Endings

November always strikes me as the end of something. The World Series is over and baseball is done for the year, despite my best efforts to hang on to summer. Halloween and its accompanying burst of creativity is past. Daylight Saving Time has finally ended, thrusting us headlong into the dark days. Temperatures have dipped below freezing, ending the active growing season and leaving us casting about for something to do in the garden besides peeking under the tunnels and raking up leaves.

Although we haven't technically had a frost, we did have some snow yesterday, so our remaining summer fruits are dead and gone. This was our last harvest basket:

Tonight we ate the very last fresh tomato (in salsa form). There are no more cucumbers, and the supply of peppers and jalapeños is dwindling. We still have some eggplant, but Saturday's eggplant parm luncheon had some bitter bites, and we had so much of it this year that I think we might just compost the last few on the counter as they soften beyond the point of edibility. 

Before the snow, I picked what is surely the last round of raspberries. They were still sweet, though I'm amazed that the brambles were still producing this late into the year. It's true that we hadn't had a killing frost here, but fruits need sunlight to sweeten, and it's in short supply now.

We've also eaten the last of the eggs, at least until Sally finishes molting and we can turn the light on to get some winter production going. Abigail and Martha are already newly-feathered for the season, but Sally still looks a fright, and we can't let the light trigger her to lay until she's done making new feathers — it would be too taxing on her system to perform two protein-intensive biological functions at once. (As for Dolley, it looks like she has reached the end of her laying years and will spend her retirement bossing the others around.)

So many endings in November, so we settle in: resigning ourselves to the short winter days, biding our time until the beginnings come again.