Autumn? Already?

Labor Day isn't until tomorrow, but it feels like autumn today. It rained all night last night (on the skylights over our bed, making the loveliest sound), and this morning we woke up to a chilly, windy, wet world. We went early to the farmer's market during a break in the rain; all the beautiful winter squashes were out, in every shape and color. We bought a sugar pumpkin (my own pumpkins aren't sweet and we want to save the seeds from a sweet one), as well as a butternut and two delicatas. We also got a few chayotes, which I've never heard of - I'm always excited when I discover a new veggie or fruit, and it just keeps happening these days.

In the fruit department we scored a great deal on the last (very ripe) strawberries, so I'll be canning some strawberry-rhubarb jam this week, and some sugar plums, which we'll probably just eat while their visions dance in our heads.

Lemon cucumbers were fifty cents a pound and I still have a huge bowl of my own cherry tomatoes in the fridge, so I'll be adding a sweet onion and making another cucumber salad today. But now that it's cold and windy and raining again, I think this will be the last one. It feels like the first of many rainy fall days that we'll spend just like this, me cooking and canning while Keith reads a book and we listen to the sound of the rain on the porch roof through an open window.

At least he got a chance to start on the grape harvest while I made lunch. Our own little seedless white wine grapes are ready for the picking - at least, the ones we haven't already devoured - but he started the harvest down the street, where an unoccupied home for sale has a long fence laden heavily with beautiful dark Concord grapes. He's gotten a huge basketful already and there's plenty more to pick! I'm definitely making jelly, and I'm looking to see what else I can do with all these grapes. Is there anyone out there who actually likes raisins?