Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • Our Exercise

    Disclaimer: though I avoid politics in my blog and am currently avoiding Facebook, I am going to be lightly political here today.

    About the time the university opened in the adjacent town, the town established some safely protocols to try to help protect both the students and the full time town folk. Because of the protocols established by the university, making dining on campus more time consuming and perhaps more dangerous, many more students are eating in town, thus putting them on the town sidewalks. One of the new regulations was to post signage throughout town and even two electronic signs mandating mask wearing while on downtown sidewalks and no group gatherings of more than about 10 people.

    At the time these were posted, when we elected to walk the old rail grade that runs from near the public library over into the next town, we commented to each other that we wished they had included the signage on that paved trail as well. Some sections of it are widely used. As seniors, but knowing that exercise and fresh air are important, we have been confining most of our walks to the pond in the state forest nearer our house, always masked or with mask in hand to put on if there are other people walking, jogging, or fishing there.

    A couple of weeks ago, smaller, modified versions of the sign above appeared on the trail, much to our delight, but to our dismay, mostly ignored. There are two versions of the signage text, as below:

    and one with two masked figures with a line between them labelled 6′.

    Today we were in town and decided to walk the Huckleberry trail. Social media and the news began labeling entitled white women as “Karens.” While walking today with few masked individuals passing us, many joggers, several bicycles, one skateboard all unmasked, I jokingly said to hubby that I was going to start calling unmasked “entitled” folks “Donalds.” Do you think we can make it as viral as “Karens”?

    Note: I will be remotely sharing my posts to Facebook, but I am not viewing Facebook at this time to see reactions or comments posted there. As a blogger, I would love to see your comments below.

  • Autumn is falling

    Though the temperature today was more like mild summer, when we went on our walk, the evidence of autumn is everywhere.

    A cluster of red leaves from a broken oak branch amid the fallen leaves on the trail.

    The wood ferns are all browning.

    Leaves littering the path, geese resting in the pond before continuing their southward journey. Usually several spend the winter at the pond.

    At home, the trees are turning and one young maple has already dropped it’s leaves.

    The ridge line we see coming from town is the last to green up in the spring and the first to begin yellowing in the autumn. Soon the woods will be bare and the wildlife can be seen staying away from the open fields and in the edge of the woods. The woods to our north east have thinned enough to begin seeing our nearest neighbor’s house that can only be seen from our house in winter.

    The temperatures will fall back after tomorrow to more fall like weather and we will get rain from Delta on the weekend. The frost that was predicted disappeared and I see no chance for at least 2 weeks.

  • Old things, Newer things

    Not antiques, but old none the less. We have two, by today’s standards, ancient cars. Mine is 16, hubby’s is 13 and both have well over 200,000 miles on them. His has been showing signs of it’s demise. It is losing oil, the check engine light stays on because of a bad catalytic converter, the car has several, the low tire pressure light stays on because all of the sensors were removed with a tire replacement several years ago. We keep the oil changed, get yearly inspections, make sure the brakes and tires are good.

    Yesterday we drove two towns over, only about 20 miles to get drive thru Chick-fil-A for lunch. During the pandemic with the dining room closed, they have quite a system set up at busy times, with two drive thru lanes merging into one then separating again into two pick up lines. A path to get around to the queue to get into a drive thru line, sections set aside for app ordered pre orders and another for third party pick ups. After we got our food, we drove over to the shopping center parking lot to eat, put down our windows for air and had lunch. After we were finished, the car would not start. Daughter lives within shouting distance, but she is working from home with two kids getting virtual education, so we didn’t want to call her unless necessary. We have AAA and called them. We were told it would be about 64 minutes, that we would get three text messages, the first letting us know that the service order had been entered, the second that it had been assigned, and the third that the service was in route. Soon after the first text, a couple near our age in a pickup offered to jump us, but we declined. About 45 minutes into the wait, another car offered help and at this point, we figured we had waited that long, we would just wait. The hour came and went, no second text. A third person offered a jump and we took her up on it, got the car started, thanked her, called AAA back to let them know that we got tired of waiting and got help. The car though running, in neutral was racing then almost stalling. When driving it would surge and resume normal speed. Instead of going straight to get a new battery, we elected to get home, pick up my car and take the ailing one directly to our local repair place. If the dead battery just messed with the computer and it can be reset, if a battery is all it needs, we will have it fixed. If there are bigger issues, it is difficult to justify the money to repair a 13 year old car with 243,000 miles on it. We have been anticipating this, dreading the thought that at our ages and during a pandemic, we might have to purchase a new car and have car payments. For now, we will continue to drive the older one and hope it gets us through to spring.

    Maybe, just maybe, this will be a less expensive repair and we can continue to get a bit more use out of it. As Son 1 says, “they are both in the bonus round.”

    On a brighter note, since I don’t have an electric dehydrator to dry herbs and peppers, this is my solar dehydrator.

    It works quite well for herbs and peppers, but I can’t do tomatoes. Maybe next year I will try the oven method with some of the Amish paste tomatoes, or if I can get a few pounds at the Farmers’ Market this weekend, maybe I will try it this year.

    I think the salad mix needs thinning. Tonight, we will enjoy truly fresh salad and a few of the healthier plants will go in a window garden to harvest from until they get tall and bitter.

    I moved into our home 14 years ago last month, while hubby was still working toward his retirement across the state. I had been here for 15 months in various rentals during the construction. Some of the later temporary housing was sharing space with Son 1 and his family, who moved in here with me as they finished the inside of the house. One of the shared spaces was a sublet from friends of theirs who had purchased a home with about a month left on their lease. When they left, they abandoned a very large Jade plant that ended up here. Each winter it came in to sit out the cold indoors and each summer it lived on the west end of the north facing front porch. The pot it was in was 18-20″ in diameter and the plant so large it didn’t fit through the front door without breaking off a few smaller branches and so heavy it had to be on a roller for me to move it in and out. With daughter and her family living with us for a couple of years, toddler and young elementary school age, their dog and our two, there just wasn’t enough room for the additional activity, so I advertised the plant on Craigslist and a young man wanted it. In the process of moving it out for him to pick up, a thumb sized branch broke off and I told him I was keeping the branch. It was potted up and survived. Though it is no where near as large as the parent plant, here it is today, again getting too big for the convenient sunny winter spots in the house, especially since the doors in these photos are where the big pup, our aging Mastiff spends most of his days in “his sunny spot.”

  • Sunday communing with nature

    Sundays are stay safe at home days, days to enjoy the outdoors while hubby watches football, days to get some outdoor tasks done, then prepare homemade Mexican dinner. Yet, Sundays are difficult for me as they have been at other times in the past. Sundays are family day, but for 4 years in college, it was a day to be homesick, no classes or other activities to distract me. As a young single woman, weekends were often backpacking trips with friends, and Sunday was the day we walked out and drove home to face another work week. As an older adult, a few weekends a year were spent with friends at fiber retreats, and Sunday was the day we packed up, hugged goodbye for months and drove home. I miss my kids and my grandkids. I miss my friends. I miss hugs and socialization.

    To try to thwart the low feelings, I spend Sunday outdoors as much as possible. After pups and breakfast come taking care of the hens. They are a motley looking crew right now in the midst of molt so the coop, run, and surrounding yard are dusted with feathers, black ones, red ones, brown ones, feathers everywhere. Normally, it is just letting them out, making sure they have food and water. But yesterday, the coop was cleaned for the start of cold weather. When weather gets cold enough to freeze the water outside the coop, it is important they have water inside the coop, usually a bucket that will be dumped and refilled daily, eventually having to break the ice out of it each day. Because of the molt, there are very few eggs, only 1 in the past 4 days.

    After the games began at 1, I brought out the riding the mower out set a notch lower than last week and mowed the front, sides, and back of the house. The orchard, pine trees, and well head areas are still growing, mostly too high to mow with the riding mower at this point.

    The Dogwood near house is not a native variety, the native ones have small red berries this time of year. The one near the house has a larger knobby berry that looks like a big firm raspberry.

    The deer have stripped the new leaves from the grape vine again. Now that they have found it, it really is vital to put a hot wire around it next year if there are to be any grapes to harvest. A task to be done on another day.

    Night before last night I finished spinning the second color of the Shenandoah braid and yesterday morning finished the sample that came with the new spindle. I have already spun 56 2/3 grams of fiber this month and my first update photo shown below was posted. I should put it aside and work on the knits if they are going to get done. Soon being outdoors will be less enticing and fewer outdoor jobs to do and more knitting will be done, I did get several inches done on the sweater after dark.

    Since it was a nice day, I attempted to burn the asparagus tops, the pulled tomato plants, and the dead sunflowers. Though it started nicely, it quickly went out, I guess it is still too green. Another attempt will be made after they have had a couple more weeks to dry or we get a real frost. This rids the asparagus patch of beetles and reduces the weeds as well as getting rid of the garden waste that doesn’t break down into compost for years unless shredded and we have no shredder.

    A lady bug on the pepper plant, but almost no spots.

    More peppers, more tomatillos brought in, but the tomatillo plants really seem to have taken the worst hit with the frost. There are no new blossoms and only a couple dozen small fruits. The forecast shows no chance of frost again for at least 10 days. The garden will continue to grow and produce.

    We ended a beautiful, busy weekend with an evening walk around the pond a couple of times. A flock of geese noisily circled the pond a few times and two landed for the night. Three ducks were perched on a log out in the water.

    It was near dark by the time we got out. It is amazing how quickly it gets dark this time of year. In spite of all the day’s activities, I am sad that it couldn’t be spent with family, a visit to one our sons and their families, or a meal or hike with our daughter and hers.

    Stay safe out there. Be responsible, I want family time again.

  • The Fog Cleared, the Garden Mostly Survived

    The fog finally cleared yesterday and after the run to the natural foods store for supplies, a garden venture was braved. There is evidence we received a light frost, about a week to 10 days before average, the tops of the Tomatillos are burned and the edges of the western most Thai pepper show some damage, but for the most part, I think we have a little more time. Peppers were picked as well as Tomatillos. The stink bugs seem to love the Tomatillos and many are damaged when I pick them, some so damaged they never fully develop. If the damage is light, I just cut it out before blanching them. If it is heavy, the fruit goes to the hens and as I toss them from 2/3 across the garden some miss. They will be next year’s volunteers. I probably won’t have to plant or buy Tomatillo plants next year. The three dill plants that didn’t come up forever were tucked under and between the Ground Cherries and the bush beans and they survived last night. Not wanting to risk losing them, they were cut and are drying in three small vented brown bags.

    The mail brought next year’s seed garlic. The garlic I ordered and some I purchased from a vendor at the Farmer’s Market a few weeks ago will be planted in early November and covered with straw to become next year’s garlic crop.

    It also brought the spindle I purchased at the Yarn Tools shop update early this week. This one appealed to me because it is Honduran Rosewood and one of my favorite excursions from our 40th Anniversary cruise was in the Honduras, where we rode horses on the beach and into the ocean around a small island and ate soft tacos in a beachside hut before returning to the ship.

    Though the spindle on the left and the new one in the center are both Jenkin’s Finches, the weights are significantly different. The Rosewood one is more than 5 grams heavier and only less than half a gram lighter than it’s much larger cousin, the Aegean on the right. I was unfortunate or fortunate on how you look at it with the lottery. My name wasn’t drawn, so another spindle purchase this week didn’t happen. The fortunate is that I didn’t really need another, nor did it warrant spending the money.

    The lack of a Farmer’s Market run and the cooler day inspired me to return to bread baking. It took a break during the hot weather and I would just buy a loaf of sour dough bread at the Farmer’s Market. Since I had pizza on the menu for the night and had to let the flours come to room temperature anyway, I mixed up a batch of yeast raised herb and onion bread and one of plain sandwich bread along with the pizza dough. It looks great and smells wonderful, but I was too full from pizza when it came out of the oven to even think about trying it.

    We haven’t seen any Hummingbirds in over a week. They usually stick around until mid October, but not this year. The feeders were brought in and washed. Once thoroughly dry they will be stored away until mid to late April next spring.

    All in all, it was a delightful, busy fall day. The hunters apparently were successful in the fog from their text as they left late in the morning. No hunting is allowed on Sundays unless it is on your own land and we neither hunt nor eat game meat, so the deer are safe today.

    Last evening after the hunters were gone.

  • Don’t trust the forecast

    All week we were being threatened with potential frost last night and I had plans to cover parts of the garden. Yesterday, the forecast changed and it looked like the night time temperatures were going to stay above 40, so I didn’t cover anything except the fig is wrapped around the sides with doubled heavy mil plastic. When I got up this morning, the outdoor thermometer indicated it went down to 37 f and the weather app says there was frost warning until 9 a.m. It is so foggy outside that when I went over to feed and release the chickens, I couldn’t even see the garden. It is still densely foggy. If the sun comes out later, I will check for damage, possibly having to harvest the remaining peppers to oven dry. If the tomatillos took a hit, I will pick whatever has any size, and roast them to make a roasted salsa, or toss them in a pot with spices for another few jars of simmer sauce. I should have followed through on my original plan to cover it. Oh well, if it is the end of the season, so be it. I’m sure the peas will be fine and maybe we will still get a small fall harvest of them.

    Today begins bow hunting season for deer. The two young men who sought permission to use our low field are down there in the thick fog. I can’t imagine they could see anything. It was thick enough that a deer could forage under their stand and they wouldn’t see it. Now, after 10 a.m., it is just beginning to thin enough to even see that field from the house.

    I guess this wasn’t the ideal first day of hunting weather. Having them on the property with bows requires that I have to take the pups out individually on leashes.

    I received notification that the spindle I got in the Yarn Tools shop update earlier in the week will be delivered today, and I sit here waiting for the random drawing from their shop to see if I earned the right to purchase one of the ones I picked from the lottery. They are on the west coast, so the posting won’t occur until noon or after here in the east.

    We chose not to go to the Farmer’s Market in the cold fog this morning. Later today or tomorrow, I will venture to the Eats, the natural foods store for a little produce, local cheese and local(ish) tortillas (they are made in Virginia a couple of hours from here).

    After a few restless, sleepless nights recently and feelings of stress over the daily onslaught of bad news, I concluded that I had slipped back into a habit of too much caffeine. My single morning mug of coffee had risen to two or three. Each day I was making a pot of tea that I drank iced though out the day. This required me to take drastic measures and enduring a caffeine withdrawal headache for a couple of days, but I am limiting myself to 1 mug of coffee and not making a pot of tea that is so easy to just pour and drink. If I want tea, I must brew a single cup and enjoy it hot. For other hydration and thirst, I am drinking our well water, which I find tastes good. With dinner, I add a splash of pomegranate juice to the water. I have slept better the past few nights and feel less stressed.

    Another 11 grams of the braid I am spinning was spun yesterday and a few grams of Jacob on my “car” spindle, though not in the car. I really like the way this part of the braid matches the spindle’s colors. I am spinning it in the gradient, and will ply it that way, but don’t know what it will become. I also spun nearly a bobbin full of a much heavier yarn to be plied with another singles hopefully to be Aran or heavier weight to knit historic style hats.

    The fog is finally lifting, I think I will go check on the night’s damage to the garden.

    Stay safe out there.

  • Fiber Intervention

    I don’t need to buy fiber for years. In the past two weeks, I bought Shetland from a friend who is thinning her fiber out, it is about a pound and a half, traded some fiber for some Moorit Shetland, bought the Shenandoah braid and the two 4 ounce bumps of Coopworth from vendor friends at the Shenandoah Virtual Festival. I still had a 4 ounce braid I had bought a couple months ago from Corgi Hill Farms that I was going to spin this fall. Then there are bags of Jacob that I washed from two raw fleeces that I use when I can do living history, and random bags that need labels, each with a few to 4 ounces. My storage cubes don’t hold it all.

    Some sorting, re bagging, and labelling later, it is mostly contained. Some of those books have been shelf weights for too many years and need to be donated to Friends of the Library or the YMCA Thrift shop. That would give me one more bin for storage as the remaining books could go on another shelf or on top.

    Spinning on the spindles will continue with the pretty fibers, making thin yarns that may someday sell or my arthritis will permit knitting lacy knits. Much of the Shetland, Jacob, Coopworth, and a mystery soft brown fiber will be spun thicker, probably on the wheel with the idea of making Monmouth or Freedom caps and proper fingerless gloves to sell at Living History events. I’m leaning toward only doing historical knits for vending in the future. If some of my finer lacey knits ever sell, I may return to making more of them from the colorful yarns.

    Yesterday, I finished the first color band of my Shenandoah braid, about 18 grams spun. Today I will begin on the browns that match the spindle.

    With the first of October and a concession to a changing season, the fall decorations were brought out for display. There are two rotating fall table cloths that are used instead of the daily woven placemats, followed by two Christmas ones.

    The house was damp mopped to try to reduce the dog hair load, they are shedding like it was summer time, and all the wood furniture was given a good clean and wax with a beeswax based polish. It is so futile because within minutes, there is hair everywhere again.

    Tonight, I will have to cover the ground cherries, peppers, and tomatillos to protect them in case we receive frost. The peas that are finally blooming should be okay and the beans are only setting seed at this point, so they will likely be left uncovered. I have had beans survive light frost in the past with just some leaf edge burn. As the weather chills down, each trip into the house requires brushing off the stink bugs that are gathering trying to find entrance. They are heavy this year and if the winter is mild as currently predicted, they will be worse next year. I wish they had a natural predator here.

  • Month Ends, Challenge Begins

    The last quarterly spindle challenge begins tomorrow. I couldn’t sit idle from several days ago when I submitted my end of month total, so I used a top whorl spindle to continue spinning the mixed Jacob roving and spun another 33.55 grams for the month that won’t count, but I had plenty official spun.

    The scale says 35.55, but the ball has a 2 gram felted ball in the middle around which it is wound.

    I will probably go ahead and ply the Jacob on the wheel and leave it on the bobbin until I finish with the almost 3 ounces left of the fiber. I was unsure what I wanted to concentrate on in October until I went to the virtual Shenandoah Fiber Festival and Wild Hare Fiber Studio, one of the vendors I would have sought did a Shenandoah gradient dyed fiber for the weekend. I ordered it, I had to get something significant from it, I also ordered from my friend at Hearts of the Meadow Farms. The Shenandoah was shipped Monday and arrived today and it is the perfect decision for the month.

    The colors toward the center of the braid match the figured Big leaf Maple spindle so well they just go together. The fiber from my friend is white and a white and burgundy which will be nice colors for the cold of December. Yesterday I logged on to Facebook, just in time to see that Yarn Tools website, the ones that make the Jenkins Turkish spindles were having a shop update of spindles in the size I prefer. I’m not usually lucky enough to catch the updates, but I was and purchased a Honduran Rosewood Finch, it is heavier than the Olive Finch I own. Then later in the day, the group update showed they would be having a lottery for the right to buy 1 of 18 spindles. In the lottery, you can select 2 to enter and I put my name in there too for two small spindles. I’m not generally lucky there, but who knows.

    Today we went back to the museum to pick up my knits, yarn, and soaps that didn’t sell. I was pleased to see that I did sell some items and the museum purchased more of my salves as they seem to sell there. In talking to my friend that organizes all of their events, we discussed that two of the hats are really too large. I am toying with whether to run elastic thread through the ribbing or just frog and reknit them. One has a zigzag pattern of colorwork and I may cut it below the zigzag, pick up the stitches, decrease about 10 or 15 stitches and knit the ribbing in reverse to make it better fit a “normal” head but maintain a slightly slouchy top. I have to decide if I am that brave. The other just needs to be frogged and reknit with fewer stitches and/or a smaller needle. That is the only hat in my stock that I actually followed a pattern on.

    Hats don’t usually sell in my Etsy shop, maybe I need a wig model to show them off better.

  • Waste Not, Want Not

    Last evening before it got dark, I ventured into the garden with a single basket. It proved to be too small. There were a few red tomatoes, a few turning red, and 7 pounds of green tomatoes on dead vines. There are still two determinate type slicers growing with a few fruits on them. The Thai and Serano peppers had a couple hands full of red ripe peppers and the Jalapenos had a hand full of pickling size, and fortunately I had on a jacket with big pockets to hold them. The basil got cut again, maybe for the last time. And about a dozen Tomatillos ready to harvest.

    The basil was stripped to dry but the rest was just left on the table until this morning while I tried to figure out what to do with 7 pounds of green tomatoes. All of the recipes I saw online were for salsa you broiled the tomatoes, onions, and garlic then food process mixed them for a refrigerator salsa. There were too many tomatoes for that. One of my favorite canning cookbooks to the rescue.

    First, I pickled the jalapenos, blanched and froze the Tomatillos and ripe tomatoes. Put the ripening ones in the window to finish ripening. Strung the red Thai peppers to start the third string of them drying.

    Though her recipes are generally for a few half pints, I have successfully doubled or tripled them for pints. The recipe for a canned Green Tomato Salsa called for 2 pounds to make 3 half pint jars, I tripled it and realized very quickly that it was going to make way more than 4+ pints, so 6 pint jars went into the canner to heat up and as I was filling them with a very thick and chunky salsa, added a 7th. The recipe called for a half poblano pepper. I don’t grow them, they don’t have any “kick.” I had harvested Serano and Thai peppers that had no immediate use, there weren’t enough Seranos and no red Jalapenos to make Sriracha style fermented sauce, so I just chopped them up with the Thai’s and added them to the 6 pounds of chopped green tomatoes, onion, garlic, and spices. The suggestion was to remove it from the heat when it was thick enough and taste it to adjust the salt and hot peppers if needed. Well, I think I will name it “It might make you cry” Salsa, it made me cry. Son 1 likes it hot, hubby likes it hot. Between them, I’m sure all 7 pints will disappear in short order, but I won’t be eating any of it.

    The last pound of green tomatoes were layered in a box with a ripe apple in hopes that they will ripen and can be added to the bag in the freezer to use later in the winter and a recipe calls for whole or diced tomatoes.

    For years, we have had an indoor/outdoor thermometer system. They last 4 or 5 years before they give out and quit working. Our last one quit about two weeks ago. It is funny how you learn to rely on something. I can check the weather forecast, but the station that reports for us in located somewhere in the county in an area that seems to be more extreme temperature changes than we have. I have checked to see that it was reporting as much as 10 degrees colder than our unit said when it worked. The outdoor part of ours in on the inside of a post of our north facing covered front porch. Tractor Supply carries a variety of thermometers from ones you hang on the porch and either try to read through the window or brave the elements to go out and look at it, to the indoor/outdoor ones with all sorts of reporting. I got us a medium range one that shows temperature, time, indoor temperature and humidity, barometric pressure, high/low temperature history, and supposedly, a prediction (we will see on that feature).

    It is hanging near the front door, so we can see how many layers we need to put on before going out. The high/low feature won’t kick in accurately until it has been up 24 hours. It is a pleasant 72 today, the high for the week. We had a quick rain shower but have a couple days of soaking rain due tomorrow and Wednesday. While picking up the thermometer, we also picked up a roll of heavy mil plastic sheeting that will cover the fig and if necessary some garden plants if a frost is predicted this week.

    I need to go find space on the pantry shelves for the salsa.

    Stay safe all.

  • Tools and preparation

    As I finished the fiber from August and September, it empties my tools in preparation for the October challenge. The three Jenkins spindles were emptied, the Bosworth which I can’t use for the challenge was called into play to ply who small turtles of CVM, making 45 yards of 2 ply yarn that will be used as trim. The Jacob that I finished prior to recording my total was joined with a second turtle spun since the reporting and the two were wound into a ply ball and set aside to be added to before it is plied for use.

    The tools in and by this wooden bowl are the ones I use each day, making yarn the slow, meditative way. Sometimes I use purchased prepared roving, sometimes I comb fleece that I washed and once in a while, I just spin from locks.

    The second skein of shiny Shetland/Bombyx was washed and dried. It turned out to be exactly the same yardage and weight as the first skein. I couldn’t do that intentionally if I tried.

    It ended up 933+ yards of lace weight yarn and is now in my shop for sale. It is gorgeous, but I don’t knit with lace weight yarn, though that seems to be what I spin on the spindles.

    Since there are still a few days until I can begin official spinning for the challenge, I will spin on the Bosworth top whorl spindle and just add to the ply ball. The gray ball in the bowl is the Jacob. There will be enough finished yarn when it is all spun, to make a simple watch cap and fingerless mitts.

    And while we talk tools, I attacked the tall thick grass on the riding mower, mowing with the deck set at the highest setting and doing half wide passes. It looks better, but still somewhat rough. We have a couple days of potential rain, then I will go after it again, set at the usual setting and doing full width passes and see if it can be neatened up before cold weather sets in. Some of the areas need to be brush hogged as they are just too tall and too deep for the riding mower.

    We are threatened with widespread frost on Wednesday night. I need to find a solution to protect my fig, ground cherries, tomatillos, and peppers. We should have almost another month before we have to worry about frost. As for the tomatoes, I am going out to pick anything left on the plants. Red ones will go in the freezer, ripening ones set in a window to ripen, and green ones may become green salsa or if slicers, I might enjoy a few more fried green tomatoes. The plants will be pulled and added to the shred/burn pile. The last three sunflower stalks have browned and they also need to be pulled down. Newspaper will be saved to finish the aisles that never were finished in the spring and some sort of mulch applied to hold it in place to hopefully prevent as much growth there as I had this summer. Most of my weeding time was spent on three paths.

    We have given permission to a young man who grew up in the area to bow hunt on our lower field when the season begins next Saturday. He and a buddy put a game camera down in the woods and it lasted two days before a big bear swiped it off the tree. The camera got a photo before and during the swipe. We saw the bear early in the summer, but haven’t seen it since, but it must traverse our woods without us seeing it. In exchange for the permission, he and his brother came over today and re-secured a gutter on the back of the house that had sagged enough that water was pouring over the outer edge in heavy rain. He said they would return and fine tune it if today’s repair was not enough. In the theme of today’s blog, they used my long extension ladder and cordless drill to facilitate the repair.

    Stay safe out there.