Long Nights Time/Darkest Depths 2021

Holiday joy to you

 

Season's Greetings from Thistledown Gardens at Long Nights Time.

We are well here as this turning point of the seasons approaches. We've got our boosters, our books and our amusements and are snuggling in for a restful and restorative time.

We've taken care of the final tasks of Ingathering.

Preparing Cabbage

We put down our fermentation crocks: one of sunchokes and one of sauerkraut.

Bob packs cabbage into the crock

We also put down 7 3/4 quarts of horseradish.

A year's worth of horseradish

Currently I am threshing out the dry beans. I have seven more bushel to do. I've been dawdling at it.

Of course, our big news is that the heat pump systems are in and working very well.

The old fuel oil boiler and its "saddle bag" water heater had to be removed first. What a sooty and wet mess that made!

Old boiler before removal

Old water heater before removal

The crew installed the new heat pump water heater quickly. We were only without hot water for a couple of hours.

New water heater in place

New ground loop pump

Then they removed the old boiler and installed the pump to the ground loop.

New geothermal heat pump

Next, they installed the heat pump for the baseboard system. This took quite a bit longer and the work was interrupted by Thanksgiving and the weekend immediately following. There were a few other glitches, like a faulty part and some difficulties with our old pipes. We were without central heat for a couple of days and nights and without heat in the bedroom for another couple of nights, but we have the wood stove and warm blankets and survived just fine. It took six working days from start to finish.

Now everything is in and working beautifully. We love it! First, of course is the environmental superiority of the technology. Second, the house is at a nice constant temperature and it's so much quieter than the old boiler system was. 

Our old boiler was quite efficient (90%), but this one is 300% efficient. That means, it uses 1/3 of the energy that the old one did! We've haven't had to use the wood stove since it's been online. We'll only need it if we get a week long cold snap with daytime temperatures below the teens. Of course, we can always light the stove for "atmosphere".

Bob has begun a new, and hopefully relatively quick home redo project. We've only got two more rooms to do in the house: the upstairs bathroom and the laundry room. He's chosen to do the laundry room.

Here are some "before" pictures for you:

South and west walls

West and north walls

East and south walls

The room is small: 8'x9'. It was once a porch that was enclosed. There is no cellar nor slab beneath it. You can see we have a laundry sink and an Energy Star washer. Bob's already done the plumbing work necessary for these. It's set up for a propane dryer. We have no dryer. Bob will upgrade the wiring and put in an electric dryer outlet for the benefit of future owners, removing the propane option.

The walls are covered with a plastic coated, dark paneling. Bob began removing this today.

That paneling's got to go!

He will address drywall concerns and some nasty air leak issues behind it. We had the exterior door replaced a few years ago, but they could have done a better job with air sealing. Bob will need to fix this, too.

Our Solstice tree

We mark the Solstice or Yule in our home. We celebrate it as a joyous time to usher in rest and spiritual and emotional peace and restoration. 

Freshly baked fruitcake

In preparation we made our fruitcakes at Thanksgiving. They've been mellowing in the root cellar, receiving a splash of brandy occasionally to keep them merry.

Fruit balls rolled in coconut or nuts

We also made our dried fruit and nut balls last week. These will be our festive treats.

On Tuesday, the Solstice, we'll have chickpea and sweet potato curry over brown basmati rice for our main meal. We'll enjoy solitude and perhaps a walk - if the hunters would stay at home. Our celebrations will continue through the weekend.

A glimpse of our big tree

Whatever, and however you chose to celebrate, we wish you joy, peace, health and comfort.

Till next year,

Kathleen and Bob

May the season kindle new fires

Seed Fall/ Frost Time 2021

First Frost

The moon was full this morning, just before the lunar eclipse. I was up to watch that. I normally rise at 4:30 but woke at 3:45. I figured as long as I was awake, I'd watch the eclipse. It was a peaceful way to begin the day. That full moon brought to a close our month of  Seed Fall/Frost Time.

Most of the news this month centers around closing down the garden for the winter.

Celery has all been dried to use later.

Six celery plants here!

Pears have been dried or eaten fresh.

Pears dipped in pineapple juice. Yum!

Beets and carrots have been harvested and are in the root cellar.

Cylindra beets

Scarlet Nantes carrots

The sunchokes have been dug and set down in the fermentation crock with kim chi spices. So good!

Sunchokes

Ready to get started on the "chokes"

Bob has dug the horseradish roots.

Starting the horseradish harvest

The roots are all washed and waiting. We will grind them and set them down on the 20th. That's our last job to do.

The garlic has been planted. I also planted some shallots and walking onions to see how they will winter over.

Cleaning up a bean trellis

So, the garden is finally empty! 

Bob covered each planting bed with mulched leaves.

Adding a layer of leaf mulch

I shoveled the decaying wood chips from off of the paths and put them on top of the leaves that Bob laid down.

Layering on wood chips

It took a couple of weeks, but the weather held fair and the job is all done. Everything is tucked in and ready to rest. It's a good feeling!

A big job well done

Seed Fall is also the time when I process seeds I've saved from the garden. I only grow heirloom and open pollenated varieties, so I can save my seeds with confidence that they will perform as expected when I plant them. Here I'm putting away Dester tomatoes, castor beans, garlic chives, coriander (cilantro), and strawflowers. I also put away some white patty pan squash seeds.

Saving seeds, a part of the harvest

On the heat pump front: the crew returned and did some clean up work outside, but the ground was too wet. I think they'll have to wait until the spring to finish up that job. Our heat pump is due to be installed any day now. All of the parts finally came in and they said they should be here to install the middle or end of November. That's okay, we're still using up fuel oil.

This is the time of year when we transition to rest time. Our focus shifts from providing for our physical beings, to providing for our spiritual beings.

Ready to settle in

We spend time relaxing physically, reading, thinking, enjoying nature and exercising our creative muscles. For me, that's needlework and harp work. For Bob, that's planning or working on home improvement projects and tending the bird feeders.

To live a balanced life is to live attentive to both the physical and the spiritual life. We like to think of our year like the ebb and flow of the tide. It's a construct that makes the most sense to us.

Ah, the snow is starting to fall again, inviting me to settle in and recharge.

We hope that you can make an effort to do likewise. It will prove to be well worth your while.

May your Thanksgiving be peace filled. Be careful and be safe.

Until next time,

Kathleen and Bob

Holiday treat, shortbread acorn cookies

 

Who needs a gym membership?

Song Time/ Falling Leaves Time 2021

Autumn in our ravine

Did you see the moon last night or this morning? It was clear and very lovely here. We have now left the month of Song Time/Falling Leaves Time behind for another year.

Our weather has been warmer than usual, but the heat has come on a couple of times. That's fine. We're still trying to use up our fuel oil supply before the boiler is removed. It's been a mix of dry and rainy weather, but the real fall rains haven't begun yet. On some of the nice days I was able to get all of my windows washed. I divided the job up into three half days. That was much more manageable than one long day. On my next rainy day I should plan to get my furniture oiled in preparation for woodstove season.

Old wood chips need to be moved

We've begun our autumn garden clean up. That's always a big job; plants to pull down, structures to remove and store.

Tomato plants coming down

This year we're "clipping and dropping" a lot, so it will compost in place. We are covering it with old chips, leaves and/or straw as well. All of the beds will have a mulch covering for winter.

This time of year people always ask me if our garden is all done. (Actually they begin asking this on Labor Day.) There's still plenty out there. Here's a quick survey:

A variety of beets

Carrots

Celery

Swiss chard

Kale and parsley

Fall lettuce

All of these plants thrive in the cool weather, even after a frost.

We have picked all of our apples and pears. We have bins of apples in the root cellar and laundry room. The pantry has bins of tomatoes ripening.

Red Anjou Pears

Bob's annual vacation was last week. We spent more than half of it working outside. On one very nice day we travelled to my hometown (two hours north to Lake Ontario) to check on my mother's grave site and marker. After spending some time at the cemetery, we ate a picnic lunch by the lake. It was a very nice, relaxing day. Another fun activity was going to the big used book sale in Ithaca. We got a load of books by our favorite authors, some CDs and a couple of DVDs, as well. There's lots of good reading awaiting us this winter. (Oh, alright, we have already begun reading some of them.) 

Bob works on the rails

The porch project is finished!!

The finished porch

It cost more and took longer than we anticipated, but we're happy with the end results, and feel it was worth it.

That's what we've been up to here at Thistledown. We're looking forward to shutting down the garden and taking time to enjoy the rest of the autumn before hunkering down for the winter.

A glowing and harmonious autumn to you all.

Kathleen and Bob

Nasturtiums in the garden

Viburnum in our woods 

Harvest/Ingathering 2021

 

Welcome Autumn!

Tonight is the Harvest Moon, and it brings to a close the month of Harvest/Ingathering. That does not mean, however, that we're ready to shut down the garden yet. It simply means that the bulk of the harvest is in.

I've been busy this month.

Husking corn

We had a little corn, which I put into the freezer.

Roma tomatoes to blanch

My tomatoes are coming in (I plant late varieties). Those I have frozen, and am now dehydrating them.

The freezers are full now, so I've begun dehydrating many things.

In addition to the tomatoes...

Dried green and yellow beans

I've been drying green and wax yellow beans, 

Dried celery leaves and stems

Celery, and today I began drying apple slices. Our apple trees have produced a large crop this year.

My entire potato harvest

I harvested my potatoes. There was hardly anything there! They all rotted in the ground before they even developed. I ended up with one quart of walnut sized potatoes. I usually get three bushels! With organic potatoes selling for $2 a pound, we'll simply be going without potatoes until next autumn.

Sweet potato harvest

My sweet potatoes did a bit better. I ended up with about a bushel. I usually get three bushel of them, as well.

Aduki beans

The dry bean harvest has begun. The Aduki beans ripen first. They are almost all picked now.

Picking Aduki beans

Aduki beans

I ended up with two bushel of beans. That's my usual harvest for these.

Now I've begun picking the other beans: kidney, black, Turkey Craw and Hidatsa Shield beans. The Cranberry and Good Mother Stollard aren't ready yet.

In my spare time (HA!) I've started to clean up the garden. That work will go on into November.

Bob at work

Bob's been busy working on the front porch project. 

He had to drive an hour and a half away just to get all of the supplies needed to finish the job. Due to supply chain problems, he couldn't get what he needed any closer. But now he's got all he needs to complete the job.

Framing the new porch

Finishing the decking

He has the deck down and is preparing to pour the concrete pad that the steps will rest on.

I repainted the front door trim after he made necessary repairs. It was hard to get two consecutive rain free days!

Finished door trim repaint job

And now, on to our big geothermal project.

The big earth mover

On the 14th, the crew dropped off the big earth mover that would be used to dig our trench. 

They began work on the 16th and finished on the 17th.

The trench begun

The trench ended up being much bigger than we were told it would be. Instead of being 125' long, it is 250' long! It's about 6' deep and at least 6' across the top.

They dug up nearly all of our non garden backyard space. In fact, the clotheslines and raspberries were torn out, and they piled dirt on 6' of our garden's southern border.

One view of the trench area

Currently it's all filled in and somewhat smoothed over, but it's a huge, sticky mud mess! They said they'll come back in a month and rake it smoother and plant grass seed. But the 6' of messed up garden border is our responsibility. We'll have to hire someone to do this. It's far too much for two 60+ year olds to do with hand shovels and rakes.

Connecting the ground loop tubes

Now we wait for the next crew to come in and do the inside installation work. In the meantime, we're trying to use up our stock of fuel oil. I think I'll need to take big tub baths more than once a week!

That's about it for now. We'll still be busy in the month ahead. Hopefully next time I'll have pictures of the finished porch for you.

Till then, enjoy the autumn.

Kathleen and Bob

We have SLUGS. It's as big as your pinky!