Frost clung to the ground most mornings now, making early chores rather chilly, especially when the long, half-frozen grass soaked your socks through the holes of your garden clogs. (Note to self - it may be time for closed toe shoes.) Oddly, the trellised tomato plants still lingered, not thriving, but greeting each day with hope of returning warmth. The squash vines perished weeks ago, but the tomatoes are a stubborn lot this year.

We've cleared the tomato plants twice now, anticipating that "this would be the night" that the frost finished them off for the season. (Three times if you count the beginning of September when they had barely started ripening and temps dropped into the 30s overnight.)

Apparently, we've stayed just warm enough that the height difference from ground level to trellis is still protecting them. The flavor is bland, but the ducks still relish them. (Once they get chilled, it changes their enzyme profile. They may turn red, but will never be as sweet as summer tomatoes.)

Tomatoes and winter squash supplement our duck and chicken chow, especially as foraging options become more limited in colder temps. I'm just now using up the last few squash from the 2024 harvest. It's amazing how well they can keep with proper storage. Each year, we get a little closer to meeting our needs with what we can produce on site - and that's a good feeling.

This Week’s Resilience & Abundance Boost

• Check your food stores. Rotate what’s in the pantry or root cellar, and note anything running low. Watch for seasonal sales to restock.
• Feed it forward. Use up garden leftovers to nourish livestock or make one more batch of soup, or donate to local food pantries.
• Winterize your space. Find the snow shovels, clean gutters, and check window seals before real cold hits. Check the winter car kit.
• Preserve what’s left. Freeze produce in meal size portions for quick access later. If you froze fruits and veggies earlier in the season to beat the summer heat, cooler fall temps are perfect for prepping sauces, jams, and jellies from frozen produce.
• Refill your reserves. Stock up on teas, broth ingredients, and other natural remedies before cold and flu season peaks.

Each small act of preparation now becomes comfort later.

All our best to you and yours,

Laurie (and August IV, August V, and Duncan)

This week's featured articles...

This one's just for fun. I'm sharing my friend Amber's pumpkin dip recipe. It tastes like fluffy pumpkin pie, perfect for those folks who like to hide their pie in whipped cream. Enjoy it with fresh fruit, cookies, or pretzels.

Amber has a new book out on (free on Kindle Unlimited) that was inspired by her family's homesteading journey from near the ocean on South Carolina to the mountains of Tennessee. I've known her through all of it, and I still found myself pulled into the story. You can learn more about the book, "Survival on Shell Mountain", here.

Need tips on how to cook pumpkin or when to harvest your pumpkins? We have those covered, too.

A friend emailed about what to do with the green (unripe) pumpkins in her garden when frost was threatening. Here's what I shared:
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"Pumpkins, if near mature size but still green, will happily finish ripening inside. If very underripe, you can still cook/use them like summer squash. I have a few more that I spotted in the tall grass near the chicken run that I need to grab today before we get really chilly tomorrow. We have our green pumpkins lined up in the basement hallway. No sun required."

With cooler temps, it's perfect weather for this Dutch oven pot roast recipe.

Knock on wood, I haven't seen anything about stomach bugs making the rounds just yet, but odds are at some point during the winter season that will change. Last January saw record breaking numbers of norovirus outbreaks, making a lot of people miserable.

Bookmark this article on natural stomach flu treatments for when you need it.