Morning, mumpers! It’s currently 11c/53f with a predicted high of 18c/64f and mostly cloudy. Weather app says “Look on the bright side. It’s only fucking cloudy. At least you’re not on fire. That’s fucking good, right?” I’d say so!
My calendar tells me that today is the beginning of Sukkot which t’inerwebz says is a kind of harvest festival. Got me thinking about the harvest festival stuff we used to do when I was at school where everyone brought something food-related and we had a big collection of stuff for the needy.
What do you do to celebrate harvest? Do you celebrate Sukkot and if so, what do you do?
I live in a very rural part of the country. We celebrate harvest season by driving very carefully around and through the large deposits of mud left by tractors and other farming equipment on the roads we all share.
No real harvest celebrations that I can think of here that we participate in. We’re just party poopers, I guess.
The poodle and I are just hanging out getting ready for our work day to start. Only one IEP this week! Two next week that I need to get started on soon, though.
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 70 Amurrkin out and cloudy with a predicted high of 82 and cloudy with possible rain mid to late afternoon. The big item on today’s agenda is to take junk over to the church house for the big sale this Sattidy. It’s more of a parish hall sale as most stuff is set up in the hall. We shall also chow down at Eggs Up for today’s main need to feed. RDOS inactivities will make up the rest of the day as is our wont.
Lots of farmland in these parts so we celebrate harvest much like Cervaise described. Cotton is a fair sized crop, so we see little bolls of cotton along roadways as some does get loose while bein’ transported to cotton gins. We call it “south Jawja snow.”
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, onward into the dsy! Rah.
I grew up in suburbia, and other than 'maters and cukes from my mom’s little veggie patch, I knew nothing of harvest. When I was in college, I did once attend the Feast of the Harvest Moon and wandered among the exhibits. I almost bought myself a dulcimer - one vendor had some beauties for sale - but they were around $200 and back in the late 70s, that was a lot of money!! Especially to a student.
Now that I live in a rural county, I have witnessed actual harvests but no one around here makes a big deal about it - just another day at work. There used to be a lot of tobacco fields and it was interesting (to me) to watch the progress from plant to shocks of tobacco hanging in barns to dry. It seems to me the last time I saw any tobacco growing it was a smallish field on an Amish farm. These days it seems you see corn or millet or soybeans or hay - I find the crop rotation to be interesting.
It was another awful, mostly sleepless night, primarily due to poison ivy itchies. I’ll be so glad when this stuff clears up. I got up twice - once to get hydrocortisone, once to take an antihistamine. I plan to do some work in the yard - maybe it’ll tire me enough to help me sleep. Speaking of sleep, I think I’ll launder the bedding today.
FCD has gone to the boat to finish what he started yesterday (before he cut his hand and had to come home.) I’m hoping he gets home soon enough that I can run to Aldi. Beyond that, not a lot planned for today.
Morning all. Having lived in Suburbia most of my life I am not that familiar with Harvest festivals, the closest we come is the week-long Fall break for the schools here which started, so the story goes, to let the kids help with the harvest as Fall ended. The school’s story is that they start in August so a break 8-9 weeks in is warranted, so take your pick of stories.
Woke up to a light rain this morning which is due to depart the area around 10am, which is just right for my usual shop-n-sammich run. Have eaten the last two remaining bananas, usually it’s one early and one in the afternoon, but I was a little hongry. Nothing much planned for today, I will get the dishes from the dishwaher put away, promise, and maybe a few other chores.
Morning all. Much cooler this week as fall finally arrives. I suspect we’ll be seeing leaves turning at a more rapid rate. Sweet corn is pretty much done for the year, but our Harry & David pears are ripe and sweet. We’re finally going to go pick apples this week. . .maybe. We cancelled the last two attempts. The kitchen is putting on an “Oktoberfest Dinner” that we’re planning to attend. No idea what the menu is going to be.
Mornin’ all - about 0845 as I start to drivel. A rainy gray morning here, presaging a gray and intermittently wet day. Presently 78/26 on the way eventually to 88/31.
Yesterday I had a semi-productive morning than I met GF at her friend’s house nearby for the dinner party. We had 3 couples, plus the hostess, plus a couple of drop-bys. Good food, good yaks, and not tiresome at all. They seem to have decided I fit in. Yaay. Our own private afterparty at my place was nice too.
Right now I’m up over 2 hours & she’s still sound asleep in the bedroom. She’s had a rough few weeks & needs to sleep in when she can. We’ll eventually have breakfast/lunch together then send her on her way. Sigh.
As to the theme of the week:
As a kid and then again as middle aged I lived right at the suburban / rural boundary. So a suburbanite, but with interest in, and some frequent exposure to, agriculture and such. Lotta drives in the country, watching the farming activities of whatever season, county fairs that were mostly about rural interests, etc.
In those places various harvest festivals were an annual occurrence. Nowadays as a hardcore urban person I don’t see much evidence of them, nor do I celebrate as such. There is a LOT of ag in Florida, and most of it runs nearly year round, where the growing “season” is continuous and both planting and harvesting for many crops just goes on all the time. Between that and our lack of 4 seasons, making do with just “rainy season” and “dry season”, the traditional indicia of harvest time, like @Chefguy alluded to, just aren’t here.
We celebrate Chuseok (추석), the Korean harvest festival at this full moon. When the kids were younger, we’d dress them up in traditional clothes, but they won’t do that now. We don’t do the full meal, which is way too much work, but we eat plenty of of rice cakes.
Chuseok happens late this year, so we got to do a joint celebration with Oktoberfest. Brats, kimchi, beer, and rice cake makes a nice meal.
there are various “pick your own apple/pumpkin” things in the farming areas, hay rides and corn mazes sort of things.
on the shopping trip i got stuff for the trick or treaters in our building. lager helped me make up the bags. i think he just wanted to get in the scooby snack box. no wild life other that the usual sparrows, pigeons, gulls, and humans.
due to my watching yard clean up videos on you tube, other cleaning things turned up. this one video Decluttering a Dumping Ground Space - Making it One Hour Better! was a bit eye opening. i gave the method a bit of a try over the weekend. it made quite a difference. not creating a second go through pile is key.
basically, when confronted with a pile or clutter area, 1. gather any trash items into a trash bag. 2. pick up an item. ask where is the first place i would go looking for this? then take it there immediately. do not put it down for later. 3. if you don’t want the item, put it in a donate container/bag, or the trash bag. these are the only pile areas. in the video taking the item to the “first place” took less than 2 minutes. dang, if this didn’t work well! i usually get through one clutter spot, but then have a secondary clutter pile, or an “i’ll look through it later” container. i am planning to go through other hot spots this week.
Growing up, we truck farmed pumpkins and winter squash (didja know that most of what you buy as canned pumpkin is usually another kind of winter squash?) as our main crop, so this time of year was busy harvesting them. We also raised a lot of green beans, but they came off throughout the summer. Living in a rural area, getting behind tractors, combines, grain wagons, etc was constant not only at harvest, but throughout the growing season. As an adult, I’ve been mostly urban and suburban, so the biggest sign is at the grocery store and farmer’s market.
Up, caffeinating, breakfasted and fixing to do KP. After, I’ll get sheveled, take out the trash and go to Staples. Such excitement!
Short light day, thanks to the Federal shutdown. I got gas($5), and did my Aldi run($62). I was there at 0900, but they opened late. Oops. I had my dry flavorless bits for breakfast, and Spot had his. I felt kinda bad shutting down the old computer before it was absolutely dead, but when I opened it up to take out the hard drive, I saw it was made in 2016. So it did have a good long life.
Nah. Although my sane Aunt Mary had a little song for people who were: Every party needs a pooper
That why invited you
Party pooper!
Mmmmmm…fresh bread.
< perks up >
You’re a real fungi, aren’t you.
The house I lived in in Durham, N.C. abutted a dairy farm, so I was literally on that border.
I’d give it a shot. And welcome(back?) to the MMP!
Years ago, I went to the Mint Festival in North Judson, Indiana. NoJud is “The mint capital of the world,” and I don’t doubt that moniker one bit. The farmers cut the mint plants off close to the ground and let it dry in the fields for a day or two. Then they gather them into huge mesh-cage wagons to take to the still. The plants are steamed, and the steam is distilled to get mint oil. That’s what goes into candy, chewing gum, ice cream, and so on. The heady aroma from peppermint and spearmint at harvest time “is almost enough to knock me off my motorcycle,” one resident told me.
FCMom mentioned crop rotation. One reason for it is that soybean plants draw nitrogen from the air, and leave the soil richer than they found it.
Every party needs a pooper