Henri Whimpers Out of Southern NH

Henri Whimpers Out of Southern NH

Here we are Sunday morning Henri's bands are about to hit Boston.  Monday it rained all day off and on, by Tuesday we're back to Sunny and HOT, Wed, and Thursday in the 90s again.  The good thing is we don't have any cleanup to do.

IDA is about to Hit Louisiana, god help those folks.
Ida could be the strongest hurricane to ever make landfall in Louisiana.

 

Driving Saturday, the swamp maples are all red, and starting to lose their leaves.  we see an occasional early maple turning

 

HOPS in the Old Apple tree out back, a prolific year for them.

Saturday's haul, Black Cherry and Roma paste tomatoes are starting to come in, and our first Fine Eatin' Tomato, Mortgage Lifter. Ate the tomato on, a good white bread, with mayo, what could be better, YUM!  Maybe Bacon...

Harvested a couple more Roma tomatoes today, one zucchini, and another quart of blackberries.

Our Veterinarian Dr. Randall Snyder of Foxbend Veterinary Clinic passed away in August, he was an amazing Vet, we'll miss him.  We got both Zeb and Hanna from them.

Zeb & Hannah 

 

 "The Blue Monkeys" played the Weare, NH Farmers Market again yesterday, Aug 28th the weather held just barely, as it started raining on the way home.

(L-R Chris, Jamie, Jarrod, and OJ)

Grammy, & Grandpa drove up to Weare to watch a couple of sets from the band,  It was a slow day due to the cool, potentially rainy day too bad.   Three generations in the audience watching the band was kinda cool. It was great to see them.

 

Jarrod got the boys a Chevy Cavalier for them to learn in and drive as their first car, it runs well and will be a good first vehicle.  I took both James and Jason out driving on Saturday the 28th, one at a time. We drove up to Everett Dam, down the back way on Rt 13 to Sully's, through downtown, and then back to the house.  Both of the boys did very well, I was quite impressed. Someone tell me, how exactly is it possible these two are old enough to drive...?

 

James sitting on their Chevy Cavalier

Jason ready to go 

 

I ran some electrical and did some plumbing on Sunday, in the home stretch.  I need to install the Electrical outlet and tie the 220v line into the panel.

Last but not least of my ramblings to the day is IT'S OFFICIALLY FALL, Rose noticed the New England Asters blooming in the field on our way to the deer yard yesterday.

First Big storm in 30 years this weekend

First Big storm in 30 years this weekend

The remains of FRED are gone, we got a ton of rain, any worries of a fall drought are gone. HENRI is a hurricane now,  is due to hit us Sunday into Monday.  Power is sure to be an issue as the ground here is completely saturated. 

New Hampshire may see its first hurricane in three decades starting Sunday, with extremely high storm surge along the coast and heavy rainfall inland the immediate concern, along with high winds and even the possibility of some tornadoes spinning up.

The region’s electric utilities have cautioned customers to be prepared for outages.

We're in full prep mode Saturday, lots to go over, garden beans need added guy wires should we get the predicted 40-60 mph winds, etc.  Securing the Cabana. Generator prepped, phones charged, cars in a safe spot, we always have plenty of flashlights, lol.  

We lost all of our tomato plants years ago due to a bad storm, it literally laid down every tomato plant we had in the garden even though they were caged, now we put in 6' & 8' Fence posts to hold up the tomatoes.  We still picked some tomatoes, but we lost a lot too.

Are you ready for the coming storm?

Roses Zinnia bed looks amazing and the bees seem to love it, we'll grow these again next year.

Dad's Plum tree, just WOW!

Yes they are small 1-1.5" around, but wow what a crop, you can see some are split open, I assume due to water, and maybe the heat.

Garden Update:

Certainly a weird year weather wise.  I think we'd be is better shape if we could get some Sun this year...  

The garden is starting to look a little haggard.

Our Tomatoes are FINALLY Starting to come in.  Just the canning ROMA variety so far, you can see them just ripening up.  All of my fine eatin' tomatoes still have a ways to go before we're picking them.

Pole beans have just decided they were going to start producing too.

The Blackberries are still producing like crazy, Rose picked another quart or two yesterday.

Jarrod and the band (Jamie D' and the Blue Monkeys) will be playing at the Weare Farmers Market 8/28

 Get ready, and Stay Safe out there...

Putting Up

Putting It all Up

It's getting closer, they're coming, the vegetables are coming! (Queue the Jaws intro).  The garden tidal wave is coming, everything is about to start ripening all at once.  The mad dash to get it all picked, eaten, blanched, canned, or dehydrated is upon us.

Broccoli, Chard, and Wax beans are now in the freezer, a batch of zucchini was shredded up and put into the freezer for zucchini bread, our summer squash are just starting to come in too.  Tomatoes are there but slow to ripen this year.

Rose picked some of the Rosemary, she has some drying in the kitchen now.

More Summer Squash today, and a Zucchini

Tomatoes, it's difficult to wait, that one in front is starting to blush though.

Blackberries are coming in 1/2 gallon every day or two

Rose picking some of the Blackberries

Rose and I picked Wax Beans again today,  the pole beans aren't quite there yet. These were put up in short order.

I think it's time to pick the Acorn Squash, there 5 or more large squash on the plant, the plant itself looks to be saying it's done...

Wednesday it's 90+ for the next 3 days I'm watering tomatoes, and squash today.  Damn it's hot in the sun, we filled all the birdbaths and are starting a batch of hummingbird nectar.

The leeks appear to be doing well, our first time successfully growing it. 

Tuesday, we did water the tomatoes and the squash today, they needed it, first time we had to water since June. We have a couple 6" pumpkins growing on the fence now. 

Rose and I mowed the yard and a good section of the main field where the deer yard is, it always looks nice when it's mowed.  

                                                

Rosie found another yellow-jacket nest out in the field, lucky for her she rode over them and kept going, they didn't know what hit'em, she turned around to go back around and saw a large swarm buzzing around.  I drove the tractor over a while later and there were still several hundred bees swarming around the fence post.

We ordered our pellets for this winter today, they'll be here next Wednesday.  $247 a ton I believe, cheaper than last year, yay so there's one thing we bought that cost less than last year.

Funny seeing all kinds of wildlife we saw a long tailed weasel run across the road in front of us up in Hillsborough then a Cottontail rabbit over by Market basket in Bedford, oh and several groups of Turkeys too.  

Hummingbirds are still around, we haven't seen a Robin in some time now though.

Rose said the two fawns were out this morning, the larger "sensible" one, and the smaller one she says is "always looking for trouble" a Buck she assumes.

Jamie D and the Blue Monkeys

         "Jamie D and the Blue Monkeys"

With Jarrod Sanborn on drums

"Jamie D and the Blue Monkeys" headlined at the Goffstown "National Night Out" bash Tuesday evening.  The National Night Out is put on by the local Police and Fire departments in towns across the US.  Weather on Tuesday was nice for a change, the mosquitos stayed away for the most part, I'd have to say there were probably 200-300+ people there, free food, there were some nice classic and hot rod cars shown, a climbing wall, and a dunking booth and a petting zoo.

The band is playing at the "Weare Farmers Market" again on August 28th, it's nice to get to see them play some gigs close to home.

A good time was had by all, Jamie D and the Blue Monkeys wrapped up the evening playing a set with some ZZ Top and some Nazareth. They started playing at 7pm and wrapped up a great evening around 8pm.

The whole band Jarrod on the drums, Jamie D, OJ on Bass guitar, and Chris on keyboards.

Jarrod and Jamie D rocking out

The Week

The Week

 

The new floor in the downstairs bathroom is coming along, because its a thinner laminate tile plank it's a little more difficult to make sure it's snapped together properly, we're finally at a point where the planks go in full size, or almost anyway, one cut per plank YAY! The sink/vanity area had the most crazy cuts, I had to make a template to create the right cuts.  All but the last row +1 piece that needs a couple of holes for the Water feed lines. Saturdays the day we finish the floor. Yay!  A little progress on the bathroom this week, I did get the bits required and the flooring marked out where the pipes are so I can drill the plank.

Toilet is back in, the new floor looks great, I'll work on the electrical and water lines this week.

I think we'll go life-proof flooring from HD for the bath upstairs, Rose wants to do the front entryway floor next.

I replaced the downstairs toilet copper supply line with PEX, it's a good thing I did, when I went to cut off the chrome beauty ring from the the pipe it just collapsed from the pressure of the pipe cutter wheel.  Yikes

I need to drill a hole through the floor for the dryer power line that still needs to be run.

Vacation, got to schedule some of that...  crazy weather isn't making it easy.

Picked Broccoli on Monday, damned humid out there.  Water's boiling outside to blanch that up for the freezer.

Floor came out great IMO

Picked all of the ripe blueberries, yeah, not a great harvest this year, I think the birds got the best of us there is still one bush that shows some promise.

Blueberries, that's it?  There some more on one other bush, a bit disappointing though. Lets hope that I'll do better as the Raspberries and Blackberries come in.

Rose was weed whacking before the rain on Thursday the yard always looks amazing when it's all cleaned up, I started some mowing after work just as the rain started.  I mowed over by the Blackberries, the one large plant is absolutely loaded with slowly ripening berries. So far I'm getting a 1/2 cup of them a day looking for that to pick up as the days go by.

Jarrod's band is playing at the Goffstown National Night out tonight Aug 3rd 5-8pm.  We saw them in Weare at the farmers market a few weeks back.  Jarrod mentioned they are wrapping up the festivities so I expect a few sets around 7ish.

 Stay Safe