Too soon for fall

It's interesting around this time of year how you get that spurt of energy and wonder why you didn't have it all summer. It's been about ten degrees cooler and the thought that a wedding is a little over a month away kind of gets your gears moving too. We had a good apple harvest this year and instead of canning I decided to freeze both apple pie filling and just plain apples that can be used for whatever. All my herbs save the hyssop and the horehound have been dried and put away but I still need to pick the elecampane and burdock roots out of the ground. I'm happy though, I got a good herb harvest this year although I did use most of my favorite thing, peppermint, to make a tincture. Just the smell of it is enough to clear your sinuses right up.
   I got a lot of peppers this year. Although I am stretching out picking them, I can't go past a week from this Saturday lest I loose all of them to the temperature dropping. Surprisingly I also have pumpkins growing along with watermelon and cucumbers. I don't think the tomatoes will be ready in time but I am at fault for that because I planted them much too late.
   My seed collection is growing this year also. I added a different type of watermelon seed, cherry seed, hyssop seed and chive seed so far.
   I finally got a compost started this year for the garden. Its something I've been wanting to do for the past couple of years but just kept putting it off. We've thrown everything in from leaves to grass, coffee grounds, used apple parts and whatever else we can come up with.
   Soon I will be including peach parts because I was given a box of peaches to make peach jam with for someone else. I have never done that before but I have no doubt that I can do it, my mother did this kind of stuff all the time and she never failed to include us kids. What I would rather be doing honestly though, is teaching the lady that gave me peaches how to make jam. Not so that I don't have to do it for her, because I am reaping the reward of keeping some of the jam for myself. But so that she can have the satisfaction of being able to do it anytime she wants to and knowing that she made it herself. A lot of things like this are becoming a lost art and it's sad.
   These things probably aren't the most exciting of things really but when you are driven to become more self sufficient it's more of a reassurance and a relief that you will have a better fighting chance against whatever is coming. Skills are what will save us, panic is what will kill us.