Long Nights Time/Darkest Depths 2023

 

Holiday Greetings

The winter solstice and the full Cold moon have passed. The Great Wheel of the seasons has turned again and Long Nights Time/Darkest Depths has waxed and waned.

Winter weather has yet to find us. Only a couple of dustings of snow and above seasonal temperatures have been our lot. Our fall cover crop of oats and peas is still thriving.

We may not have snow, but we have had Snow Geese.

Snow Geese overhead

On our daily walks the whole week before Christmas, thousands of migrating Snow Geese passed overhead.

Look at all of the lines of geese

It's really something exciting to experience. One day we were lucky enough to have a very large flock come down to feed in a harvested corn field right next to our path. (Also lucky Bob was carrying his camera!)

Coming in for rest and refreshment

We still see some stragglers going over, but the big migration is done until March.

As regards our tasks and projects:

Bob's still working on the door he's fabricating for an upstairs bedroom. The old door frame won't accommodate the size of a modern door, so he's making one out of excess old floorboards. This will make the door like some of the existing doors upstairs.

He's also doing more research and planning for the remodel of the upstairs bathroom.

I'm nearly finished threshing our beans; only two more bushels to do. I hope to finish on December 31st and start the New Year fresh.

We're finally done with our apples! Since our weather has been so warm, our root cellar is not cooling down as well as it should, so we can't keep the apples fresh all winter. 

Final batch of applesauce

In addition to eating many apples daily, we cooked some smaller batches of applesauce in the crock pot. Some of this was frozen and some eaten fresh.

The remainder of the soft apples were spread in the woods behind our house for the wildlife.

Wild Turkeys by our garden fence

The wild Turkeys that browse our woods really enjoyed them. They visited for several mornings. We saw a dozen together at times.

On the solstice we had a nice meal, relaxed and read.

Quiet holidays

On Christmas we had another nice meal, played a game and walked the North Rim Trail at Taughannock Falls State Park.

Upper falls at Taughannock

Gorge the falls empty into leading to high falls

It was a nice and restful day.

We've never gone in for noisy and late New Year's celebrations, so as is our custom, we'll read, listen to good music and perhaps watch an old movie (Holiday Affair or Bachelor Mother).

With this full moon we entered Renewal Time. I think our New Year's observance supports this well. So, our goal for our current month is renewal on all levels: physical, mental and spiritual. (Of course, they're all of a whole.)

I'll leave you with a gallery of holiday trimmings around our house. Enjoy.

Peace and health to you all in the coming year. May calmness imbue your being.

Till next time,

Kathleen and Bob

Family postcards created by my late father in law

Frost Time 2023

Bob and Beech leaves

The full moon has passed, although clouds prevented us from seeing it. So, Frost Time has entered the annals of history.

Our weather has been fairly mild and very dry. We did have a day of snow showers on November 1, and we had a hard frost the following week.

This moon cycle we have finished our garden chores. 

I picked our last fall raspberries on November 10th.

Final picking of fall berries

Last Saturday (November 25) I laid straw mulch down on the strawberry and garlic beds.

My final garden chore

While I was doing that, Bob dug up some sunchokes and horseradish root.

Digging sunchokes

The next day, we did up a crock of fermented sunchokes using traditional kimchi seasonings: garlic, chili peppers, onion and gingerroot. (We also add horseradish). This makes an incredibly tasty product.

Ingredients for a sunchoke crock

 

Today Bob put up some horseradish while I did the weekly house cleaning. We had some still in the root cellar, so he didn't need to make up very much.

Those swim goggles really help!

Bean threshing has also begun. So far I've only threshed out one bushel, which yielded almost one gallon of aduki beans. I have a long way to go (nine more bushels), but it's a start.

Threshing tools

Earlier this month Bob got some more work done on the former deck area. He put compost on the planting beds and wood chips down on the planting beds and seating area.

The future back screen

He also got the supports up for the back screen. White lattice, matching that on the porches, will be installed here in the spring.

In order for Bob to do much of his outside work, he uses a lawn tractor with various attachments. You may recall that in an earlier post, I mentioned that the tractor spent much of the summer in the repair shop. It broke down again very shortly after those costly repairs. We decided that it was time to "stop throwing good money after bad". The tractor worked hard for 10 years, but it was time to replace it. So, Bob got a new tractor.

New in the box!

This one will still use his old attachments, so that saved us a good bit of money. He now knows that he needs to be a bit more careful and not work this one to death.

We celebrated a sunny Thanksgiving with a nice meal of slow roasted tempeh and winter vegetables with brown rice, and vegan sweet potato pie for dessert. 

Thanksgiving lunch

While lunch baked, we walked the South Rim and Gorge Trails at Buttermilk Falls State Park in Ithaca.

Buttermilk Falls State Park

We ended the day with a supper of sweet potato waffles and fresh applesauce. Like many other people, we ate way too much that day.

Now we're heading toward the solstice and yule tide. Our gift shopping is all done: my fine chocolates, Bob's figs and nuts.

I'm working on Bob's annual sweater. This year I pulled from my yarn stash a dozen skeins of imported Shetland wool. This will become a very nice cardigan for my favorite sweater model.

Rolling skeins into balls for knitting

Meanwhile, Bob's finalizing plans for the upstairs bathroom remodel. It's the last room in the house to be updated, and boy, does it need to be done! I'll have pictures once he's ready to get underway.

Time for cozy fires

We'll be taking time to rest and relax while still doing what it takes to keep the house running. We hope all of you are able to do the same. May your holiday observances, whatever they may be, be all that you desire.

We'll catch you up again after December's full moon.

Peace to you all,

Kathleen and Bob

Farewell to Autumn

Wintergreen with berries

Seed Fall 2023

Autumn at home

The month of Seed Fall has come and gone. Most of this month's activity was concerned with preparing for the season ahead.

The garden claimed the Lion's share of the time. When last I wrote, I mentioned the warm, dry weather we were expecting. Well, it came and was a real catalyst for our maturing bean crop. Almost the entire crop came to maturity on the vine and was gathered without any trouble from rainy weather. I have ten bushel boxes of bean pods in the cellar awaiting threshing next month.

Nice looking carrots

The carrots and beets have been harvested and are packed away in the root cellar.

Parsley Worm

I left one carrot in the ground because I found a Parsley Worm on it. This is the caterpillar of the Black Swallowtail Butterfly, one of my personal favorites. I'd rather lose a carrot than to deprive it of its needed safe haven.

Wrapping sweet potatoes 

 

The sweet potatoes we harvested last month have been cured, wrapped and are in the cellar with bags of garlic and shallots hanging above them.

Bob harvested the Spitzenburg apples. We're eating tons of apples.

Making applesauce

I've frozen 14 pints of applesauce - all I have room for.

Apple slices to be dried.

We're also drying apple slices. We've dried four loads so far, yielding 15 quarts of dried slices. Bob enjoys munching on these while reading by the fire during the winter.

The winecap mushrooms are still producing and we're enjoying our late, "free", self seeded lettuce again this year.

Late lettuce

As the harvests have been winding down, we've worked on garden clean up.

All of the trellises have been cleaned off.

Pulling off bean vines

Everything is out except the kale, flowers and our cover crops. We're just waiting for a frost now to finish it up.

I planted the garlic and shallots on the 27th. So, technically next year's garden is already begun.

Planting garlic among the cover crop

Another way in which we have prepared for the season ahead was to get ready for the woodstove season. 

Bob loading wood into his cart

Bob has filled our cellar wood bin with an assortment of wood types and sizes.

Preparing kindling

I gathered kindling and refilled our very large kindling box in the cellar.

In the last update I mentioned our red sauerkraut. This raised a few questions from folks. Red kraut is a Bavarian style. Typically it is fermented along with some combination of apples, onions, bay leaves, caraway seeds and juniper berries. We prefer ours plain, so we don't include these things. Ours tastes like "white" kraut, but it looks nicer and is loaded with anthocyanins.

Our red sauerkraut

The final way in which we prepared for winter was to go to the Friends of Tompkins County Library book sale. We went on $1.50 a book and $.10 a book days. We got some good reading material for winter.

Some of our good finds at the book sale

On Tuesday we will mark the halfway point between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice. Since the weather is supposed to be less than pleasant, we plan to rest and relax at home with games, reading, and Grandma Neill's apple pie.

Because of our preparations, our bellies will be full, our bodies warm and our minds and souls nourished. Bring it on!

There's still time to get yourselves ready for a restful and rich winter season. It's so much more settling to embrace what the season has to offer than to despise it. Just a thought to consider.

Till next time,

Kathleen and Bob

Time to enjoy the simple things

Song Time/ Falling Leaves Time 2023

The Harvest Moon marked the end of our month of Song Time/Falling Leaves Time. We're still busy with the garden, but the emphasis has shifted to final harvests and dismantling.

Right now we're in a brief period of warm and sunny days. Total duration should be almost a week. It's a great opportunity for maturing the dry beans and getting the clean up seriously underway.

Here's the garden report:

The corn, squash, cucumbers, green beans and tomatoes are all done.

My tomatoes got late blight, so I had to pick what I could salvage and ripen them in the pantry.

Ripening tomatoes

I lost a large amount of fruit, but am pleased to report that I still got 56 pints in the freezer and five quarts of tomato leather dehydrated.

Macoun Apples

Bob has picked our early (Macoun) apples. We're enjoying those. Our Spitzenburg apples should be ready later in October. Soon I'll be freezing applesauce and drying apple slices.

Harvest starts with trimming vines

We harvested our sweet potatoes. The yield was between three and four bushels. We harvested a little late this year and so the potatoes are larger that I care for. We have to get on the ball earlier next year.

Large potatoes mean 2 meals per potato

We are enjoying fall raspberries and the Wine Cap mushrooms are really producing.

Wine Caps can get BIG!

I have nearly 11 quarts of dried slices so far, and they're still coming!

Dry beans are maturing. The Aduki and Kidney beans are all picked. Black beans and Turkey Craw are nearly all picked. In the next couple of days I will make another pass through the Hidatsa Shield beans and a first pass through the True Red Cranberry and Good Mother Stollard beans.

Harvesting Turkey Craw beans

We harvested my red cabbages and put down a crock of sauerkraut last weekend.

I chop the cabbage.

Bob packs it into the crock with salt.

Now, in addition to picking beans and what not, I'm beginning to seriously clean up and dismantle the garden for winter. I was lax about weeding this year, so I have a good bit of work ahead of me. I'm alternating this work with a quick window washing during this lovely warm spell.

Modern windows are SO nice!

Bob's got the old deck off, except for the old trellising. He ran into another snag there. The hornets have abandoned their nest. That's good. But one of the plants in the flower garden there has turned out to be a stubborn invasive plant. It stowed away in a daylily undetected. Now it has become very obnoxious. It's called Chameleon Plant.

Chameleon plant (Houttuynia cordata)

It spreads if any little bit of root or stem is in the soil. We have had to resort to an herbicide to get rid of it, and it will take more than one application. Due to it's aggressiveness, we will have to get rid of the other flowers in the garden. But, that's fine. It gives me a chance to start again with some different flowers.

Bob's been building the border for the new seating area and will build boxes for the flower beds, hopefully excluding any possibility of this plant sneaking in.

Equinox in Finger Lakes Nat Forest

We took time to celebrate the Autumnal Equinox with a nice meal and a walk in the Finger Lakes National Forest. The walk began in sunny weather, but it started to rain halfway through the walk. Luckily the tree canopy kept us a bit drier.

As you can see, we're still busy here, but rest time is in sight. We use October 31 as our target date to be done (mostly) with the garden and begin the shift toward rest and introspection.

We bid you strength and peace as you bring this season to a close and walk into the next.

Till next time,

Kathleen and Bob

Wintergreen and Southern Running Pine