Bless your hearts!

Bless ya'll's hearts!  So many of you wrote sweet messages to me after reading my blog post from last week, the one where I poured my heart out about my grief after getting rid of the goats.  It helped to know that so many of you cried with me.  The hole in my heart hasn't gotten any smaller since last week.  In fact, every time I walk by the goat barn, it tears open a little bit more.  
But I won't talk about this right now, no, I won't.  
Instead, I will tell you what happened immediately after getting rid of my goats.  I knew that I couldn't deal with going back home to an empty, quiet, sad homestead, so after unloading the goats from the minivan and shaking out the tarp that had been pooped and peed on, I met up with the rest of my family and some dear friends, and we headed into the mountains for a backpacking adventure at Chain Lakes.
Balm for the soul, I tell you.  What with majestic Mount Baker and Shuksan looming so large... it puts all your problems into perspective.  And the huckleberries!  The huckleberries!  Our tongues and lips looked vampire-like after hiking up these alpine meadows dotted with blue berries.
The kids had a blast.  The boys got to hike with their best buddy, and Eva got to hike with one of her good friends.  Later, after setting up camp by one of the lakes, the kids fished their hearts out.  They actually caught fish in the morning and cooked them up as rain pelted down on them.  Yes, the weather turned on us.

Kai caught a fish!

You can't really tell in this picture, but it was raining hard.

The second day, we hiked out in dense fog, which was a little bit of a bummer because we couldn't see the apparently stunning view.  On the other hand, it was also incredibly mystical and magical, so it all worked out.
That night, we stayed at a campground in Glacier, made memorable by the giant marshmallows the kids got to consume after dinner.  What a brilliant move that was, sugaring them up just before bed time!

Returning home to our homestead was hard for me, because I knew there would be no goats to greet me.
So I threw myself into putting the garden to bed and harvesting a bunch of food.
Of course, there was lots and lots of garlic that needed to be cleaned up and brought into the house after being cured in the wood shed.

Then there were six full boxes of apples that Steve and the boys picked from only one of our trees.  I think there might be apple sauce in our future.

And, of course, fall and winter squash go hand-in-hand, so I borrowed my unpaid workers children for labor.  I thought they would grumble and protest, but they enthusiastically harvested squash and turned it into a race.  Go figure.  

The kiwis went bonkers this year.  Maybe it's because our mason bees live at the kiwi trellis, and they did a fabulous job pollinating.  I love these kiwis!  You pop them in your mouth, skin and all, and get an incredible boost of sweetness and vitamins.  It also makes your mouth kind of pucker after eating lots of them.

I yanked out a bunch of leftover broccoli and cauliflower that had seen better days.  I also took down the bean trellis, which still sported enough beans for a big meal of buttered green beans, with bacon, hopefully.  These beans were hiding high enough on the bean poles, so that the darned deer couldn't reach them.  Here is a box of stuff I salvaged, kind of accidentally.

Since I'm trying to be not all about work, but also play, we spent a lot of hours this week with a new hobby (for the boys, that is): Fishing.  Salmon are making their way upriver, and my kids are very motivated and show an amazing amount of patience dangling their fishing poles into various rivers.  I bring my knitting.  Eva brings her princess dresses.  You HAVE to look glamorous when fishing, you know.

What are you doing these last glorious fall days?