It’s Sunday, and it’s also Halloween. In the interest of freeing up my day to spend some time on task (I’m seriously going to try to clean up my studio today, or at least get a start on it), I popped the bulk of tonight’s dinner into my slow cooker this morning.

I have a 2.5 lb boneless pork sirloin roast (I’m not sure what to expect here — it was rolled and tied when I bought it, and it stayed that way) that I seasoned liberally with salt and pepper and then browned over medium high heat in a couple teaspoons of olive oil. I took the roast out and put it in the slow cooker. To the pan I added a chopped medium yellow onion. Once the onion started to brown a bit, I added 3/4 cup of white wine and reduced it, and then added about a cup of apple cider, two bay leaves, a tsp of dried thyme, and a handful of prunes (I cut them in half). Brought the whole thing to a boil and poured it over the meat in the slow cooker, where it’s now simmering happily away.

I’m going to serve this with a nice beet salad, some roasted potatoes, and some sauteed green cabbage. It’s like autumn in your mouth.

So it’s the end of the garden for this season, and the end of another part of my life as well.

I resigned my position as executive editor at Blogcritics at the end of September. After six gratifying and mostly fun years behind the scenes, it was simply time for me to reclaim some of my personal life while I ponder my next steps. At the very least, I’m happy to have time to relax with the Sunday papers and spend an evening here and there watching TV with my undivided attention. At best, I’m hoping to spend at least some of my reclaimed time writing, which hopefully means more regular posting right here.

The garden was pretty successful this year, and as always, we learned things. This year’s additions included two Earthboxes (for tomatoes) and a 4 x 4 raised bed herb garden. The herb garden flourished (Italian basil, Thai basil, dill, parsley, rosemary, lavender, and mint) and I found it hugely gratifying to wander out to the yard every evening to gather some fresh herbs to cook with. And the lavender is in bloom right now, perfuming the yard. It’s a wonderful thing, especially combined with the heady scent of the basil.

We had a bumper crop of habanero peppers — and we will not be planting quite so many of these next year. We’ve had lots of green peppers, summer squash, and cucumbers, and even a few eggplants. The tomatoes, as always, were challenging, but the cherry tomatoes did really well. The heirlooms were another story; blossom end rot is pretty hard to deal with.

And right now there’s a chicken roasting in the oven, and I’ve managed to make a week’s worth of breakfasts (steel cut oatmeal, dried apples and cranberries, a touch of cinnamon and some brown sugar), and am about to make one last batch of pesto with the garden’s last basil.

All in all a good year, and the garden, as it always does, reminds me that things end and begin again, over and over.