Song Time / Falling Leaves Time 2019

Happy Autumn, All!

The moon is nearly full and another month is coming to an end here at Thistledown Gardens. It's been a busy one, as expected. And yet, not as hectic as harvest time.

Kathleen and Lunette digging fingerling potatoes

This month we finished the potato harvest and have gathered the sweet potatoes, all with Lunette's help.

Digging Sweet Potatoes

We ended up with about three bushel each of "regular" potatoes and sweet potatoes. Since we didn't plant any winter squash or pumpkins this year, three bushel will not be too many sweet potatoes for us to use.

Dry land cranberries

I harvested our cranberries...

Good Mother Stollard beans drying on the vine

...and have been picking the dry beans as they are ready. It's always a race to get them picked and under cover before the steady fall rains begin. They can't be picked before they're mature and that takes a long time unless the weather's hot and dry.







We still have parsley, chard, kale, beets and carrots standing. The greens will probably be pulled in the next week because we want to get the beds ready for winter. I hope to bring in the beets and carrots the last week of October.

Some of the chard plants

Carrot and beet bed

I'll plant next year's garlic at the end of October as well.











As I empty the beds, Bob clears out any weeds and fallen acorns (there are a ton this year!), and covers each with a mixture of organic matter: leaves, plant residue, rotted wood, ground acorns, wood ash... He runs all this through his chipper/shredder so it will decompose quickly.

Bob cleaning up a bed

On some of the beds he sows a cover crop that will winter kill.

Hen of the Woods mushrooms

Bob and Lunette found some more Hen of the Woods mushrooms in the woods this fall. We now have three pints chopped and in the freezer. One of our winter soups is Mushroom Barley made with Shiitake and Hen of the Woods and lots of parsley. Very tasty and healthy!








We've had some cold here, and rain, but no frost for us yet. On those inclement days, we've been preparing for winter inside the house. I washed all of the windows, inside and out. I also washed and ironed all of the curtains.

Oiling the dining room furniture

I oiled all of the wood furniture that needs that treatment as protection against the dryness of wood heat.

First fire of the season

We've had two small fires to prepare our soapstone stove for the upcoming season. The chimney's been repaired. Hopefully when it rains hard we won't have it come down into the hearth anymore. Last year's fix was inadequate, so we hired someone different to do the job this year.

Bob tackles the fireplace

Today Bob's sealing up the old air returns in the fireplace. They're no longer used and a good sized source of air leakage. They've got to go!

This week he also put new weather stripping on the bottom of our kitchen door.








Lunette's twelfth birthday was this week. Lately she stays busy as neighborhood sentinel, alerting everyone of roaming cats and deliverymen. She also enjoys a good "dig", from old mole trails to helping in the garden.

Relaxed hole digging. Note the dirty back legs!

Right now, Bob's in the middle of a two week vacation from Cornell. We're trying to get in a mix of chores and fun and relaxation. We've watched a couple of old movies, done some reading and played games. We hope to get out for a hike in the week ahead. Lunette loves having her "poppi" around more. She just adores him!

That's about all there is to tell around here for now. By the next update the garden should be all put to bed, and our season of rest begun.

See you again at the end of Frost Time/Seed Fall.

Kathleen, Bob and Lunette

One last bouquet.

Harvest/Ingathering 2019

Harvest Abundance

This has been a very busy month here. The garden was at peak production and that means plenty of work for me.

Tomatoes and squash

The tomatoes finally started to ripen. I've put up forty pints and have now been making tomato leather. This is good to use in soups and to reconstitute as tomato paste.

One big tomato!

Some of our varieties get to be quite large, as you can see.

Opalka paste tomato.

This year I tried a different sauce tomato. This is an heirloom paste tomato called Opalka. There are not as many fruit on the plant, but at this size you don't need so many. This one is only average sized. There are many twice this size!

Corn waiting to be cut off the cob

I've also frozen corn, bell peppers and Lima beans. There's just enough space left in the freezer to add a couple more boxes of kale and chard.
Harvest has also begun on potatoes and Aduki beans.
Soon I'll begin dismantling the beds of things that have finished their run.






We've also been busy splitting firewood. We sometimes get very oddly shaped pieces. We call these "Sunday wood". We like to put them in the stove on Sunday mornings and watch them burn while enjoying a cup of tea. The irregular shapes make very interesting flame patterns.

Gnarly wood with interesting grain pattern

 Out with the old...

We've had our new fuel tank installed. It's not that much to look at, but will come in handy.
Bob's got the cellar all put back in order. Nearly everything had to be shifted around so the old one could go out and the new one, in. It was a good opportunity to sort and rearrange.

...In with the new.

We had to take time out of our work to move my mother into a new room at the care center. Her mental health has deteriorated to the point that she can no longer care for her personal needs. She now is in "enhanced care". That's a level between assisted living and nursing home. She'll get more appropriate care now.
My mother is a hoarder. The staff said we must downsize her things greatly. We spent quite a time doing this in, shall we say, hostile conditions. Thankfully it's done now.

Bob has just had the first round of dental surgery for the current tooth. He comes through these with very little complaining and fuss. He just gets impatient with the length of time involved. (Over six months from start to finish.)

There's still a lot of work to come in the garden. It will be a good month before we can "put it to bed". We hope that your return to autumn routines are going smoothly.
Take the time to enjoy what I consider to be the loveliest season. Harvest of life what is good. "Put to bed" what has passed it's usefulness.
Till next time,

Kathleen, Bob and Lunette

Abundance/ Ripening Time 2019

A variety of lovely vegetables

Our month of Abundance/ Ripening ended with this full moon. Things are ripening, and some things are in abundance. Mostly bills, unfortunately!

The garden is producing enough for us to eat and store away some for winter.

Leafy greens and peppers

We've harvested cabbages, some chard and some kale...


Patty Pan squashes in great quantity,

Tri colored snap beans

and snap beans in large numbers.

Tomatoes are out there, but not turning red in any numbers yet. We've only enjoyed two small ones so far. We're looking forward to more soon.

Laying out garlic to dry

The garlic and shallots have been harvested and are drying in the attic.

Corn ears are developing. Regular and sweet potatoes aren't ready to harvest yet, although we have sneaked some regular potatoes to enjoy now.
The drying beans are looking good with pods growing.

A wash basin of shiitake mushrooms

Our shiitake logs gave us a nice crop, too. We couldn't possibly eat all of them fresh so I dried most of them.

I got two quarts of dried slices. These will make especially good soup this winter.

Two quarts of shiitake slices

When not working in the garden, we've been harvesting and splitting wood. Bob did fell a dead cherry tree, but mostly we're cutting up wood already down on our property.

Bob with and old section of red oak

Bob saws the trunks into rounds and wrestles them onto the log splitter. I do the job of an eight year old. I run the splitter control, help stack the wood and gather twigs and small branches for kindling. I don't feel like I'm doing much, but Bob says it's a big help.

Wood pile at present. Black walnut, cherry and maple

Lammas eve at Lodi Point Park

We celebrated Lammas Day on August 1. That's the climax of summer, the halfway point between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox.
On the night before, the three of us went to nearby Lodi Point State Park just before sunset.
It was a very nice evening.

Gorgeous cloud at Lodi Point

Buttermilk Falls, Ithaca NY

The next day, Bob and I hiked in Ithaca's Buttermilk Falls State Park. It was a lovely day. We packed a picnic lunch to eat there.
After coming home, we played a game, read aloud to each other and had a nice supper.
No work that day - a real holiday!








We've had a streak of unfortunate (and costly) occurrences this month. First, Bob has to have more costly dental work done. We're hoping that the dental insurance will cover a little more than last time, but it's still a tiny fraction of the bill. Bob has a genetic predisposition to dental issues. We've decided we need to expect and prepare for this type of expense every year. We're both healthy in other ways, so I guess it could be much worse.

Old tank has to go

Our fuel oil tank failed inspection and needs to be replaced before they will bring any more oil. (Remember, this is not only our back up heat, but also our source of hot water.)
Of course, the tank is full and all of that has to be pumped out. It's a loss because to reuse it would void the warranty on our new tank.








Right after getting the news about the oil tank, Bob got a flat tire on his car. This car doesn't come with a spare, just a "fix a flat" thing. He's going to buy a tire and rim to keep as a spare. Both cars need full sets of tires before winter.

The "topper" is that our big property tax bill is due the beginning of September. Hurrah! When it rains, it pours! That list aught to make at least a few of you feel better about your situation. Glad I could be of help!

Lunette fell and hurt herself this week. She has "safety slippers" to wear on our wood floors, but someone (who will remain nameless) neglected to put them on. There are no broken bones or dislocations, just swelling and pain. The vet has given her a new pain medicine. If it works well, it will become part of her daily med routine. It looks like we need to add more carpet runners for her to walk on. Our house already has "doggy runways" all over the place! For now she's laying low and hobbling around on three legs. The squirrels are taking advantage of this.

I guess that's all the news for now. Enjoy the rest of your summer and we'll check in again around the time of the next full moon.

Till then,
Kathleen, Bob and Lunette

The August garden

Fire Fly/Long Days TIme

Garlic scapes in the garden

It's that time again. The full moon is here and another update from Thistledown Gardens.
Summer has finally found us. The garden is growing and the freezer is slowly being filled:

Peas and raspberries

peas, raspberries, strawberries,

Currants washed and ready to package

red and black currants,

Chard waiting to be chopped

and Swiss chard.

Soon I'll harvest the garlic and shallots. The summer vegetables are just starting to bloom now.








We've gotten a few miscellaneous tasks done this year. In addition to wood chipping the garden and small fruits, I refinished the top of my kitchen work table and we cleaned up our flower border, adding a hard edge and a layer of wood chops. Both of these jobs have needed to be done for a few years now.

Improved border garden

And now, a drum roll, if you please....
The bathroom is finished!!!
Perhaps you readers are as relieved to hear this as we are to say it. It's all passed inspection. The inspector said, "I've seen a lot of bathrooms, and this is really nice!". We're very pleased with the end result.

First view - lots of storage space flanks the sink

Soaking tub

Message table area 

Commode with bidet (ooo so nice)

There you have it. A lot of work, yes. But well worth the effort.










We won't begin another house project until the late autumn. In the meantime, I'll divide my time between house and garden chores and helping Bob get in the winter's wood supply. Bob will divide his between wage earning and bringing in the winter's wood. Our old dog will continue to sit in the grass and watch the chipmunks. There you have our life. All excitement, I know.

Enjoy your summer. Harvest what you can; vegetables, flowers, memories, whatever.
See you next month,
Kathleen, Bob and Lunette

One of Bob's shiitake logs in fruit

Bright Time/Flowering Time 2019

Fragrant shrub roses

The full moon is once again at hand, and it's time for another update from Thistledown Gardens and the Romicks.

Bright Time has been more gloomy than bright, as our stinky weather continues. We did have sun three days in a row last week! Bob heard that it was the first three consecutive days without precipitation since September. I can believe that! Let me tell you, we jumped right on those days to take advantage of the dry stretch.

Bob using the rented sander

During that time we sanded and sealed the bathroom floor.
The sanding was more difficult that we anticipated. Asphalt tiles had been glued directly onto the floor boards, and the adhesive had penetrated into the wood.

Much hand sanding was needed on tough spots

As we sanded, it warmed up the glue and boy, did things get gummy! After twelve hours of struggle, we called it "good enough".

Applying polyurethane

The next day I sealed the floor and it looks good. That left us with one good day for it to dry.
We'll let it cure until next weekend. Then we will install the fixtures. By the next update, you'll see a finished project!

A glimpse of the finished floor

The garden is all planted, except for the fall beets and carrots.

Setting in Lima bean plants

The growth has been SLOW! We're still buying produce at the grocery store.

Setting in tomato plants

I need to buy a huge sun lamp to hang over the garden so things can begin to grow!

Recovering in the fresh air

Lunette had her surgery. She had some trouble coming out of the anesthesia, but is fine now. Let's hope that's the end of that trouble.

Nest on compost pile fence

The birds have all fledged from our three Robin's nests. We found the third on the corner of our compost pile fencing. Goofy birds.

Strawberry bed in bloom

We're looking forward to some strawberries, if we get some more sun. They're just starting to change color now.










That's about all for now. Let's all start to seriously hope for some fine weather to come and stay!

Till next time,
Kathleen, Bob and Lunette