End of summer is close

Fred likes to attend the Mennonite auctions that are near our farm. When you bid, it is on a pallet full. The grocery stores are there bidding against you, so you rest assured you are paying wholesale. The local farm wives have decided to buy their vegetables for canning at those auctions. Well, me too... next year.

I heard Fred had gone to the auction last Saturday, so I made a call to him to bring back mums for fall planting. It is a good thing his friend's mother in law was also interested in mums. She took 2/3 of the pallet and I got 1/3. It was lovely to see Fred drive in with a pickup load of blossoms. 12 huge mum plants. I had to take two photos to get them all in.(well, only because the sun was on the East side so most of the plants were in the shade.)
I think I am finished canning green beans. I made some dill green bean pickles, too. I hope they are as good as my mother in law's. My mother had never made any, so they were new to me. We had to rip and pillage a lot of our wild plum bushes when we put tile in that part of our farm this spring. So I made 'enough' plum jam for this year, and did not feel guilty for letting extra plums go to waste, there weren't any. I could not resist taking the photo when the morning sun flooded my counter top this morning.
More goodies brought in from the garden. The trees are starting to turn bright colors, as well.
The neighbor to our scrapbook shop told Donya and Michelle to help themselves to the pears. They were starting to fall off her trees and call flies. I plan to can them as soon as they get ripe.

A funny story: When Don and I were married 3 short years, we made a trip to the "Western Slope" in Colorado to get tree ripened peaches (they are the best! yum). I also wanted to get some tree ripened pears. The orchard farmers got a good laugh at me for that. Said there is no such thing as a tree ripened pear. They fall off before ripening. Besides , there is absolutely no way to transport ripe pears.