The cool, fall weather doesn’t slow down the baby chicks. These days, more often than not, they’re running ahead of their mother. They are two weeks old. Very few two week old chicks get to run as fast as they want over grass and through the woods.

While weeding this afternoon, I found a kohlrabi with two kohlrabi on a single stem. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen this. Usually, kohlrabi grow vertically and develop one kohlrabi near the base of their stem, like in the picture below. Somehow, this kohlrabi fell over and sent up several shoots. Vegetables have as much personality as people. Plant a hundred kohlrabi and you’ll get a hundred different kohlrabi. Many will be similar, but look closely, and each one is unique, with some far more unique than others.

While weeding I gleaned some of the onions I haven’t picked yet. These were the stragglers, the ones not pretty enough for the market. Maybe they’re not that beautiful, but they taste just as good.

Picking tomatoes for tomorrow’s Bow Little Market was tinged with sadness because tomorrow’s market is the last regular market day of the season. Onions, tongue-burning peppers, sweet peppers, a lot of food has come out of our little garden and gone into meals enjoyed by people I don’t even know. Another summer has gone by, and on we go to who knows what. Every day the door opens and you never know what will greet you on the other side. Every day is a surprise.

Some of the still ripening tomatoes will make it to the upcoming Sunday market in Alger. More will end up on our own table. There’s a benefit to not selling food your garden produces … you get to eat it yourself, though my husband wishes I didn’t cook with so many onions and garlic. He’s glad that I’ve sold nearly all the garlic, and will be happy if customers buy most of the onions too.

If a lettuce falls in a hoop house, does it make a sound? I’m surprised I wasn’t waken in the middle of the night when this lettuce came crashing down. The ground must have shook violently. It explains why so many tomatoes fell during the night. It goes to show how soundly I sleep.

The tumble didn’t break its stem, and its flowers will still bloom. A lettuce like this would make a grand first course. You could put it on a long platter, set it in the middle of the table, and let your many guests rip off the leaves for their salads.

Besides grapes, chickens like apples too. I walked by one of the apple trees and had to laugh when I saw an apple cut in half. What? I had to investigate. The apples were on a low hanging branch, within easy reach of the chickens. They’d pecked the bottom halves clean.

One thing I find puzzling about chickens is that they have no trouble flying up to roosts five and six feet high to sleep. It would be easy for them to hop up into a fruit tree and climb along the branches to eat all the fruit they want, and yet they never do that. Maybe they rationalize that if they did that, it would be heads off for the lot. Maybe they are more rational than I think. Perhaps they comprehend the results of their actions and behave accordingly.