mangels -- even a small crop is big

We finally got the last of the mangels in the root cellar, and we've all heaved a big sigh of relief.

Mangels are big -- really giant -- beets. We raise them mostly for pig food, although they were traditionally used for making wine and beer also, and one of these days we may try that, too. They grow all summer and should be harvested soon after the first light frost -- freezing reduces their storage life. So we pull them some time in October, pile them in the garden and cover them with a tarp until there's time to bag and haul them.

But there is always more to do in the fall than there is time to do it in, so bagging and hauling gets put on a back burner. The day all the mangels are in the cellar is a big day on our farm. This year we are really celebrating -- 4.000 lbs. of mangels is only a moderate crop for the scant two-tenths of an acre we planted, but given how dry our weather was right up into September, we're happy with it -- at 20 lb. per pig per day, this is half-rations for 200 days of pig feeding.