The weather the last couple of days has been perfect.  We love the fall.  I've been busy making products and harvesting herbs. 

This peppermint makes the best tea.  I harvested almost a bushel of it.  I could have harvested more but was getting tired and had to make dinner.   Each afternoon or evening we make a pot of tea.  It's so much fun choosing which tea we want that day as well as it makes us feel good to know it's tea from our farm. 

Comfrey leaf and oregano

I use comfrey leaf in my soaps.  It gives a wonderful green color and in addition it's wonderful for your skin. 

We harvested Shagbark Hickory nuts to make hickory milk. 

Joshua cracking open the hickory nuts.

Joshua loves to help his dad and he learns so much in the process.  After discovering a poor installation by our pond contractor,  we had to repair our pond.  Joshua was more than happy to help his dad with the repair. 

I think Buster Brown wanted to help too.

Holding up the pipe for dad.

But you know,  it's not all work,  there's a lot of play too.

Although I think he's making volcanoes.

Joshua is very interested in electronics.  He was watching his dad set up a controller system for one of our solar thermal projects.  Dad is explaining how everything works.  Joshua even asked his dad if he could go to the job site and help to install the controller box.  He did. 

These picture perfect falls days are filled with bike rides,  pony rides,  exploration, understanding water flow and how powerful water can be,  understanding solar thermal systems,  different types of soil,  harvesting our food and drink, learning about history, and the list honestly could go on and on.  

We've been mushrooming several times a week.  All the wet weather has brought us a lot of mosquitoes but also a lot of mushrooms.  We see a lot of mushrooms all over the forest floor or on fallen logs and stumps.   We go into the woods with three mushroom books.  We are looking for edible mushrooms but we are also learning about other types of mushrooms.  Joshua loves to go mushrooming, primarily, because he loves hiking in the woods.   It's a lot of fun to find one.   We've discovered and ate a Bear's Head Tooth Mushroom.  We managed to cook it and eat it before I got a picture.  It was delicious.   This very informative link tells you about the mushroom and shows a picture. http://americanmushrooms.com/edibles2.htm

After we collect the mushrooms using the three guide books,  we come back to the house and also look them up on the net.  If all material agrees we pretty much know we have a positive ID.   Joshua found the chicken mushroom for us and it was very close to the barn.  Near the chicken mushroom was the Turkey Tail mushroom that I harvested.  We have already eaten the chicken mushroom and the Turkey Tail will go into a wonderful soup. 

Turkey Tail is a medicinal mushroom.  Do an internet search on it and you will see all kinds of info on just how powerful this mushroom is.  Mainstream medical research is happening around this mushroom to see it's benefits in helping cancer patients.  As my infectious disease doctor (she's been treating me for the three tick born illnesses that I have had  Neuro-Lyme,  Babesia, & Ehrlichiosis) said,  "there is a plant for everything that ails us".   I agree with her.  She has been very supportive and even encouraging me to use my herbal remedies to support and help heal me from these tick born illnesses. 

Joshua is not only learning about how to identify these mushrooms but also the safety regarding the mushrooms.  For example,  he does not handle the mushrooms until we've made a complete positive ID.  He works with us in making that positive ID.  I love how as a family we are learning together.  Joshua has always been a child that understands things about mother nature.  He's in tune with her for sure. He has never been a child to run up and start picking berries to eat unless he knew exactly what they were.  He knows through our discussions and research that some mushrooms are poisonous and should not even be touched.  BUT he doesn't live in fear of mushrooms or our natural world,  he knows you need to just be educated. 

Since the day Joshua was born, I have felt that he needs to know how to forage for his food as well as how to  grow it.  It's a hard to explain.  Call it Mother's intuition, or something like that,  I just think he needs to know how wonderful it is to grow and forage your own food.  I think he needs to know you don't have to depend up on another person for your sustenance.

In addition to our foraging of mushrooms,  we also inoculated several oak logs this past Spring with Shiitake spores in hopes of growing our own Shiitake mushrooms. 

After the holes are drilled the Shiitake spore plugs are added and then the holes are sealed with cheesewax.  So far we do not have any mushrooms. We are hopeful and it takes time.  We will be doing more next Spring and we hope we are successful enough to actually sell mushrooms at the farmers' markets next year.   We also *planted* morel spores too.  We hope we can cultivate Shiitakes,  Morels and probably some other mushrooms,  especially the Bear's Head Tooth...that mushroom really is delicious! 

Wow it's hard to believe how crazy busy we have been.  The sales at the three farmers' markets are increasing and I'm working like mad trying to keep up with the demand of our products.  It's hard when you are primarily a one woman show.  I plant,  weed, and do more weeding,  harvest,  process, and make the salves, creams and soaps.  I also plan, order the materials we need, market, photograph and keep the facebook page and website changes going.  It's a full-time job and then some.   I love doing it all though and I'm ever so grateful to my lovely customers who keep coming back for more and spreading the the word.  Here are some recent testimonials/reviews of my products:

When I come home from the markets I always feel so wonderful because I have always loved making people smile and feel good.  I just love that my products are doing that for so many folks!

I've been putting in some long and crazy hours but it is all worth it.   Now waiting to see if Helpful Hints from Heloise writes about my Household Herbal Cleaner.  Her writer stopped by my booth and photographed me, my products, etc and wanted to write about me on their website.   Keep your fingers crossed! 

Our soaps have even went international:  Ireland, England and Germany.  A lot of folks buy them as gifts.

Herbal Tinctures and Herbal Oils

Our farm photo cards.

We had a busy day making Bee Balm Cream for some of my customers and for the farmers' markets.

A lot of cream waiting for their labels.  I recently had a wonderful testimonial from a customer about my Bee Balm cream.  I know folks like it because I usually sell out very quickly and get repeat customers. 

After we finished cleaning up,  Joshua and I decided to go search for mushrooms on the property.  We grabbed one of our books and off we went.  But first Joshua needed to fly around a  bit on a recent hay delivery.

Rusty just had to join in too.

Joshua discovered a pretty cool grape vine and went for a swing.

We saw a lot of mushrooms and we're going to try and identify them all.  We learned about mushroom safety and we searched for some edible ones.

We found colorful ones.

Some that were snacked on.

Teeny tiny ones.

and finally we found  Red Cracked Bolletes.

The local rail museum that we belong to had a members' picnic.  We attended and it was lovely.....wonderful food,  wonderful company,  all in a train yard!  The picnic was perfect for my train obsessed boy who got to meet other train obsessed boys...young and not so young.  

Although we loved the good food and good company,  the highlight ........ Joshua got to drive the blue locomotive in this picture.  Oh boy!   This was so exciting!!

He took his job driving very seriously.   The Engineer is standing next to Joshua explaining and guiding him.  Joshua's  hand is on the throttle in this picture.  You can see the Engineer's hand on the left. 

Driving the train in reverse and watching where he's going.

Such a happy boy!!

 
After driving we walked around looked at all the trains.

 
The train yard for Metro North is next to the museum.   Joshua enjoyed looking at the engines up close but even more so when he realized someone opened up the sanders.

See those white rice looking things on his/her back? This tomato hornworm will stay in my garden. Because one of the most common ways to let mother nature take care of this pest is a small braconid wasp, Cotesia congregatus. Larvae that hatch from wasp eggs laid on the hornworm feed on the inside of the hornworm until the wasp is ready to pupate. The cocoons appear as white projections protruding from the hornworms body (see photo, left). If such projections are observed, the hornworms should be left in the garden to conserve the beneficial parasitoids. The wasps will kill the hornworms when they emerge from the cocoons and will seek out other hornworms to parasitize.

Poop! Yep that's poop and if you find your tomato plant foliage really eaten and see lots of this poop you will find one of these guys/gals somewhere on your plant or neighboring plant. If it doesn't have the wasp cocoons they get promptly removed. I inspect our tomatoes and other plants each day.

This is it's head.  It is actually hanging upside down on our tomato plant.

So what plants attract the wasp to our garden.....Fennel and Yarrow.  We have yarrow in our garden for it's medicinal properties but it also helps attract *good bugs* to combat the garden pests. 

Yarrow is a wonderful plant.  We drink her tea and tincture her.  She is antibacterial,  helps repel mosquitoes, will stop bleeding,  and the list goes on and on. 

Last Halloween we carved a "puking" pumpkin. 

We all had a lot of fun with it. 

We didn't realized just how wonderful this puking pumpkin was.   Between the porch and our stone step this Spring a pumpkin plant emerged.  Thank you puking pumpkin for giving us such a wonderful plant!

Baby pumpkins

Our front walkway and lawn has this big pumpkin plant.  We so love it and really love watching the pumpkins and plant grow each day.

One of the homeschool groups we belong to arranged a tour of Stewart International Airport.   I was surprised with how much we all learned.   The history  of the airport,  the light patterns on the runway,  how much money they spent last year on snow removal, how many people work at an airport and how it's very similar to a small city with all the various jobs,  how they de-ice planes,  how they clear the runway in bad weather....it's not what we thought and the list goes on and on. 

After the tarmac is cleared of ice and snow they test the tarmac to see if it's safe.  This truck is the tester.  See the little third wheel in the back. 

We toured a private hangar with many private jets housed in it.   One was being repaired and you can see they have the wing open. 

Up close to a jet engine.  This particular private jet has two bedrooms,  a full bathroom with shower,  conference room table,  full kitchen, sofa's etc.

We watched them push out a plane using the "tug" and a tow bar and three people.  When they pull in a plane or push it out,  there is always one driving the tug,  and a person by each wing walking on the ground.  The people near the wings have whistles.  It is their job to watch the wings to make sure they are not going to run into the wall or another plane.  If they need the tug to stop,  they will blast their whistle.  They have found the response time is much faster than someone yelling STOP. 

One of the many snow plows.  Snow plows are not used on the main runway,  only snow removal equipment with brushes.  They literally brush the snow away.  The head of the maintenance garage informed us that they need to make four passes in order to completely clear the runway.  Joshua quickly figured out that the runway must be 80 feet wide because the broom used is 20 feet wide. 

We went for a ride on a bus out on the runway.  Stewart has two runways.  This one is 12,000 feet long, one of the largest in the Northeast.  When it was built, it was built to accommodate the Space Shuttle or Concord if it needed to take off or land.  We learned about how heavy jet fuel is and how in the summer,  sometimes the planes will take off with less people/cargo to accommodate the lack of lift. 

This tour used to include the terminal and the control tower but since 911 that part of the tour is no longer allowed.  However,  we did get to see a live computer image of just how many planes were in the air in the United States at that current time.  It was a lot!!

We had to stop while we were on the runway to let an Air Force plane take off.

It was a very informative tour!

After the tour we went to see the ferry that takes commuters to the train station across the river.  So we were discussing all the various modes of transportation.  We both said we really liked trains the best!

Joshua and I recently visited a Federal Hatchery in Massachusetts.    We chose this hatchery as they have a program in place where they are releasing Atlantic Salmon into the Connecticut River.  Joshua had recently seen a documentary on salmon so we thought it would be interesting to see how *they* stock salmon versus salmon naturally being in the Connecticut River.  It was!

Most of the tanks had these little huts over them to provide shade.  The tanks were filled with always running water which was about 44 degrees.  The hatchery circulates approx 250,000 gallons of water each day.  The water is provided by mountain stream. 

We saw Lake Trout,  Rainbow Trout,  and Atlantic Salmon fingerlings.

Lake Trout

The Atlantic Salmon were three months old in this tank.   We learned all about their program of releasing salmon to the Connecticut River.  They have had this program in place for over 30 years.   The rate of salmon returning to the river is dwindling.  They believe it is due to the Long Island Sound temperatures that have been warming.  Salmon do not like warm water.   We also learned about how they hatch the eggs of salmon and got a tour of their hatching equipment. 

....more trout.

I love how we decided to take this tour.    We had to run an errand in Massachusetts, so we wondered what could we do that would be nearby.  After some quick internet searches we had some possibilities.  Joshua chose the hatchery,  it was a perfect choice especially in lieu of his recent documentary viewing.