
• rosemary
• tarragon
• chives
• parsley

Farm Painting

Our friend, Tom Annear, is an artist interested in capturing the changing landscapes and the environmental effects of those changes through oil painting. He became enamored with our landscape while visiting our home and has created landscape paintings here for the past two years during his visits. This particular painting will be appearing in an upcoming show, "Landscapes of Change," at the Olean Public Library in Olean, New York.

After that, it will be appearing on my wall.

I love the details he captures—the contours of the land, the use of pasture and paddock, the placement of gardens and structures.

Country Cured Hams

Admittedly, I ignored the hams for too long during the cure equalization phase after taking them out of the fridge from the salt cure. We'd put them downstairs in the larder, which is also our well pump room—a cinder block room in the basement that stays a pretty constant cool temperature. The hams had gotten a bit moldy in their paper bags, as they will do with the aging process, just as cheeses do, for instance. This week, I brought them upstairs, scrubbed the mold off and finished with the final rub before hanging them. I mixed together some salt, black pepper, brown sugar and molasses and rubbed all the hams down, and they look pretty dang good. Afterwards, I put them in fresh brown paper bags, sealed them, and wrapped them all in muslin to hang. After aging a few months, the first ham will be ready to soak and cook overnight with my grannie's recipe for cooking a country ham. Then, it's on with ham and cheese buscuits. Mmmmm, nothing better.