a pumpkin stand

Fehrhaven Farms, the farm stand I frequent for my pumpkins and gourds each year, has officially opened, and is looking as lovely as ever.

There is always an excellent selection of all my favourites: white varieties like Luminas and Flat Boers and tiny Casperitas, the dusty Blue Jarrahdales and nubby Marina Di Chioggias. And sometimes, if I'm lucky, she'll have a couple Musque de Provence, the large, Cinderella-like orange variety with deep ridges and a slightly flat top, which makes them perfect for stacking.

 

And to round out your autumn display, she even has some hay and pretty broom corn for sale.

If you're local and looking for a good selection, pop by her stand.

The First Day of Autumn

"And all at once, Summer collapsed into Fall"

Oscar Wilde

I've always been sentimental about Fall.

I love each changing of each season really, but maybe I enjoy the arrival of Autumn so much because it seems to come suddenly.

Before we realize it, it's here.

The first day of Autumn is spent decorating the house.

I couldn't have been more excited to stumble upon this local farmstand.

This is Fehrhaven Farms on Hwy 3 just outside of town. She grows the most beautiful (and grand) pumpkins I've seen at one stand.

The brilliant colours of that majestic Maple tree made it even more lovely!

I can't wait to show you what I stuffed my trunk with.

Crow Farm Stand and Christmas Urns

Willen and I made a stop after school one day this week to pick up a few things from a farm stand down the road from us, Crow Farm Stand. It's a unique little stand, mostly filled with interesting branches and quirky trees.

We picked up some birch for our Christmas urns, as well as a whimsical potted spruce tree for the boy's room. Since it's potted, I'm hoping to transplant it later if it makes it through the season.

As with most farm stands, they go by the honour system, which is always something I find cozy about our community.

We then spent our Saturday cleaning up the gardens for Winter, and raking leaves. The pumpkins were brought to the compost, and we made urns for at our entrances.

You can see our new roof, which went up in the nick of time! It was so hard to pick shingles that gave the house character and matched our current siding, all from these small samples that were viewed up close. Eventually, we will replace the siding, and so we wanted to be sure that what we selected would suit whatever we would decide on in the future. In the end, we decided on the shadow shingles, which were more expensive, but gave more definition to our roof. It draws out more of the taupe and makes the siding seem less yellow. We not only replaced the shingles, but we built a second layer to add space for air flow that is vented out throuh our roof's ridges. This will greatly help with the efficiency of our house. In the summer, our second floor won't be so warm, and in the winter, it won't be as cold.

This year for our urns I used Cedar, Scotch Pine, White Pine and Spruce boughs, with Magnolia leaves, Variegated Boxwood clippings and Birch.

This is the planter at our back entrance.

Temperatures have plummeted quite quickly here, bringing with them a few light dustings of snow. It makes closing the gardens a little easier to know that soon they'll be blanketed in beautiful snow, and not so bare and brown.