Thursday, October 09, 2008

Weather: Cool and Rainy


Yesterday morning was the perfect time to take a ride around the pastures. Every now and then, I need to check fencelines and just generally see what's going on around the farm.

I took my UTV down into valleys and back up again. I loaded the bed with walnuts, located dens that I was unaware of, found wild persimmons, and made note of some little jobs that needed to be done. The persimmons will not be picked until after frost. That is when any sweetness is developed. Otherwise, they are useless -- despite how perfect they look hanging on the trees.

The walnuts were dumped in the driveway so that rubber tires would run them over to remove the hulls.

After my ride, I saw to the animals, picked tomatoes and peppers, and went up to the house to process them.

This is a time to attend to leftover produce and tasks that were overlooked during the hot weather and harvest frenzy.

I dried cinnamon basil, made tomato sauce, steamed the last of the frozen blackberries for wine, transferred the Cabernet Franc wine into a carboy and cleared the deck for the next batch, which will be white wine.

I made apple-fig conserve, which I must say, is pretty tasty. There are about two more bushels of apples in the cooler, so I'm thinking I'll combine apples with the red raspberries that have started producing again. More apple pie filling will be canned and perhaps some apple rose geranium wine is in my future.

Friend Ginger came by with fresh milk for the batch of cheddar I'll make today. We chatted as I chopped and peeled.

It rained! Miraculous. There was no rain in the forecast and we haven't had a drop in a month. It got cooler. I worked until early evening like a good squirrel. I'll check the nuts this morning.

2 comments:

CountryDew said...

I grew tired reading about all that activity! Wow.

gingerhillery@mac.com said...

Yum. I should have asked for some homemade wine to go with lunch instead of coffee. Maybe the other homeschool moms teaching latin to my children would have had a harumph if I came back to pick them up with wino breath! Next time, wine!