The average first frost date here is October 10. It has been as late as early November and the hardest first frost I remember was right around October 10. This morning, was an early one to prepare breakfast for Son 1 who spent the night prior to setting off on a weekend adventure with friends and it was 37f (2.78 c) upon groing down to cook. When I stepped outside to wish them safe travels, there was frost in the grass. It was still early morning, but early light out.
Later, after the sun was higher, the remains of the garden were checked to see if there was any damage to the remaining produce. Though the spinach and turnip greens were lightly frosted, they seemed ok and some spinach was cut for a later meal. The peppers didn’t seem any the worse off, but a few dozen green Seranos were picked, there just isn’t enough time for them to ripen to red. A few Jalapenos and 3 bell peppers were also brought inside.
Last night, hubby said he would like some chili soon and since Friday’s are grocery market days, a pound of ground beef that didn’t need to be thawed first was purchased. Several, 4 or 5 of the Seranos were minced along with half an onion and a few cloves of garlic to add to half of the pound of beef, the other half set aside for another meal. I suppose I should have tasted it before adding anything else spicy as I knew a can of Rotel tomatoes with green chilies, and a can of beans in chili sauce were going in the pot, but foolishly, I added about a tablespoon of Mexican Chili powder too. Needless to say, it could nearly self ignite from the heat. He loved it. My tolerance for spicy has significantly diminished as I have aged and required an OTC Pepcid to tame the burn after dinner. There is about a bowlful left and it will just intensify as it sits either in the refrigerator or freezer. Glad I don’t need to eat it again.
When I began college nearly 60 years ago, I was unsure the direction in which to go careerwise. One of my early classes was a General Biology class with a great professor and having followed a wonderful high school biology teacher, I ended up majoring in Biology Education and adding General Science certification to my teaching license. I started my master’s degree also in science, but later changed to School Counseling. Though much of my career in education was in counseling, the interest in science never moved far from my focus.
As a result, I am ever on the lookout when on our daily walks for animals, and changes in the flora surrounding the trails. One of the interesting quirks of nature are mast years. Those are years when all the nut and oak trees produce more fruit that prior years. The reason for this is debated with several theories, but next year, there will be way more young animals in the fields and woods. This is a mast year. Walking the paths over the abundance of acorns and small nuts feels like walking on pebbles. And several of the areas are shaded by black walnut trees which drop baseball size nuts in green husks that can cause a turned ankle if not looking where your feet fall, or a knot on the head if you are under one when it falls.
The past couple of days walks have been interesting. We saw the first copperhead snake I have seen here since we moved here almost two decades ago. It was leisurely crossing the paved trail on which we were walking. I got close enough to identify it, but not close enough to disturb it, not wanting to make a venomous snake cross with me.
Yesterday while weeding a garden bed, I disturbed this large garden spider with hundreds of her young on her back. I moved away from where she was and weeded elsewhere.
Today’s walk was one that was ripe with nuts. There were Buckeyes (aka Horse Chestnuts) which are toxic to humans and animals, Bitternut Hickory which are edible though very bitter when raw, if roasted they can be substitued for pecans or walnuts, and many Black Walnuts. I failed to pick up a walnut to add to my photograph. The Black Walnut that was on our property before we purchased it had fallen, though we have plenty of Bitternut Hickory trees and Oaks.
The hickory nuts in this photo are in two stages of being shelled, the husk still on one and two still in the shell. All five nuts went back into the wild, not brought home with us.
This is a great time of year for our daily walks. The daytime temperatures are very comfortable, the trees are turning autumn colors and dropping their leaves, fruits, and nuts, and we see more wildlife in the woods and crossing the roads and trails. Soon the geese will land in the pond on their way south, though we haven’t seen or heard any yet. We still have Hummingbirds coming to the feeders, so they are staying full. One beautiful little one got trapped in our garage yesterday and by the time we saw it, it was worn out from trying to escape, allowing me to pick it up and take it back outdoors where it gratefully flew away. The hens have already started into non laying mode, getting only about a dozen a week now from 6 hens instead of enough to share.
Soon the autumn will chill, the garden will close up for the winter, and it will be time to plant next year’s garlic.
Stay safe, enjoy the changing seasons if you live where you get changes.
Last Wednesday evening, I trekked over to the museum to teach an old skill. No costume required for this event. We set up 4 stations for 4 ladies + 1 second grader accompanying her Mom and they learned to make basic lard and lye soap. We used a mix of old school and modern skills and equipment so we weren’t there all night stirring the mix. Of course they were given some history of soap and soap making and why we now use a lye calculator and a superfatted recipe to be sure we end up with a body friendly product. I put together kits of a small heat safe plastic bucket, two rigid plastic stadium cups, a spatula, and a silicone loaf pan for each participant that they keep at the end of the session, along with the a three page history, instructions, and two recipes; one for the lard and lye and one for a vegan soap with Shea butter, Coconut Oil, and Olive Oil, and of course, their mold of soap. We “cheat” by stirring with an immersion blender to speed the process up to keep our session within a 90 minute window. As I dug out some of my equipment and essential oils to scent their individual batches of soap, it seemed a good time to go ahead and make soap for 3 friends and our household.
The batches at home were made Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. On Tuesday, a double batch of one scent was made and I won’t do that again as it took forever to get to the consistency to pour it in the molds and is still not as firm as I would like to slice it into bars. The Wednesday batches will be unmolded and cut tomorrow to cure for a month before going to the folks for whom it was made.
Today as I sat waiting for hubby to have a consultation visit and then I waited for my annual mammogram, I spun. In public, I spin on either a top whorl drop spindle or a Turkish spindle. When doing it, there are surreptitious glances, to out and out staring and occasionally someone will ask what I am doing. Followed by the question of what I then do with the yarn I spin.
The other old skill that really hasn’t been done so far this year is canning and preserving. There have been pickles fermented and stored, but the tomatoes haven’t produced in sufficient quantity to bother canning them. I have frozen a couple of gallon bags, made one big pot of sauce to use one night for pasta and the rest frozen in wide mouth pint jars. There is a basket of Asian pears from the orchard sitting on the dining table with a couple of oranges to make pear/orange marmalade, but I haven’t gotten around to dragging down the canning pot to do it. As there are still many jars of applesauce from last year unopened, I doubt that any will be canned this year. The only other produce that has come in quantity are greenbeans and I freeze some of them, but don’t like canned one at all and barely tolerate them from frozen. I like to buy local, but come midwinter when green vegetables are at a premium if at all available, I do buy from the grocer.
All of these skills have been learned since retirement. You can teach an old dog new tricks. And I truly believe in the each one teach one. I am grateful to the friends who taught me to make soap, spin, and improve my knitting skills. The canning and fermentation, I have learned from books and the internet.
Not to anything dire, just not wanting to keep posting the same routine.
It has been a hot, wet summer and the garden has suffered. Raccoons got every ear of corn and started on the tomatoes as they ripened. Green beans have been very prolific as were the cucumbers. The cucumber vines have now died off and were pulled from their trellis yesterday afternoon and the first planting of green beans also pulled as I had been away for 5 days and most of the ones on the plants were too large and soft to be desirable as we don’t like the “southern” way of cooking them with fat back until they are practically mush. The second planting has just begun to provide.
We set about on Monday to get the lawn mowed after lunch. I sent DH out to get gas for a fill up, thinking there was enough to start while he was gone, but I backed the riding mower out of the garage and it sputtered to a stop. Instead of sitting idly by, the bed of flowers by the east side of the garage was a weedy mess and the grass was hanging over into it, so much bending, stooping, and sitting on a step stool that sent me into an unplanned hard landing on the grass, and all the grass and lambs quarters were pulled, a new edge dug. He began to mow while I was doing that so the line trimmer was used to go around the house and over to the vegetable garden that had lambs quarters, wild amaranth, and horse nettles as tall as me that the line trimmer couldn’t handle. This is the result of hand weeding all of it and the orchard grass growing in the paths.
That pile is about 2.5 feet tall, what you see behind it is the same mess that is in the closed off chicken run that I can’t access until the fence is removed. I don’t know if it will compost as I had no means of chopping it up, so it is a stack of 5 to 6 feet long stalks mixed with mats of Creeping Charlie, Bermuda grass, Smart weed, and other unwanted greenery that had taken over the end of the garden not in use this summer. I’m thinking about trying to move the inner fence to cross just above the part of the garden in use and letting the chicken have at the rest. It will leave them unprotected from the hawks but that is a chance I am willing to take.
Yesterday a very early venture over to the garden to harvest beans and tomatoes and finish weeding a small section I never got to Monday, found all of the Tithonia and Sunflowers full of sleeping wild bees.
Yesterday afternoon, after a trip to the nursery, flats of spinach and Romaine lettuce seedling, a row of Little Gems lettuce seed, and three rows of turnips were planted in one of the empty raised beds. The one the first green beans were in will be reserved to plant garlic when it cools more.
The reason for my 5 day absence was to travel to Black Mountain, North Carolina for my favorite Art and Fiber Retreat. We meet at the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly. It was rejuvenating and a bit heartbreaking. The group is a wonderful mix of ladies that spin, knit, crochet, weave, and do other paper arts. The heartbreak was to see the damage caused by Helene and know that though they have worked hard to recover, only 40% occupancy is available still as they lost a couple of buildings and had damage to many others. The motel style lodge where we stay and where meals are prepared and served by the staff was the first to be repaired and reopened. Helene took out every power pole leading up to the buildings except for 3. It took them 4 weeks to get any power back. The creek that became a river down the west side, that damaged the old gym so badly it had to be torn down is now a gully 16 feet deep and washed through the woods taking out trees and rhododendron to now look like a dry river bed.
This is an area above the retreat that is up the mountain. All of their hiking trails in that area are impassable still and a lower priority than restoring the rest of the buildings.
Part of the repair is placing 14 foot arches where roads were to divert the flow, instead of smaller culverts that had always handled the creeks in the past. Also where two landslides sent mud into buildings, have new reinforced walls at the top and the slides seeded as they are now open meadows.
In addition to visiting with friends I see seldom, I finished a skein of yarn I had been spindle spinning, took a needle felting class and made two little pumpkins, and started wheel spinning 8 ounces of Coopworth and Alpaca roving purchased from a friend that raises the animals and dyes the wool before the mill processes it into roving. Also some knitting on a pair of fingerless mitts was done with the wool I purchased in Alaska in May, spun on spindles and plyed on spindles.
Now back home, my food consumption is focusing on smaller portions and healthier choices as we always have a snack table with too much sugar and fat on it, and though I did take a walk up as far as I could go up hill above the retreat one day, I consumed too much not so healthy snacks in addition to the three meals a day they provide. Now home, I have resumed my daily walks with DH of 2-2.5 miles. It has been so humid though, it feels like you are breathing fog.
We have a cooler week of so ahead, it should help make the walks more enjoyable. We see early Autumn in the air as the early turning leaves are coloring and some are already falling. Until I have something new, stay safe.
The museum where I volunteer as a spinner and occasional teacher holds a history themed week long day camp each summer. This year’s theme is cultures, representing the melting pot of cultures that dwelt in this region and the crafts they brought. Next week, I will spend one afternoon on fiber and will provide each camper with a small drop spindle to take home and a lesson on how to spin on one.
The spindles are wooden toy wheels on a dowel with a cup hook at the top. Each in a small storage bag that will also have an ounce or so of wool for practice, and each will be given a printed instruction as a reminder when they get home with them.
The weather is going to be hot as it has been for several weeks, but cloudy, so maybe not too uncomfortable in the Colonial outfit. I am following the bagpiper and he will certainly have on more layers than I will.
As my favorite thing to do at the museum is working with children, drawing back on my retired educator skills, this is a perfect afternoon.
The annual scavenger hunt has been fun this week, with easy to find object and encouraging much more spinning time for me. The wool I have been spinning was slightly sidelined as I wanted to spin the gift sample that my friend sent with the spindle she proxy shopped for me. One half was spun Monday, the other half yesterday and the two plyed last evening to create a small 46 yard skein. The pale yellow, I learned from here is caused by a bacteria in the wool in wet or humid conditions and though washing with soap stops the growth and makes the wool safe, the yellow color does not wash out. It will be added to a bag of other small skeins and they will be knit into hats when my current knitting project is complete.
If the weather ever cools off, a couple days of weeding flower beds, dividing Iris and Day Lilies needs to be done. And a couple skeletons of Nandina that the cold killed off two winters ago, need to be dug out. Other than cucumbers and a handful of green beans, the garden is growing but not producing much right now. There will be tomatoes, a few ears of corn, peppers, and hopefully a second round of green beans later in the summer.
Right now, we are sitting out a round of thunderstorms. We got our daily walk in prior to them setting in. It was hot and humid, but done anyway.
For the past several years, our youngest son and his family have kept their RV parked on our farm. It leaves occasionally for them to use as a mobile hotel and was often used for them to stay in when visiting us. The last couple of times they were here, they stayed in the house due to some repair issues on the RV. I would start up the generator every few weeks, keep mouse traps baited and cleared, but otherwise just mowed around it. They now have a mini homestead and have moved it home. It is odd driving down the driveway and not seeing it, or doing a double take out the front window when noticing it isn’t there. In addition to the RV leaving, a pile of roof and vent repair items that have been in our garage left with it.
Weekend before last was the only fiber festival that the Jenkins, makers of my favorite spindles attend. A distant friend that attends each year has offered and proxy shopped for me several times as the festival is in Oregon and I am in Virginia, so attending in person hasn’t happened. This new plum spindle will soon join the spinning fun.
The Jenkins spindle group to which I belong on social media holds a fun scavenger hunt each year during Tour de France, called Tour de Fleece. Many groups hold versions of Tour de Fleece, many with challenges on who or what team can spin the most, but our version is more laid back and more fun. Each day, we are given an object to find and photograph with our spindle in progress on a spin. Each day the spindle needs to have more spun or plyed fiber on it than the day before. I have several small Jenkins Turkish spindles that will be used during this period. There are prizes donated by members of the group if you find enough of the items and post your photo within the 24 hour window. This year, I am doing it just for the fun of it and have asked not to be included in the prize drawing if I find enough items and follow through with the daily posting.
During DH’s broken clavicle healing, my trigger finger surgery healing, and our cruise, I didn’t post much in the group. It is fun to be back involved with them.
Most of my evenings have been spent knitting on a shawl with a skein of handspun. Last night, I began the Old Shale Lace border using a different skein of handspun alternating with the other skein as there isn’t enough of it to finish without adding the skein of similar colors. One 4 row repeat of the border has been done and the next begun. We will have to see how many repeats I do before I either tire of it or it begins to distort the triangular shape of the shawl. It is difficult to tell with it scrunched up on the needle.
After days and days of heavy rain that damaged our driveway, filled the ditch above our culvert (again), and damaged the state road that had recently been graded, it is dry. The garden will need to be watered if we don’t get a thunderstorm soon. Yesterday was a mild day in the upper 70’s, today it is nearly 90. That is usually a recipe for a thunderstorm, at least I’m hoping so.
My current read is a new release called “Reckoning Hour” by Peter O’Mahoney and as I read it, I feel like I have read it before, though it was just released in April. A bit of research and I think it is very reminiscent (almost too much so) of a Grisham book.
This year, the garden is small, only 5 metal raised beds that vary from 3×3′ to 3.5×5′ plus a small patch of corn and sunflowers and the bed of blueberry bushes. Oh and the asparagus bed that is now tall ferns putting nutrients in the roots for next year’s crop.
Yesterday in the heat, the first green beans were harvested, enough to freeze some and share some with daughter’s family. The cucumbers are producing faster than I can pickle them, but only one has gotten large enough to discard to the remaining 6 chickens. It is one of their favorite summer time treats.
The weeds had gotten tall in the paths and unused part of the garden again, so before it got hot this morning, the line trimmer was put to use and cleared the paths and near the pumpkins with some hand weeding around the bases of them. They are not being very successful competing with the weeds. Also this morning, the tomatoes were trimmed and tied to the trellis, more green beans, onions, cucumbers, and the volunteer potatoes were brought in.
The assistance of the local grandson has been requested and the chicken tunnel fence is going to be moved to allow them in the parts of the garden that don’t have the raised beds that are productive. They will enjoy the fresh greens, scratch the roots up and clean that area up. It will likely mean the loss of the pumpkins, but as I only use a couple a year to make pies, I can purchase them at the Farmer’s Market this fall.
The volunteer potatoes had pushed some to the surface and they had developed the green solanine, so those were replanted in the bed that had the peas and onions earlier, as we are still within the potato planting window here. The bed that had earlier grown the garlic was replanted with a second planting of green beans and as we are approaching bean beetle season, they will likely be covered in row cover as soon as they emerge. Often, the second planting is destroyed by the beetles before they can really produce.
I just finished reading “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World” by Robin Kimmerer. An expansion of an essay she wrote on gift and service economy. We should all spend more time giving of our excess and our time and less of the consumer economy in which we live. I try with giving eggs and produce to family and friends, and time as a volunteer at the museum, but more could be given.
With thunder pounding, lightning flashing, and torrents of rain falling, the heat dome finally broke. We are expected about 10 degree cooler weather for the next 10 days and nice cool nights. We try to go out to dinner about once a week and were in the next town west, a small town, but bigger than our village. They have a great Mexican Restaurant that we enjoy, and we got in before it started. Electricity flickered during dinner. We left running to the car only three spaces from the exit and got soaked. The highway had ponds of water on it and every driver was proceeding at a snail’s pace, except the fuel tank truck that dangerously barreled past, like his product had an expiration date of yesterday, sending rooster tails of water down on those of us who realized the lack of visibility was an issue.
Monday, the young neighbor that mows our hay for his cattle came and cut the fields in the 96f heat. It sat on the ground Tuesday, and when we got home from errands and a walk on Wednesday, he and an older gentleman were raking and baling it.
The heat and the mowing activity increased the field mouse activity and living in a hayfield, we keep traps set year round. The other requirement is to keep the attractants like bags of nuts, sugar, pasta, in jars.
A second quart jar of cucumbers were started to ferment for dills, so 2 are in the works now.
My chicken coop has a small pen with plastic mesh over the top, and a 2 foot wide tunnel (also covered with plastic mesh) that surrounds about 4/5s of the vegetable garden. The coop has a battery powered pop door that raises at about 6:30 a.m. and was closing around 9 p.m. About 10 days ago, I went out in the morning and two hens were missing. The hay mower found their remains halfway to the lower field. I started monitoring whether the hens were getting in before the door closed and found two hens in an apple tree, one on the coop egg door, and one on the mesh pen cover. They were rounded up and the timer on the door changed to give them until 9:30 to get in. Yesterday morning, I went out to find 2 more hens dead in the tunnel around the garden. They must not have gone in before the door closed.
The cost, responsibility, and loss are taking a toll on me. I have been using only about half a dozen eggs a week except during holidays for years and the remaining eggs have gone to my children’s families, or neighbors. It is time to give it up, I think. I can buy eggs at the Farmer’s Market when I need them. The coop will be repaired, restained, and maybe I will try again in a year or so.
The garden is smaller this year, but the area not designated by raised bed boxes is a mass of weeds. The overall fenced area can’t really be reduced as the blueberries are at one end and the asparagus at the other. A solution to stay on top of the weed mess needs to be found. I thought planting pumpkins there would cover and smother the weeds, but they are growing very slowly in the dry heat.
In the past week, two spinning projects were finished and yesterday at the spinning group, one was plyed, and the other plyed last night. They need to be wound off the bobbins and soaked. Both have tentative use plans. The darker one was the small amount of Dorset wool roving I bought in Skagway, Alaska on our cruise in May and it was plyed with a multicolored strand of BFL that I had spun. The lighter one is Rommeldale and Bamboo and it will be the border on a shawl I am knitting slowly.
Today’s walk should be less onerous with temperatures only climbing into the mid 80’s. Sunscreen and a water bottle to prevent a burn and dehydration.
Like much of the US right now, we could proverbially, “fry an egg on the sidewalk,” if we had a sidewalk. We have been sweltering in upper 80’s-low 90’s for a week now and high humidity, so it feels like you breath thick fog. Today, we had to take a trip to the “city” about 45 minutes away and lower in elevation and the thermometer there was 96 before noon. We are glad to be home in the air conditioned house.
The garden is providing. The garlic has cured enough that the roots were trimmed and the stalks cut back to just a few inches. The peas have all been harvested, shelled and frozen with a couple meals enjoyed in the process. The vines have been pulled and need to be chopped into the compost pile. The cucumbers are beginning to produce, so the first 8 small ones were cut and are now fermenting on the kitchen counter to become dills in a few weeks. My plan is to try to stay on top of the production and harvest when they are only 3-5″ long and pickle them whole. Whole pickles can always be slices or quarters when wanted that way.
In spite of daily soaking with the garden hose, the back deck plants are unhappy with the heat, and the front porch petunias with not enough sunlight. The petunia baskets might get moved to the sunny side of the house for a sunny vacation. The deer are decimating all of my day lilies, Autumn Joy, Coral bells, and Helianthus salicifolius a perennial sunflower that doesn’t stand a chance of blooming this year.
If you are a reader and like variations on a classic, I highly recommend “James” by Percival Everett.
This seems to be a daily event right now. Thick gray clouds for a good part of the day, temperatures in the 80’s (27-29 c) and humidity in the 80%s so hot and muggy.
It does mean that the deck flowers and vegetable garden don’t need watering, but the paths of the garden did need attention with the line trimmer. That was done in the fog yesterday morning after I had to chase a soaking wet hen though the foot tall weeds when she figured out how to get in the garden but not back out the night before.
When regrading the driveway and preparing to try to clear some of the gravel from the ditch below the culvert, the tractor ran out of fuel. The fuel gauge is a float device, stuck to the bottom of the fuel tank, so it doesn’t register even when full. Of course I was at the top of the driveway and had to walk down the hill to the house to get the diesel can and carry 5 gallons back up the hill. After filling, the tractor started right up then stalled, repeatedly. I sent a text message to our hay guy to see if he thought it was something I could fix or if I needed to call the repair folks to come get it. His phone died just as he started to read my text and thought I had a critical issue and came right over with this pickup with the fuel tank in the bed. Realizing the issues, he opened the engine compartment, removed various hoses, cleaned out the fuel filter and put it back together. Still stalled, so more hoses removed and there was a clog where the fuel feeds from the tank to the fuel pump. It was unclogged and worked fine for him afterward.
As we were going away for the weekend, the tractor was parked back in the barn and the next morning, VDOT graded the road and cleared the ditches.
Our Father’s Day weekend was to attend a play with Son 1, DIL, 2 grandsons, and her parents. This was part of our Christmas gift from Son 1 and DIL. The play was very interesting and thought provoking. The title was Andy Warhol in Iran. It took place in a hotel room with only two character’s, Andy Warhol and a revolutionary who was trying to kidnap him. The character development was fascinating, the two actors performed for 90 minutes straight with interaction and monologue sidebars.
This followed by dinner out at an Ethiopian restaurant. Father’s Day was breakfast out with Son 1, DIL, and their son and a drive home in the rain. Then ice cream out with Daughter, SIL, and 3 grands.
We have been fortunate to get our daily walks in between rain storms, but the heat and humidity wear on me now.
The garden is now providing. Yesterday, the garlic was harvested, but is having to dry in the garage. The first of the peas harvested and half of them enjoyed last night, the other half frozen. The green beans are tall and flowering, a second planting needs to go in where the garlic was removed. Cucumbers are climbing the trellis and flowering. A few new potatoes were pulled from under the volunteer plants to serve with the peas last night.
We will return to the Farmer’s Market this weekend to stock up on vegetables for salad and ones I either don’t grow or haven’t begun producing here yet.
Cabin Crafted 