November

This morning, I changed the beds to flannel sheets in anticipation of a couple of nights in the 20s.  We'll get a few snow flurries this afternoon and evening, but no accumulation.  I'm happy about the no accumulation part.

The fig tree looks sad since its crispy brown leaves were blown away.  Ornamental Bradford Pear and Japanese Maples still hold leaves and color.  I now realize why Bradford Pear is used so much in landscape.  It is the first to flower in the Spring and among the last to lose leaves in Autumn.

I've located the electric stapler and am planning on starting the process of putting the plastic over the chicken house windows a little at a time.  Time to check goat supplies and meds and begin stocking pine shavings and square bales in the Maternity barn.

Embarrassment of Riches

It is cold and crisp this morning, but I'm not sure we hit the freezing mark as predicted.

Yesterday morning, I picked all the tender vegetables which could have been harmed by frost.  This included nice lettuces, eggplants, cucumbers, and lots of green peppers.  In fact, there ended up being two big bags of peppers. 

I spent much of the rest of the day rinsing, seeding, cutting. roasting, peeling, chopping, and putting roasted pepper strips into freezer containers.

I am a squirrel, saving nuts for Winter at much expense of effort and time.

I'm in the middle of transferring warm clothing for light Summer stuff.  It gives a chance to find all the treasures which fill my dresser drawers.  I washed a load of sweaters so that I can enjoy the nice, clean smell and soft warmth.

Today, I'll look around the vegetable garden for tools to be stored in the shed and continue trying to clean up other garden areas which have been overtaken by pokeweed and tree of paradise.

Cool at Last

Although the leaves haven't yet turned, we are experiencing lower humidity and cool mornings.  Yesterday I hauled three loads of manure and dumped it in low spots on the farm.  I've raked stalls and will try to keep up as long as I can.

Every two days, I pick figs for the roosters and tomatoes and peppers for us.  The roosters are getting fat, but there are fewer and fewer figs ripening because of the moderating temperatures. 

Huge baskets of tomatoes fill my kitchen counters.  When it is no longer possible to ignore the tomatoes, I roast them in the oven along with peppers.  When cooled, I skin them and put them through the food mill to make sauce.  Sometimes I can the sauce and sometimes I make chili con carne.  Freezer space is at a premium, but we will have some nice meals when the snow is on the ground.  All the pear pies I froze are going to be a special treat.

Our hunting cabin is nearly completely remodeled.  The leftover bamboo flooring from our house just covered the old floor, with just four planks unused.  I managed to paint all the walls and am working on repairing and painting odds and ends of furniture.  There were some nice rugs and a storage unit which I bought at yard sales, and it's really shaping up nicely.

We will finish up the rainwater collection system, as there is no source of water or electricity.  A gas generator allows me to run the vacuum cleaner occasionally and I've acquired all sorts of battery and solar-powered lighting along with oil lamps for lighting.  It is a fun project and enjoyable now that I can breathe and move without so much effort.

Golden Days

This is one of those posts made to tuck away for frigid winter days or blazing hot summertime.

These Autumn days are golden, with warm, sunny daytime temperatures and cool nights. 

The goats race out of the barn in the mornings to see what yummy leaves have fallen since yesterday.  The views are spectacular and it is possible to do as much physical work as I can in a day.  The cows seem content to graze and rest with their little calves.  They need to be moved to the next pasture soon, but some fence repairs need to get done before that.  I'm confident that this will get done this coming weekend.

Crisp and Cool

Click on photo to enlarge.

Rain last night and cooler temperatures this morning -- I pulled out my camera to capture some of the views from my window.  It was almost impossible to take a bad picture.

We've made some progress repairing a couple of old outbuildings this past week, getting the foundations re-poured in preparation for shoring up the walls and re-roofing to keep out the rain and snow.  This will provide more efficient animal housing and storage space.

Dinky, our little Hereford cow had a calf a few days ago.  We drove the mule out into the field to check on cows and came upon the newborn snoozing in the sunshine.  The first day or so, newborn calves do not run away, so we were able to pet and admire her.  I looked up to see Dinky steaming over.  If I hadn't noticed her, she surely would have knocked me over -- she was that agitated over our handling of the new baby!  She's moved the baby into the high brush and is hiding with her for now.  I expect we'll see the baby running with the other calves in a few more days.  There are three others frolicing in the crisp Autumn weather.

Autumn

The Autumn Equinox occurred on September 23rd this year.  We've turned a corner.  It's been raining a lot, thankfully, although it's more humid than cool.

Leaves are just beginning to turn color.  It's a very subtle change.

We have a bumper crop of figs ripening.  I picked a big bowl today and am looking around for recipes on the Internet.  There are quite a lot of intriguing ones.  For today, I'll peel and cut up the last of the apples and mix in some chopped figs, cinnamon, and maybe a little sweetener with vanilla, although the figs will likely add all the sweetness you'd want.  The mix will go into a casserole and in the microwave for as long as it takes to soften up the apples.  After it cools, I'll freeze it in pint sized containers.  It will be a lovely applesauce for wintertime or an ingredient for cakes and other desserts or an accompaniment for pork or chicken.

Something tells me I'll also be canning some fig chutney during the cold months, as there are many containers of dried and fresh figs in the freezer.

We said goodbye to six prime young breeding goat does today.  They will be the start of a new herd for someone in the area.  Our herd is getting thinned out a bit before winter sets in.

Playing "Beat the Freeze"

Potted plants are being ferried down to the greenhouse each time I drive down the hill. I'm loading the Mule from the porches around the house.

Overnight temperatures are flirting with a freeze in the high thirties and low forties.

Yesterday, I spent some time cleaning up the sunny end greenhouse and the potting room. Today, I'll continue in the middle and shady end.

We pulled massive wisteria vines down last week off the middle and shady end greenhouses. There was so much material that it still hasn't been disposed of.

The idea -- and it works well -- is that the plant will naturally shade the greehouses in summer and then, when the leaves fall in the winter, sunlight can again warm those sections. Except that it has been growing for ten years and the branches have become so massive that less and less sunlight has been able to penetrate the sections. Wisteria began to grow INTO the greenhouse through whatever small openings it could find. Talk about a scary Halloween tale!

I doubt we killed the wisteria. It'll be back -- like Jason, or any other zombie. I'll just make it my business to cut it down drastically every autumn. Hey, it beats placing shadecloth over the large greenhouses!

It's noticeably brighter in the sections which were covered in vines. I'm hoping that I can motivate myself to continue upgrading and cleaning. The propane tanks were filled last month and small electric heaters are at the ready. There'll be no heating until the bitterest weather, and that will be just to keep the potted plants alive until Spring.

I'm cutting down big weed/trees and throwing them into the goat pastures, where they are found with great glee and eaten with gusto. We had a day and a half of rain only this week, and there isn't all that much weedy material in the pastures. So, I'm killing two birds when I attend to the "neatening up" around the farm.

Buckets of small yellow tomatoes and any distressed larger tomatoes go to the chickens along with excess chard. This provides them with extra, tasty nutrition which they seem happy to have. We are still eating Cherokee Purple, which finish ripening in the house.

The last of the hay was cut and baled last week. It was trucked over to the barn and placed under the overhang just before the rainstorm. Today, a helper will assist in placing it on the hay elevator and stacking it in the loft.

Sailors Take Warning

This morning started out with fluffy pink clouds which quickly took on bright coral bottoms. Moving quickly from North to South, Light grey clouds followed, gaining charcoal accents.

Not a drop of rain all day or yesterday, but it was a bit chilly and windy.

Tonight, looking out the same window, black altostratus clouds sporting small brownish puffs, are strung across the grey sky over a lemon colored sunset.

Rain

When I heard the rain beating down on the roof in the middle of the night, it was with a profound sense of relief. The land will heal now. Grass will grow again and the cattle will have something to eat besides precious hay bales meant for the dead of winter. The springs and wells will replenish themselves and the constant worry over water for the animals can recede somewhat.

I'm still recovering from several hours at the Farmers' Market, where I prepared apples for baking on the grill and oversaw making "apple piggies." It was much hotter than I anticipated and it really caught up with me by 2 p.m.

In the meantime, back on the farm, husband managed to get the square baler fixed and his Saturday helper helped him get the bales on the trailer and into the barn for stacking. Our new set-up, where hay elevators are now under roofing and placed in openings into the lofts is working well. The helper then stacked the hay neatly in the loft. We have more hay to cut if there is a dry spell later on in October.

Today, supposedly the temperature will plunge into the sixties and we'll have more seasonal weather all of a sudden.

Last week, it rained hard for less than ten minutes. I got soaked and so did the entire goat herd. We were pretty happy for the seven or eight minutes despite our sogginess.

Now, we're looking for days of rain. Hurrah!

First Day of Fall

'Uneventful. Hot, humid, with a chance of rain that won't materialize. All is dry. The trees have started to change color.

The pond in the pasture, which had overflowed its banks and taken over a lot of the field in the Spring is now nearly a mudhole. When I let the geese out of their night shelter, I noticed something moving in the middle of the pond. Looking closer, it was a giant snapping turtle with smaller ones on its back. Turtle Island?

First Week of November

'Taking stock:

We thoroughly pressure washed the maternity barn last weekend. It has a concrete floor which hadn't been washed in a couple of years. It's been swept many, many times, so it was surprising how much dirt came up.

It's stocked with bales of pine shavings and hay, clean old bath towels for catching and cleaning off newborns, vet meds in the refrigerator, and new packs of paper baby collars to keep track of when they are born and who their mothers are are in the cabinets along with a sharpie marker.

Mr. Buck Man has gone back home, so our big barn smells okay now.

Most of the red hot peppers have been dried, frozen, made into apricot/jalapeno jam, or given away to friends. One basket remains on the counter. There are still some hot peppers in the garden, but I'm ignoring them.

The chickens have been feasting on the last of the bell peppers and green squash.

It's getting down in the 30s at night and a coyote pack is howling and roaming at 4 a.m. each morning.

We sold off most of the bull calves on Monday. There are probably a couple of small babies, but they need to stay with their cow mamas. I sold one little one and had to listen to Dinky mourning all Monday night and part of Tuesday. I could hear her even with the windows closed.
She's calmed down now, but I'll never do it again. (I promise, Dinky.)

I hope her little fella is doing all right on his new farm. He went to friends.

I've done a lot of cleaning and sorting in the house. This is the time to do it -- before kidding season.

All the brown, limp squash and tomato vines are pulled out of the garden. There is still chard, kale, lettuce, beets, and turnips growing.

The propane tanks attached to the greenhouse are filled, but I'll try not to use propane until it is very cold.

The very long list on the white board has two major items crossed off. Ten more to go.

Last Week in October

The Fall colors are at their height now and this morning's 42 degrees feels crisp.

We've had some colder days and some hotter days and a little rain and wind in the last two.

On the farm, clean-up continues in the barns, the chicken house, and around the yards. The lawns are mowed for the last time this season. All the hay has been baled and put under cover. I'm feeding whatever freeze damaged vegetables are in the garden to the chickens.

In the houses, I am cleaning and sorting, too. The freezers are full enough to get us through without having to do a lot of driving in ice and snow this winter. After more than ten years since the last move, I've finally gotten down to the last parts for furniture, like teak book shelves and a corner computer desk which have been leaning up against a wall in the basement. Once these find their places and are put together, I'll be able to do a thorough cleaning and re-organization of the basement. Gee, it feels like I've just completed a giant jigsaw puzzle.

I had the propane tanks for the greenhouse filled to provide emergency heat if it gets too cold for the small electric heaters to keep the temperature above freezing. All the potted plants are tucked in, but there remains clean-up and organization for those days when it's raining or too cold to want to work outdoors.

We also maintain a little propane at the house in case the electricity goes out. For now, electric is cheaper than propane. I finally caught on last year, when we did not need to use propane at all, that the company was routinely charging us for delivery of propane, even when the tank was full. I don't know how many hundreds of dollars -- probably more than a thousand -- were charged for propane not delivered. Although I made a complaint to the Department that regulates utilities in Virginia, nothing could be done because the Propane Industry is unregulated in the State of Virginia!

As you can probably tell, that still burns me up.

At the time I had finally caught on (I'm slow, evidently, and too trusting) there was a series of articles in the Roanoke Times about similar problems that others were having. I think the State Legislature should be doing something about regulation, but am not aware if they are. So, for now I'm monitoring the gauges on the tanks which show only the percentage left inside. There is no system of reporting usage other than the initial ticket saying how many gallons they delivered. You must more or less know the capacity of the tanks and try to extrapolate from there.

So, I'm trying.

Ta ta.

October

The winds of Autumn showed up just as we changed seasons. I forgot how windy it gets up here after Summer's over. We had a little rain in-between hay harvests. Yesterday's efforts filled the big loft with square bales. There's one more cut field, which will be round-baled, because our old bodies could not take another round of picking up square bales and getting them up in a loft.

Other signs of Autumn: the neighbors are dumping buckets of black walnuts on their driveway to be run over by the pickup truck and hulled.

The local vineyards are picking grapes. I bought some Cabernet Franc yesterday and have already started in on them. The Chardonnay is bubbling along nicely and the Blackberry Wine is almost ready to be bottled.

It's nice and chilly in the mornings and the leaves are just beginning to turn. Yesterday, I watched about twenty five Canada geese fly over the house on their way to somewhere.

Red sweet and hot peppers await processing in the kitchen and the cooler is full of Hubbard squashes and grapes.

I've made some progress in the old house, lugging furniture and accessories out of our basement to furnish it. Windows are getting washed in both houses and we have some plans for improvements on the farm.

I have the impression that we are beginning the preparations for a long, cold winter. Today, I'll begin to clean out the greenhouse and from now until frost, I'll be loading the Mule with plants that have summered on the porches to transport them down the hill to the greenhouse.
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Thought for the day: "Be Yourself; everyone else is already taken." Oscar Wilde

Post Thanksgiving Post

I deconstructed the turkey yesterday, sorting meat and stuffing into casseroles to freeze and placing bones and skin in the soup pot. The simmering broth smelled great. It will be strained today, herbs, vegetables and noodles added, and voila! Turkey soup.

One thing I was thankful for was that my dryer is now fixed, no thanks to Sears Repair. I waited by the phone for an entire day. They did not show up. I tried calling the local store and was routed to the Phillipines, or where ever their "customer service" is located. (They are not allowed to say what country they are in.)

I called a local repair service that afternoon, late. He actually called back! A real person. Local. The actual repairer of appliances.

We discussed what was (or wasn't) happening with the dryer. He looked up the model and CALLED BACK. He said he'd be over at my house between ten a.m. and noon. I almost cried.

He did, indeed, arrive at ten. It took about fifteen minutes to figure out that it was a simple plastic part on the door latch which had disintegrated, probably from age, and that the "fail safe" system had kicked in. The dryer won't start unless the door is fully closed.

He had the little part in his van. He replaced it. The dryer started. I paid him. We had dry socks and warm, dry farm clothes. I have a new friend and repair person.

The fourteen little goat kids are doing fine in the maternity barn and we're having a little break from birthing. This is very good, as it allows the babies and mothers time to bond and be looked after closely. They are all allowed out of their "jugs" during the day and they went outside for the last two days with their mothers. We have a fenced yard around the maternity barn for that purpose.

The first, traditional, group game was: all babies meet on the concrete step, then race through the barn to the yard as a small herd! What fun, fun, fun. Let's do it again. Again. Again.

Next: Let's all take a little nap in a pile.

It's raining today and chilly, so baby goats will stay inside.

November

If you've noticed that I seem to be MIA on this blog, it's because just as I was recovering from the Farmers' Market season and getting my life back in order: KIDDING SEASON STARTED!

Yes, it's that time again and it's taking its toll in terms of energy and time.

As of last night, there were six little cuties tucked in with their goat mamas. Who knows what this morning will hold.

Maternity barn management consists of attending to the newborns in terms of iodining navels, giving a small dose of Bo-Se, and making paper collars which contain their codes, mother's code, and date of birth.

Then there is the constant cleaning of stalls, feeding, watering, and haying. Next, there are electronic records to be placed in the herd database. It adds up.

All I've managed to do in my "off" time is make cheese, attend the other animals, and keep my head above water. So, for now it's back to the salt mines. I'll check in again with news when I can.

Ta Ta.

Grey October

The "to do" list has evolved. There are now 32 tasks listed, most of them (thank goodness) crossed off as finished. It's good to be able to look back and see how much has been accomplished. It's been pretty cold -- it'll be in the 20s or low 30s tonight.

Autumn Tasks

A long "To Do" list sits on the kitchen counter. I am crossing off tasks at a steady pace. Most have to do with getting my house in order and getting ready for the coming Winter.

We've had the first frost. I'm pulling out tomato vines, saving the leftover tomatoes for the chickens. There are fewer apples falling onto the ground, so they are getting a different variety of fresh fruit now.

The maternity barn is cleaned out for the most part. We used the pressure washer on the concrete floor and loaded hay bales into the upper portion. We moved things around and removed junk that had accumulated. I wanted to clean out cabinets yesterday, but found that the little shop vacuum wouldn't start. I'll figure it out.

I'm continuing the wine making and cleaning out the freezers; ordering veterinary supplies and doing various cleaning jobs in the house. The goose houses need to be cleaned out and filled with clean hay... It goes on and on.

For every thing there is a season and this is the season for picking up loose ends.

October

Autumn is the dream time up here in the Blue Ridge. Summer’s heat is gone and cool nights promote deep sleep. Dreams come vibrant and memorable as your mind switches gears from the summer frenzy to get crops in and survive the day’s heat.

When the fog rolls in to our valley, it rolls in like the Ocean. In the early morning, just as the sun begins to rise, the light colored fog billows and all that is visible are the bones of the ridges.

Mountain tops and treetops loom above the sea of fog. I could just as well be at the edge of the Pacific as sitting on the porch drinking coffee.

Over my right shoulder are two morning stars: Saturn and Mercury.

Unlike the Pacific shore, there is no sound of waves crashing. There are only the muted sounds of birds waking and the occasional mooing of a cow.

Raining Today

The sunsets are being preempted because of rain and overcast skies. It's okay. A friend sent me a picture of a West Coast sunset to tide me over.

Yesterday, I planted beets in newly cleaned out vegetable beds. There are some areas that won't, realistically, get completely weeded until next Spring. Meanwhile, tomatoes continue to produce en masse. There is a good crop of green beans and basils are thriving.

I'm trying to pick all the apples before they are damaged by birds and bugs. It's just so hectic trying to get everything processed or sold so that nothing will go to waste. Anything that is not useable goes to the chickens, who seem quite pleased with the arrangement.

It's a busy, busy time of year and I'm looking forward to it slowing down.

November Gloom

The sky is grey and cloudy this morning. It rained a little yesterday and may rain again today. It got very cold yesterday and the leaves are oranges and reds in the landscape. The ground is covered with fallen leaves.

The maternity barn is populated. There are a dozen newborn goat kids with their mothers. They sleep in separate pens with their mothers overnight. They stay in the pens until the moms are fed some grain -- they rob one another if in the common area -- and then it is playtime! The pens are opened and the mother goats usually congregate at the hay while the babies run, jump, dance and generally have an energetic party between baby naps. I am glad to have a nice, draft free place for them during the cold weather. Late in the afternoon, grain is served again in the pens and all bed down for the night.

The Daily Mail had a little article this morning touting the "unusual" birth of a lamb, which is attributed to the weather. Although this is not a typical birthing time on our farm, I doubt that this is all that unusual. It's funny what passes as news and fact in the press. They state that sheep take "three or four months" to produce young. Actually, both goats and sheep have a 145 gestation period.

I spent the morning in the greenhouse yesterday. It was a cozy place to be. I made some progress in re-potting plants and will continue that process over the late Autumn and early Winter.

The cows are in the next pasture, where we've prepared the shed for them in case of really bad, cold precipitation in the coming month. They'll have a place to get out of the weather.

There is still some wine to bottle and a BUNCH of housework to tackle now that there is time.