Cabin Crafted

Category: farm

  • It survived

    After dinner last night, we got a walk in just before it got dark. It was getting quite chilly by the time we returned to the car. Instead of the nearly road wide path to the pond that we usually take, we went the opposite direction down a winding path used for bicycles and horses. Much narrower, more contour, and I feel, a nicer walk through the woods. We only encountered two mountain bikers headed back up to the parking lot until we got to the pond where there were too many unmasked people as we did a single loop and back up the wider path to the car, so a huge loop instead of in and out the same path. The pond had dozens of geese and a few ducks. The geese must be the ones that overwinter in the pond because they don’t even move off the path when you walk by them, so they are used to people. I guess we will see them regularly through the winter walks.

    We ended our walk with a stop at the local village store for ice cream. There is one employee who refuses to wear a mask, an older man. His paper mask, probably the same one every day is under his chin, never, ever on. Last night he got a call requesting if they had an item and he came out from behind their plastic shower curtain shield, still unmasked, got right in my face, made a joking comment, laughed and walked on to check for the item. This morning, on our way to the Farmer’s Market pickup, we stopped there for a newspaper and the proprietor, his young employee, and the sole customer were all unmasked. This is after a week where our tiny county has had a surge of about 15 cases and 2 more hospitalizations. I know we live in a Trump dominated county, but if he would be honest about the virus and support mask wearing, I would feel safer.

    When we got up this morning, the hunters were here, so the pups had to be let out on leashes, the grass was crystalline and crunchy, the indoor/outdoor thermometer showed it was cold.

    As happens, the temperature dropped one more degree before it started warming up. The trip to the Farmer’s Market required window scraping.

    When we returned home with our week’s supply of veggies, butter, cheese, and a bit of meat and it had warmed to comfortable in a light jacket, I checked on the garden. Everything I covered survived nicely, except the branch I apparently broke off of the big Serrano pepper. Even the uncovered bush beans don’t seem to have been badly burned and it didn’t bother the marigolds. They will remain covered until it warms tomorrow, then I will put the covers away and let nature take it’s course. It is supposed to warm back up for about 10 days, then the peppers will be done. I may continue to cover the ground cherries and peas at night when the night temps stay in the upper 30’s and see if they produce enough to harvest. After checking on it, the walled garden was in need of light weeding, there are deer tracks through out the garden and several plants have been nibbled to the ground. This garden is right up against the house and deck. I need to get a solar motion sensor light to keep them out if I plan to use it for herbs, dye garden, and flowers.

    Being a gorgeous day, and living in a heavenly part of the state, we ventured a few thousand feet elevation farther up the mountain and took a walk in the woods. It was peaceful, serene, and unpopulated.

    More photos from the day on my Instagram account.

  • Garlic

    Garlic is a flavorful and healthy crop to grow in the garden. First, you know where and how it was grown, and no fossil fuels are required to pull it, cure it, and carry it from garden to house. Garlic is delicious sauteed, roasted, grated or minced into almost any savory food dish. Today, we use it mostly for the culinary benefits, but historically, it was mostly used medicinally. According to studies, it is high in Manganese, Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, Selenium, and a source of fiber. It is touted to help combat the common cold, lower blood pressure, improve cholesterol levels, may help prevent Alzheimers, and many other uses.

    Garlic is always in my garden. It gets moved around to different locations, part of the crop rotation for soil health and to try to prevent the tiny nematodes that can sometimes get in garlic or onions and cause them to spoil. Garlic is planted in the fall to give it time to produce rootlets, then as the soil begins to warm in spring, the clove that was planted will produce the bulb that is harvested in late June. Sometimes, tiny bulblets will form atop the green leaves. They are like seeds and can be planted in fall, pulled the following summer, and the small cloves then replanted that fall and will produce bulbs the second year. Two of my softneck garlics produced bulblets and I saved them to plant with my seed garlic this year.

    Yesterday morning, the box that contained most of the tomatoes this year was thoroughly cleared of weeds and large roots. This morning, a good load of compost was dug in, digging out a couple of brick sized rocks that had escaped prior preparation of that area. This was the first year that corner of the garden had been planted, it had previously been the compost pile and after seeing how the asparagus shaded that spot, it probably should still be the compost area, but the garlic will mature before the asparagus gets tall, then I will likely move the box to another area and return that spot to compost as the asparagus bed can’t be moved.

    The box was planted with 16 Romanian Red cloves, a bulb that produces only 5 or 6 huge cloves, 22 German Hardy cloves each bulb had 6 to 8 cloves, 30 unknown hardneck cloves from garlic purchased at the Farmer’s Market, 20 soft neck cloves from garlic I planted and harvested, plus the 6 bulblets to see if that process actually works. With any luck, I will harvest 88 bulbs of garlic next summer and 6 mini bulbs to replant.

    The fall peas weren’t trellised, they were planted around the perimeter of the box with carrots in the middle. They are full of blooms. Today is predicted to be 75 f and only about 48 f tonight. Tomorrow’s high is 52 f and the low 34 f. Tomorrow afternoon I will cover them and hope for the best.

    This box had several peppers planted in it, a row of marigolds, and the cucumbers. Once the cucumbers were done, the marigolds took over. They sheltered out the two bell pepper plants. The taller pepper plants are Jalapenos and still blooming, so they too will be covered.

    The Thai peppers aren’t blooming and each day more ripen red to be picked and strung to dry. Those two plants may be pulled and hung upside down in the garage where most of the remaining peppers will continue to ripen. The Serrano planted next to them is so heavy with peppers that the branches are near breaking point. It is near the box with the ground cherries, so that area may be covered. Saturday night is also in the 30’s but the day time temp will rise near 60. Those two nights are followed by about 2 weeks of 60s to mid 70s days and upper 40s to mid 50s nights, so if I can save the plants through those two nights, there will be more harvest. Then it drops back into the 30s at night again and it may be the end for the season. The area behind and to the right of the marigolds is the old mint bed that still lacks definition and the potato bed that has been weeded and weeded, but never replanted. I guess the winter and early spring will be spent clearing those areas again, supplementing it with compost and beds created to plant in for the spring garden. Next year, I want more space between my tomatoes and also between my peppers. I probably won’t try to grow corn again unless it is popcorn which I have had success with in the past. Potatoes were a fluke only because I had a few pounds sprouting, but they did so well, I might repeat them. The potato onions were a fun experiment, but the onions are so small they are only good for skewering for grilled veggies, so I will return to planting organic sets that produce decent sized onions. For years I have tried to use the Square Foot Garden method with limited success as some plants overgrow others in the same box thus reducing instead of improving the yield. I’m leaning towards 4 foot wide beds the width of the garden and planting in rows or big blocks. To do that, I will have to unstack and pull out serviceable wood salvaged from the old deck and restack what is too short or too heavy for me to work with.

    Each year the garden morphs slightly into a different format, but it still provides me hours of healthy work and many pounds of produce. It is slowing being put to bed for the winter, trying to eek out as much produce as possible before the night freezes do it in entirely.

    Today, we visited the local farm equipment sales and service to inquire about a new 5 foot brush hog and tractor servicing. The price on the brush hog was much higher than we expected and I’m not sure the amount of use it would get with the local farmer haying and brush hogging many areas, that the expense is justified. We may continue to wait on that purchase and see if we can find a better price elsewhere.

  • It’s not over ’til the fat lady sings

    After two days of steady rain and steady temperature of 61 f, today dawned gray and thick but not raining. On the way to giving the hens their daily freedom, a harvest basket was grabbed. The garden is fading away, one crop at a time, but still providing some goodness for the larder. The peas are bright and full of flowers, the Jalapenos are still blooming, the Thai and Serrano peppers are ripening with hundreds of Thai peppers and dozens of Serrano peppers still green on the plants. The ends of the branches so full that the rains pulled them down, sagging over the paths. There aren’t any broken branches. All of the ripe red ones were plucked off, breaking off a clump of still green ones in the process. The last three slicing tomatoes were picked and the plants pulled and tossed on the burn pile. The last of the basil clipped and added to the basket. The Tomatillo plants are bare of leaves so the last fruits of any size were pulled. Those plants should be pulled as well and the stakes removed to store. Friday and Saturday nights will be cold enough for frost. The arrangement of the peas, Thai peppers, one Serrano pepper, and Ground Cherries in three 4 X 4 foot boxes in a row will allow me to cover them with a sheet of plastic. The Jalapenos and the non productive Serrano pepper are across a wide path but in a single 4 x 4 box, so they can be covered as well. The top of the fig shelter will be closed over. After those two nights, there will be another mild period. There are dozens of ground cherries forming, so there is still hope for a small batch of jam to see if that is a plant I want to plant in the future.

    Everything was washed, the basil leaves stripped and put in a drying basket, the red Thai peppers strung, filling the 4th string drying inside the south French door. The Jalapenos were brined in hot brine to pickle. The Tomatillos blanched and put in the freezer, making 2 gallon sized bags for Son 1’s family. The green Thai peppers and the Serranos were started as another hot pepper ferment.

    If the peas, ground cherries, and remaining peppers can be nursed through the two nights in the 30’s, there may be more peppers to dry and pickle, a batch of jam to make, and fresh peas to enjoy. One of the garden boxes needs to be thoroughly cleaned up, supplemented with more compost, and planted with next year’s garlic crop, then covered with straw and a mesh panel to hold the straw down. If it ever dries out, the burn pile needs to be reduced to ash, the raspberry volunteers that have escaped the barrels pulled. Once those canes are bare of leaves, they will be pruned back. Since the wooden barrels have all deteriorated to just sides with no bottoms, I am again trying to figure out how to have raspberries without them taking over the garden. The barrel idea was good until the bottoms rotted out. There is a large old galvanized tub hanging in the garage that has a hole where the bottom and side seams meet, so it doesn’t hold water, perhaps it can be buried a few inches and half filled with soil, planted with canes and used to control their spread. I love the fruit, but not trying to control them.

  • No politics today

    This is being posted remotely to Facebook. As I am not currently using Facebook, any reactions or comments should be posted at the bottom of the blog. Thank you.

    It is a Saturday, gloomy, gray, light rain, but the morning to run into town and pick up the preorders from the Farmer’s Market. The pups were let out, the hunter’s didn’t come, so no need for leashes, fortunately. They were fed, the chickens loosed into the yard to hunt for bugs, seeds, and scratch in the bare spots.

    A few of them are so motley looking and they trail feathers wherever they go, a few have grown their new winter feathers and look so fresh and full, I even got 1 egg yesterday. When I let them out, they make a bee line for the front yard and usually disappear under the two cedar trees at least for a while.

    With raincoat on, the run through the market was damp, but not too crowded and the goodies look wonderful. On Saturday mornings, we get drive thru breakfast and sitting in the parking lot with the car off, the rain distorting the view of the street lights on, the tree with it’s red leaves, and the faux granite stone on the Art Center, made an interesting photo.

    The street sign was a distractor, but still an interesting shot.

    The market goods were brought home, put away and back out we went to pick up some socks from the local outfitter’s sale that ends tomorrow on Darn Tough socks, my favorites, then on to pick up chicken scratch and bird seed from Tractor Supply.

    There will be no walk today, probably not tomorrow either, but plenty of time to spin, read, knit, maybe take a nap.

    Tonight we will feast on a pan of fresh roasted veggies, hubby with a chop, me with some local cheese, perhaps a slice or two of the bread made a few days ago, sliced and frozen to keep it fresh.

    It will be a lazy weekend. When the rain stops, I will prepare the bed that will grow next year’s garlic. Peppers and anything else ripe will be brought in to string, can, freeze, or eat fresh. The peas are beginning to form. Only 5 more days until a frost is expected, two nights in a row. I am torn whether to try to extend the season by covering plants or call it a year.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Lost events

    This weekend marks another lost event and another event at which I will be represented by some of my crafts, but not my person. For several years, we have gone north to the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley, spent the weekend at a hotel with lots of social time with Son 1 and his family. Together, we all go to the Shenandoah Fiber Festival, visit a couple of vendor friend, see all the wooly and furry critters, and always leave with goodies. Yarn to knit first birthday sweater’s for a granddaughter that turns 4 this year, a spindle one year, fiber always.

    That yarn became the sweater below for granddaughter.

    Last year I was in the area to help Son 1’s family move into their house and we didn’t go to the festival as there were too many other things on the agenda that weekend.

    This year it is virtual. There is no festival to attend. I have trouble buying fiber or yarn without seeing and feeling it, I don’t need any more spindles or wheels. I will miss the trip, but understand the safety of not holding it during the pandemic.

    The second event is at the Museum where I do living history. They are having a fall festival with reservation only tours of 6 per half hour and 6 allowed to wander the outbuildings and grounds per half hour, but I am still not comfortable staying in a closed area other than my home for any length of time and wearing a mask in costume wouldn’t work, so my crafts are there on an honor system sale, but I’m not. I am hopeful that everyone will be honest and if anything takes a walk without payment, that it is really needed and will be loved.

    We daily check the department of health’s website and see that the number of cases in our rural county have jumped more than 10 fold in about a month. For a very long time, there were only 7 or 8 cases here, then the students came back to the Universities in the area, the public school kids returned to a modified face to face school week, and we now have 88 cases and more reported each day (about 15 of them are public school students and/or staff). That doesn’t sound like a lot, but this is a small rural county with a handful of small towns and villages and no cities. This is also a mask resistant county, so we only go out when necessary and generally go to the next county to a larger town with more mask compliance, where we can get curbside delivery of groceries.

    Today our adventure is to go get our curbside grocery delivery in pouring rain from Beta. I watched the pups this morning go quickly into the rain in belly deep grass to do what pups do first thing in the morning. Last evening, I called and the mowers are ready, but they have to be closed today (not that I want to load mowers in the rain), so we will go over in the morning before they close at noon. The weekend is predicted to be drier, so maybe set on the highest setting, I can reduce the height of the yard growth. We keep putting off going to get the brush hog because we will either have to pay for delivery or I will have to drive the tractor down the mountain road, about a mile down the highway edge, then return trip after we attach it to the tractor. I really should do that and have them change the oil and transmission fluid while they have it, that is a job I haven’t learned to do and have no interest in getting on the ground under the tractor to learn.

    Until the deluge slows to a trickle, the chooks will stay in their coop with food and water. I will have to toss down hay in the run when I can get out there just to keep from sliding down the hill and to help keep them from taking mud baths. Chickens are stupid. I am toying with the idea of repairing the chicken tractor, removing it from the collapsed log raft and setting it on 4 blocks so the chickens can use it as a safe shelter when free ranging. It would give them a place to go if a dog or hawk threaten. There is no floor in it as the log raft was the floor, so they could get up into the perches or dust bathe under it.

    The trees are beginning to color, we are seeing the yellowing of some and reds of some of the “trash” trees. I’m not ready for the woods to be bare yet.

  • Spin, knit, cook, read, walk, and vote

    The bulk of my time with the garden in Autumn decline is to spin on my spindles.

    Knit on a project I can’t share yet, as it is a gift.

    Cook at home. When you want Lasagna and it makes way too much for two, get creative. If Stouffers can do it, so can I.

    One for the oven, three for the freezer to be enjoyed on other nights. Made with local cheese, my pasta sauce.

    Re-reading for about the 10th time my favorite book that recenters me each time I read it and reinforces my belief in buy local, eat local, grow it yourself if you can.

    Take walks at the pond, there is always something new to see. The wildfowl have been absent for the summer, but there was a pair of ducks, an 18″ long garter snake, the usual plethora of turtles, and lovely light play in the woods.

    One of these causes seasonal allergies, one does not, do you know which?

    We had decided to vote absentee ballot this year due to the pandemic, but today when they came, we drove them straight to the county seat unopened and voted early in person.

    No crowd, no line, two masked workers behind a shield wall, so safe and no chance that our ballot would be dismissed for whatever reason. Then we got home to find an article from Forbes on how the Trump Campaign is actively considering how to bypass the results if he doesn’t win. What happened to free and fair elections in this country? What will happen to this country?