Well, so far last week was a bust.  Nothing to report because the pears didn't ripen!  They were still as hard as a rock...sigh.  I knew I was doing something wrong but wasn't sure what so I started reading.  Apparently you have to 'encourage' them to start to ripen with methane... you can do this by adding already ripening fruit such as a brown banana.  (I was also told that you could refridgerate them and that would start the process too- but since I had a whole bucket full I opted not to go that route.)  I added a ripening fruit covered them up and sure enough a day or so later they had started to ripen a little!  I checked them this morning and they are slightly springy.  I'm told I need to wait until they are squishy to be ready. 
I can't tell you how something so simple made my day!  I hope they are ripe enough by this weekend to give the process of canning a go.  If not, I may go to the store and buy some already ripened fruit just so I can practice the canning (I'm getting antsy). 
The persimmons are beginning to change color on the tree.  I'm hoping that the dry summer doesn't make them ripen too early. 

We had planted a small test garden to see what would grow well in the soil on the farm.  Since we started late in the summer we didn't get a whole lot, but we did manage to harvest some sunflowers, tomatos, squash, cucumbers, zucchini and green bell peppers.  Not many of each but the project was fun (the garden was only about 5 feet by 8 feet.)  Looks like the soil is good for most things to grow well.  We did have a sort of strange experience with something 'sampling' the various vegi's (grin).  Come to find out we had peter rabbit stopping by!  A few loud shots to scare him off seems to have done the trick.  We also discovered that you can rip up plastic bags into strips and use them like scare crows!  We tied them to all the tomato plant stakes in the garden and it worked really well.  It was kinda pretty as they waved in the breeze until the sun bleached out the various colors of the bags and they all sorta turned whitish gray.  We've already decided that we will use that technique again next year. 

I've laid out a garden plan for next year using the homesteading book I mentioned last week.  A garden for corn, and a garden for various vegi's and a few raised gardens for herbs and special heritage plants.  It'll be a lot of work, but I'm already looking forward to it!