It's FALL

 It's FALL

 

In 2021, Wednesday, September 22 is the autumnal equinox—also called the September equinox or fall equinox. It's the start of fall in the Northern Hemisphere.

 

 ose has been working on the house paint, fixing areas that are peeling, we've had a downy woodpecker pecking holes an inch deep in the corner boards on the back of the house.  I sprayed the foundation for the 3rd time this year, we see lots of carpenter ants running around.

 

Black Cherries

The black cherries, 1/4" berries are falling all over the place, dying rugs and us purple when they get stuck on our shoes.  I need to get onto the roof of the Dog house and run in shed to sweep them off. 

The birds are after all the Black cherries that still have not all fallen, there can be 20 or more birds up in the trees eating them, we literally have 100s of pounds of these things on the roof of the sheds, and the ground, we used the leaf blower to blow them all off the roofs.

We're full blown headed for, and preparing for winter at this point

• Pellet stove cleaning
• Black cherries, swept off the outbuilding roofs
• Relocate the deer yard closer to the house, less to snow blow,  less distance to haul grain.
• Bring the snowblower over to the run in shed, and put the weed whacker in the barn
• Getting the cars ready
  

Started the dough to bake a few loaves of bread this afternoon, an artisan loaf.  The dough will sit overnight in the fridge tonight, and be ready to bake off tomorrow.  

Our 2021 pumpkins for the porch, if only the dogs don't play with them

Time to start thinking about Crumbles, and Cobblers, yum blackberry cobbler, our apple picking claw came in time to get out there and start picking. We picked up some oats for the topping last night.

I went out and picked the last of the 2020 tomatoes, I found most of the raised beds now have something digging holes into them, either chippies, or mole/voles. I am a little concerned about the Leeks, and carrots, may be time to pick this weekend.  The squash seem to be holding up OK thus far.

The Harvest moon came and went, I didn't see it until the next day

Saturday Sept 26th was crazy, so much to do

I mowed the deer yard, and the lawn for probably the 20th time this year.

We jacked up and put new rims & tires on the trailer the old ones were down to just the cords.

Saturday we setup our apple claw/basket, attached it to our roof rake handle, and away we went, we picked a couple dozen larger apples here from our own trees, two varieties, we'll make up a pie.

Apples ready for pie

The Yellow ones we think are Braeburns, the Braeburn apple, is a natural cross between the Granny Smith and Lady Hamilton varieties. The reds are Macs I think.  The bees are all over the apples in the trees, we picked a few without realizing some of them were half eaten while still on the tree.  We sliced them up on Sunday and we got ~12 cups, 8 cups for a pie and 4 for turnovers.  we'll freeze them up, there's still a lot more to do, peppers next...

I was mowing and as I drove by the grapes down by the driveway, the grapes smelled amazing, sweet and very grapey.

Acorn squash, Ace 

The last of the peppers for the year

Picked the Lakota squash yesterday

Our good looking Spuds are cured, headed for the cupboard

The problem with picking is that you need to do something with all that you picked, wash'em, peel'em, cut'em, blanch'em, freeze or can'em and if I'm lucky eat'em before having to put them up.

I forgot about the carrots, I'll check on them today.  We're still awaiting the first frost to pick Kale, it's sweeter once touched by the frost.

Our Swiss Chard is coming back again, I cut down to a couple inches several weeks ago as the bugs were really getting to the leaves. It's looking good again.

We need to pick up some dirt, sand for barrels, and soil for the yard.

Just saw an article;  Vaccines in lettuce. Researchers are now working on putting mRNA vaccines in LETTUCE. UC-San Diego and Carnegie Mellon University are both currently involved in this research. MRNA in veggies, shaking my head. If ever you needed a good reason to plant a garden and grow your own food, this is it.

The bread came out of the oven I can never wait for it to cool.  This loaf was in a loaf pan, tomorrow a loaf in a dutch oven, Yum, it's good.

We have not seen the deer at all this week, they are coming in, just later in the evening we think.

Looks like we have new neighbors up on the hill across the street.  We haven't met them yet, I didn't see a four wheel drive vehicle so it should be an interesting 1st winter for them trying to get up their driveway.

Stay safe out there...