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With all of the pears and most of the apples gone, and now the grape vine totally stripped of leaves, I think I must have midnight marauders. I have run deer out of the orchard dozens of times, but nothing has ever bothered the grape vine before. Two days ago, one end was stripped of leaves, yesterday about half, this morning, it is bare.

There is still plenty of wild vegetation and grass so I’m not sure why they are coming this close to the house and eating the grape leaves. I guess as soon as the weather chills, it will get a pruning job. I’m glad I got the grapes before this occurred because the few that were left to ripen are also gone. Perhaps, I need to run the electric fence strands around the orchard as well as the garden.

A couple of years ago, I was looking for a waste free chicken feeder to put inside the coop and found the plans for this using a 5 gallon bucket, a hole saw, 3 PVC elbows, and it is perfect. It holds an entire 25 lb bag of feed pellets, three hens can feed at a time, and because they have to stick their head in and down to get to the food they don’t toss it everywhere or scratch it out like they do in an open or tray edged container. The only drawback is the lid provides a great perch to look out the windows toward the house, so I have to add a flower pot on top to keep the lid from getting fouled by the fowl. That designer was genius and the plans were easy to follow. If I hung it, it would become a moving target, bet it would be fun to watch them trying to feed, but it sits on an old galvanized feeder tray to raise it off the floor a few inches.

I finished the mittens yesterday and returned to spinning the ruby and purple Shetland/Bombyx braid, using my new ring distaff and the Finch spindle. I can’t model the mittens as they are for someone with small hands like a tiny woman or larger child. I had someone look at mittens in my booth two years in a row and say they wanted mittens when walking their dog, but their hands were too small for the ones I had. I will put then in the shop with the dimensions posted, maybe they will fit someone’s idea for mittens. There is enough of the blue Tunis left to spin for a matching hat. The mittens need to be washed and blocked still.

It is a slow day. No canning. I still need to mow before we start getting rain again.

Take care and enjoy the pending fall weather.

I just picked the last 3 small cucumbers and one huge yellow one that was missed and was given to the chickens. The refrigerator is full of pickles, but no more fresh ones.

This morning we had a successful, non stressful run to the Farmer’s Market. I paid for a month of membership to preorder so I could be in the first hour of shopping. Everything I ordered was ready with my name on it, prepaid (except one item as the vendor had a very legitimate reason to not be there today). I also found out that one of my favorite vendors that isn’t on the site preorder, has a way to preorder from him too. And I already have arranged with two other vendors to do the same. I was in and out in under 10 minutes with minimal contact. Only one vendor’s stand was so crowded that I turned around and skipped it.

One of the items preordered was a double container of fresh figs. I came straight home with them and made 3 more quarter pints of fig jam. I wish I had bought twice as many. Maybe there will still be more next week. Last week a vendor had Asian Pears and I had hope to buy enough to make a batch of my favorite jam, but not this week. Maybe some kind of pears will show up and I will use what I can get.

Then we had succeeded in snagging a curb side pick up from the grocer and all the other items that we normally get from there were prepaid and delivered safely to the back of the Xterra. I finally felt safe shopping today as cases rise in our region.

A good day, ended with a walk around the pond.

Except for two quick stops at the fabric store for mask fabric, I haven’t been in a big box store since March. After the spread seemed minimal in our region, I did begin going back to the grocer for the items I can’t get curbside at our local natural foods store, but that was mainly because the grocer had few curbside slots and I could never get one. Now the students are back in town and though there are signs on every building door, sandwich board signs on the sidewalks, and flashing electric message signs at both ends of “downtown” reminding students and year round residents to wear masks and practice social distancing, there are far too many who don’t. Most everyone in the grocer is wearing a mask, but often improperly or putting it on only to go through check out, or wearing a face shield without a mask, so we did a major non perishable run early in the week and will try to get curbside delivery slots in the future when we need to shop again, now that they have more of them.

The safer shopping sites are the local natural foods store and though I try to use their curbside delivery as much as possible, I have gone in the store a few times during slow hours. To help reduce the virus spread, you have to get an employee to fill any bulk item and herb/spice items you need, so they prefer pre-ordering, even if you elect to go in the store to pick up the items. I feel they are still a “safe” place. Right after the stay at home order was put in place, the Farmer’s Market closed for a while, but with some of the phases lifted, they are open and trying to control the volume in the market at one time. They have put crowd barrier fencing around the market and have someone who monitors the exits and entrance to keep the number of people inside at or below 50 customers plus the vendors. It is an outdoor market. There are chalk arrows drawn to try to direct traffic and the first hour is for pick up of pre-orders only. A couple of the vendors that I shop don’t have pre-order option that I have found and sometimes I’m not sure what I want until I see what is available on their signboard or in their bins to make my decision. As a result, I can’t use the early hour and try to get there just as it ends. I have suggested a senior citizen’s hour, or to let those of us who are over 70 to shop during the pre-order pick up hour, because if you pre-order, your items are separated and held aside for you so it doesn’t really matter when you go. This morning, in spite of it raining from Laura passing through, there was already a line of about a dozen people waiting to enter when we got there. I stood in the light rain in my raincoat and waited my turn. Once inside, there were too many people not heeding the arrows and walking between stands or around them, going out the entrance, and just standing in the walk through aisles, not walking on through. It no longer felt safe to me. I don’t want to lose that option, but I may have to either let it go or use only the pre-order and not shop the vendors that don’t do it.

As we were driving back out of town, there were huge groups of students, standing close together, some without masks, waiting to get in some of the restaurants that serve breakfast. Hubby and I have a bet on how long it will be before the University has to go back to online classes only and the local public schools shut their doors and become virtual again. We wonder if the opening of schools across the state will throw us back to a Phase 1 lock down.

I did treat myself to a bouquet of fresh flowers along with my veggies, cheese, butter, and sausage.