Not everything can grow as perfect as I want.  

Case and point, this years pumpkin patch. With all the rain this June we did not get it planted until July.  

And then.... well I didn't weed it very much.  To be honest, maybe I weeded it once. And this is how it looked this October.

It is overgrown to say the least. The plants came on late, I was hoping for pumpkins before a frost, but alas the patch was a bit of a failure this year. 

I had to do a little searching to see if I could harvest anything. 

There wasn't much, especially since the plants had been affected by powdery mildew after all the moisture.

And then there is the volunteer pumpkin patch. The patch that grew in our burn pile from last year's rotting pumpkin seeds. 

I believe the harvest from this patch is much better than my purposely plant patch.

It is the ram's favorite time of year at Whinmont Farm: Breeding Season. 
This is Erik our ram. He is a Suffolk ram with a mild disposition who loves to have his ears rubbed.  He has eagerly been awaiting mid-October. 

Sheep are short day breeders. Which means the ewes will come into heat as the daylight gets shorter each day.  We choose to breed our sheep later in the fall than most farmers.  The majority of farms will turn their rams out with the ewes in August or September. This would result in January or February lambs. I am not a fan of lambing in the middle of winter and this leads us to turning our ram out in the middle of October.

The ewes have been very interested in Erik recently as some have already come into heat. There is a lot of longing stares between the two pens.

The last few evenings have been beautiful, warm nights that make loosing summer hard. We took the opportunity to take a walk around the farm with our toddler and see what signs of fall we could find. Exploring the farm through the eyes of our daughter has been one of my favorite parts of becoming a parent, I can not help but get wrapped up in her excitement over things that I would normally look past. 

First, we found a rouge "pumpkin" plant growing out of our burn pile. It makes me a little sad this plant looks better than any plant I intentionally planted in the pumpkin patch this year. We had a VERY wet June and powdery mildew took it's toll on a lot of the patch.    

We looked hard and finally found the "pum-quin". 

Side note: I am always sad when Alice looses how she pronounces a word wrong; I know she has to grow up and talk like a real person, but can't she say "pum-quin" for ever?!!? 

How beautiful is this cream and green squash? Two of our plants crossed last year and this is the result. 

Then we found a garden spider. 

Things you have to say when raising a brave child : "No, please don't try to hold the spider, it is busy. I know it is pretty, but we don't want to break it's web"  What I am really thinking : "If you touch that spider I am going to run away screaming and probably cry."

This spider is just BEGGING to be a part of the Halloween decorations. 

I have made a promise to myself that I would never kill an outside spider because they do good.... But if she comes in my house I WILL put a cup over her and ask my husband to squish her later. 

And finally we made our way to the sunflowers. This was my first year planting sunflowers; I love them, and can't wait to add more next year. 

The sunflower idea must not have worked; Fall is still almost here. And because I can't stop the season with some flowers I spent Sunday afternoon making these apples from our farm....

... into applesauce.