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On Saturday Daisy had a doggy play-date to climb Burger Hill with Ringo.

We stayed to watch the sun set over the Catskills.

Later we saw the hunter/super moon.  A well-hyped moon.

On Sunday, Sarah and Jen visited the Sheep & Wool festival at the Rhinebeck fairgrounds.  Sarah made friends with a lamb.

Jen gathered the remaining tomatoes and peppers ahead of tonight’s possible frost.  I guess we can have fried or pickled green tomatoes, but I have no idea what to do with all those peppers (many of which are outside the frame).

Jen grew this teeny weeny melon in her garden.  Now we are in a race against time — or, rather, against the first frost, which thank goodness is not forecast to arrive this week.

Daisy pursues the fall sports.

We had a busy weekend, hosting the Winnakee Land Trust Barn Tour on Saturday and the Landsman Kill Trail Association Fall Trail Ride on Sunday.   Our barn, which is 100 years old this year, has one of the earliest poured concrete foundations in Dutchess County.

On Saturday I tried to give the barn tourists an authentic farm experience by mowing the hayfield above the barn.

I had some help from Del Wolcott, who did quite a bit of mowing to get ready for the LKTA.

Jen used some of our many, many tomatoes to make tomato jam.

Jen’s garden is producing more tomatoes than we can comfortably eat, but we are doing our best to keep up, with tomato salads, tomato tarts, BLTs, bagels with cream cheese and tomatoes — you name it.  Jen is even working on a tomato jam.

We had a bat mitzvah-shortened weekend in the country, but on Sunday Sarah found some time to hang out with BFFs Anna and Daisy.

We had many threatening clouds but ultimately a beautiful weekend.

Jen’s gardens are at maximum production.  We have more flowers than vases, and more tomatoes than we can eat.

Sarah’s friend from school, Ainsley, spent the weekend with us.  On Sunday, Sarah led a jam tasting.

Now she has her first full week of seventh grade.

We had beautiful weather for Labor Day weekend at the farm.

Jen’s parents and sister visited.

We ate many tomato salads.

Sarah won lots of points playing Boggle against her aunt, the English professor.

And Daisy did what Daisy does best.

On Saturday we went to the Dutchess County Fair.  It was Sarah’s second visit, having gone on Wednesday.  She would have been perfectly happy to attend all six days of the fair.  Sarah is a particular fan of the rides, including the above-pictured Hamster Dance.

She also bungee-jumped.

And, of course, she faced off against her dad in bumper cars, in the tradition from time immemorial.

For me, the best part of the fair (other than the 4-H milkshakes) is the animals.  We saw these piglets and their patient or weary mom.

We saw the always expressive goats.

And we saw beautiful flowers, such as this dahlia.

The culinary arts tent was somewhat less gratifying.   No one entered a better non-pectin jam, or marmalade, than Jen.

But the East German judges did not award a blue ribbon in non-pectin jam, or a blue or red ribbon in marmalade.  Anyone who has sampled either of Jen’s entries would find these results to be outrageous.

Back at the farm on Sunday, this heron was anything but nonplussed by Daisy’s barking at it.

We had a somewhat more restful vacation last week.  It started with a huge thunderstorm Saturday night, which knocked out power for eleven hours and also knocked down Jen’s rhubarb patch.

Jen rebounded by making rhu-berry jam.  She held a tasting to select entries for the Dutchess County Fair.

We climbed the Stissing Mountain fire tower.

Even Sarah made it to the top.

We celebrated our fiftieth birthdays.

Sarah is nearly as tall as her grandfather.

We spent a week at the farm, with enjoyable activities occasionally punctuating conference calls and document review.  Here’s the view from the fire tower at Ferncliff Forest, which Jen and I surmounted after lunch at Grieg Farm, where we got on the outside of a couple of very good BLTs.

The aforementioned fire tower.   The key is not to look down, or out, but rather to gaze unfixedly into the middle distance.

We had our annual visit from John Harris and his boys, whom we dragged on a hike.

We saw this red-tailed hawk.

Sarah spent the afternoons in a dance class at the Rhinebeck Performing Arts Center.  On Friday they gave a terrific performance for the parents, with six numbers tracing the history of Broadway dancing.