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!

Abundance/Ripening Time 2021

 

Sunflower

Abundance. This month, all we've had an abundance of is rain. And maybe frustration.

Since the last update we've had 6 1/2" of rain at our house. The garden beds have not dried out once this summer. Unless you're growing rice, that's not a good situation. The plants literally drown. We have had an abundance of heat and humidity as well. It makes one long for winter.

Some of our produce

Because of the weather, the garden is not producing well. The potatoes made hardly any tubers, and what were formed have rotted in the ground. So far I haven't found enough to make even one meal.

Cucumbers did very poorly. At least we won't get tired of eating them, like we usually do.

The tomatoes are poking along. The three in the picture are the most that I've picked at one time. I've had none to freeze yet. It may be the winter that we try a Solanaceae free diet.

Red cabbage and Wax beans

I have gotten cabbages and some beans frozen, as well as celery and parsley. I hope to get more beans in before the season ends.

Preparing apricots to dry

Our fruit trees were promising until this last bout of rain. Now the brown mold has torn through and taken most of the apricots and nectarines. I did get just a few apricots to dry for use this winter.

Our corn is probably a lost cause. It never did grow past the spindly stage, and the winds from Fred flattened what we had. We put in some supports and tied up the pathetic stalks, but I don't expect to make even one ear.

That's pathetic corn!

I'm afraid work on the home front isn't going much better.

Digging the footer holes

Bob decided to leave the deck and start with the front porch. We hired someone to dig the holes for the footers. Good choice there.

Gravel to be loaded

Then Bob "cleaned up" the holes using a post hole digger. After this, he went and loaded his trailer with gravel. Then he came home and emptied all of that gravel into the holes, tamping it down as he went along. 

After finishing that, he mowed all of our large yard. He did all of this in one day, proud of all he accomplished. The next day, he discovered that he is no longer 20 (or 30, 40, or even 50)! He had strained his back and for the next two weeks couldn't even tie his shoes.

Installing rebar

His back is getting better, but he's still on "light duties".

Mixing concrete, another skill

To make sure he doesn't overdo again, I've been helping out with some of the heavy work. I learned to mix concrete. 20, 60 pound bags is a lot of practice. This went into the forms for the footers.

We hope Bob has finally learned his lesson.

We marked Lammas Day on August 1st. That's the midway point between the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox. For once, it wasn't raining, so we went for a walk in our meadow.

Plump blackberries

There we picked some nice blackberries. Our meadow is a wonderful place for birds with many types of food and habitat. We purposefully keep it that way.

Black and Blue pie

After we got home, I combined the blackberries with some blueberries and made a Black and Blue pie. That was our special dessert for this holiday.

We also played a game and read together.

On August 9th, we marked our tenth anniversary of buying Thistledown Gardens. We moved in on the 17th of August in 2011. Still a work in progress.

There's so much to get us down right now. We have to work to maintain a healthy perspective. We can't control the weather. We can't fix our poor garden production. We can't work like we're forty years younger than we are. Since these things are out of our control, we can't fret about them. They are immutable. To agonize is not helpful or healthful. So, we take what we can get, do what we can do and look forward to the next season.

We hope that your summer is going better. If not, we understand. Take a breath and look ahead.

Till next time,

Kathleen and Bob

Cardinal flower by our creek

Long Days Time/Fire Fly Time 2021

 

Beans are beginning to climb

The moon is full tonight and you know what that means. Another month has slipped away here at Thistledown Gardens. 

The weather this month has been quite trying. Very much rain, cloudiness, heat and humidity. Our garden has been set back by too much rain and too little sun.

Short corn

Many plants are small and turning yellow.

We hope we've now seen the end of the overly wet weather.

Aduki beans and squash

Still, some parts of the garden are looking pretty good.

Cranberry beans on towers

We've finished with lettuce and peas. I've been freezing parsley, celery leaves, kale and chard.

Cabbage ready to pick

I've begun harvesting my cabbages. I don't have luck with fall cabbage, so I plant in the early spring and harvest now. We eat part of each head fresh and then freeze the rest. It freezes very well.

Shallots (left) & garlic (right)

The garlic and shallots have been pulled and are in the attic drying before being stored for the winter.

Red and black currants and raspberries

What we've had the most of this summer is the "small fruits": raspberries, currants and blueberries. I've frozen quite a bit of this fruit for winter use.

Blueberries

The blueberries have done the best ever. It must be the perfect combination of conditions coming together. I've decided to practice the discipline of "enjoying the moment" with these. Having grown up with food insecurity, my tendency is to squirrel away every last tidbit for use later. It's good to provide for the future, but balance is needed. So, I've put away "enough" and now we're enjoying them in the "here and now". It seems very decadent to munch down a bowl of fresh berries, but not to enjoy them fresh is a loss of sorts. No preserved berry has the flavor of a fresh one. You miss out on a lot of life by only looking at the future. Living in the present seems to take on increased significance the older I get.

 

The back deck today

Bob has finished repointing the foundation and is on to his next project: deck repair.

We have a large deck (28'x18'). As I mentioned last time, structurally it's in pretty good shape - just a bit of improvement so we can add handrails where needed, etc. The decking however, is suffering.

Warped hand rail

Boards are warping...

More warped boards 

...nails are popping out (they didn't use screws, the ninnies)...

Rotted boards

... and some boards are rotting.

Bob has begun dismantling a smaller portion already. He wants to add more support structure before laying the new decking and adding handrails.

The work begins

I'm sure this project will take the rest of the summer and some of the fall, too.

We had a visit from some Minnesota folks this month. They were in New York on their vacation and stopped in to visit with us. We rarely have visitors, so this was a real treat, especially with such affable people. We're so glad you came to see us. There was a lot of  good talk about alternative energy possibilities. This leads me to our final topic this month.

There's a moment in time which is crystalized in my memory. I'll share it here. 

I was sitting in senior Earth Science class (about a million years ago), and I suppose we were discussing alternative energy systems. (This was during an earlier time of energy concerns.) At any rate, I remember thinking how cool (we said that back then) it would be to live in a house with solar power, geothermal heat and maybe even earth berming or under ground. Wow! That would be something!

Well, here we are. No earth berming or underground structure, but with solar electric and now... a soon to be installed geothermal heating and water system. We've been working on the possibility for a few years, and have finally gotten word that the State has approved our project. With all of the State programs, we will be paying just under half of the project cost. The system will provide all of our hot water and house heat. We'll keep the woodstove as a backup and for when the temperatures are super cold. (This rarely happens here.) The heat pump will replace our oil fired burner and will run through our existing hydronic baseboard system.

We are very excited about this. No more need to use fuel oil! Our materials have been ordered and we're just waiting for a start date. You can be sure we'll take plenty of pictures to share with you.

Some of my garden flowers

I'll leave you with a picture of some of the flowers in our garden. My Grandma Wise was a remarkable gardener. Now there's only one other person left besides me to remember her gardens. She always had flowers growing in and around her vegetable plants. I don't know if she just did it because she liked them together, or if she did it to increase biodiversity. It's a tradition that I gladly continue in this, my twenty eighth garden.

Till next time,

Kathleen and Bob

The last head of lettuce