Brrrr!!

If you can’t tell from there, that’s ice in the barrels.  Not terribly uncommon this time of year but it was only 15 degrees last night and that seems a little unseasonal.  I don’t think it even got to 40 today and forecast is for more cold tonight.  Hence the frenzy of activity now getting ready for more cold and eventually snow!

The first load of wood went into the woodshed today.  The logs have been cut for several months but when I cut it to stove length and split it today it felt a little heavy.  I threw a couple chunks in the stove not long ago and they seemed to burn good, but then there was a nice layer of coals under them too.  I think they will be okay as they are but they will season in the woodshed pretty quickly now that they are quarter-split.  There was a little more cedar in the log pile than I would like to have seen but I won’t run out of kindling.  The logs were a byproduct of some road work we had done this summer so whatever species had to come out- came out.

I haven’t posted on the garden in quite a while but it’s a given that it’s toast.  We had our first frost several weeks ago and have several since with the worst last night, the 15 degrees I mentioned above.  We have hundreds of tomatoes laying about the dining room under layers of newspaper in varying states of ripeness.  Unless they decide to rot rather than ripen I will have fresh tomatoes for a month yet.  I also moved a container planted tomato into my office and put a grow light over it.  It has several dozen baseball sized tomatoes on it that are starting to ripen.  I am hoping to keep it alive as long as possible.  It is somewhat of an experiment to see how long I can keep it producing. 

After the first frost hit us several weeks ago the deer decided they weren’t staying out of the garden any longer so we lost our fall lettuce crop and any remaining beans.  I salvaged the red cabbage, the green cabbage and brussel sprouts succumbed to cabbage loopers, next year I will have to order in some Bacillus Thuringiensis to combat them.  When the worms first appeared I went to the garden supply store and asked for some Bacillus Thuringiensis for my lepidroptera and they just gave me a blank stare.  Needless to say I did not find any locally.  The worms did not bother the red cabbage hardly at all, maybe they didn’t like it.

We did get a nice crop of white onions.  We hadn’t planted a large number but most of them grew to medium size and are currently drying out some as they lay on the piano bench.

The tobacco never really matured like I thought it should so consequently it was never pulled and set to dry.  It looks pretty bad now and is probably a complete loss.  That is the big problem we are having here on the end of our ridge, our season is just not long enough and the nights during the summer are just not warm enough.  The two conditions work against us.  Most everything grows pretty fair but just not fast enough to do much before the season ends.   If we want to have a good harvest we are just going to have to erect some type of greenhouse structure.  I haven’t settled on any particular plan yet but it will probably be something cheap and easy.  I have talked to different people about what they are doing so I have some ideas.  Next spring I will have to decide and get something in place.  Another spring project will have to be some kind of real deer-proof fence.  I only have a portion of the orchard and garden area semi-fenced now and it is more of a psychological deterrent rather than a real barrier.  I have put up some plastic orange construction fencing, if you look closely at the background in the icy barrel picture at the top of this post you can see it.  It only keeps out the deer until they decide they really want in.

I have the next week off from work so I will be home getting wood and getting things ready for winter.  I have a lot of projects planned and will try to post something everyday. 

The upcoming week’s project list:

• The apple press has arrived.  Must apply food safe urethane gel to wood parts. 
• Press out the apples.  Tessa has been faithfully picking the apples.  I think she only has one tree left.  I am expecting about 20 gallons of juice.
• In anticipation of a whole beef that is now at the butcher we realized our already full freezer was not going to hold it, so we ordered a new one.
• The grain mill is now mounted on a counter in a little pantry area we have.  We have used it a little to grind some oats to add to homemade bread.  I will try to do a post on making bread.  We have developed a really good and healthy whole wheat bread recipe for the breadmaker and I would like share it.
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• My wife, Wanda and my daughter Tessa have been painting the woodshed/storage shed/shop.  I need to make a door for the shop section and replace some hinges on the storage section.
• The outside freezable water faucets have all been shut off.
• The hoses need drained and put away.
• The chicken house still needs one more window installed.  I went with the acrylic panels.  I hope that wasn’t a mistake.  They were awful cutting and getting them framed.  Door and window latches have been installed.
• I hope to cut and split a load of wood and get it into the woodshed everyday.  Day one down and one load in.  I think I will sneak up to the neighbor’s hot tub tonight and take a long soak.  They are gone to Hawaii on vacation for the week so I think their hot tub will get a lot of use.