Finally Frost

FROST!

We finally got a frost, I was beginning to think it wouldn't happen this year with the seemingly never-ending garden production.

We went out and picked the last peppers, and Leeks from the garden, I can now officially pick the kale now as the frost sweetens it.  I'll make up a big batch of Johnny Searle's Portuguese Kale Soup!

The last of the Maple leaves have yet to fall

We finished up around the foundation yesterday, washed all the car windows, I grabbed the Rain-X but it had gone bad, we'll have to pick some up.

Today it's a run to Home Depot to pickup some Sakrete General purpose sand for the walks and driveway, it comes bagged and DRY... nothing worse than trying to get sand out of frozen solid sand barrels.

Rose froze up all the Leeks on Tuesday, we were able to offload some veggies with Jarrod too, whew a little more space.

Adventures in shopping at MB on Wednesday evening, lots of holes on the shelves, this nightmare is just starting and I already can't believe the price of most everything I see.  

No Folgers coffee, we bought some Chock Full O nuts. I never saw 12 foot width of Marshmallow fluff jars on display before.  $4.99 for a box of Total cereal, all of the products were pulled forward on the shelves, nothing behind though.  Out of canned dog food, so we nearly cleaned out the other brand of canned dog food. One guy commented that the Deli was the most fully stocked place in the store. Meat prices were ridiculous, pot roasts stared at $24 for a roast, they has one small eye roast for $17, though they still had hamburg for $4/lb.  None of the Cascade we use in the dishwasher.  We walked the entire store commenting OMG at the prices we saw.

Articles about heating fuel prices are everywhere.  We have propane, and 3 tons of pellets for this winter.

Mid October

2021 was an amazing year for our garden. 

We put a lot into the garden, leaves, mulch, compost, and some other soil amendments, lime, bone/blood meal, composted cow manure, and peat moss.  We braced for a drought, putting in irrigation hoses and plastic to cut down on water usage, in the end we haven't watered since the end of May, go figure.  

I don't know if we've ever grown this much in our Vegetable garden.  We're still getting tomatoes, butternut squash, pumpkins, kale, leeks, beans are drying on the vines now.  We're expecting a frost to come in and take out the remains of the garden in the next couple of weeks, except for the Kale, it loves the frost...  Speaking of frost, I was talking to some colleagues in Canada Thursday and the have already had their first frost in Ontario.

The Pellet stove's been running mornings, and some evenings as we're in the 50's this week, this ol' house holds heat like a barn.

We heard it, on Oct 10th, it upset the dogs too.
MANCHESTER, N.H. — ** Update: Scientists now say the boom was likely caused by a meteor entering the atmosphere. Read our latest report. **

Supply chain stories are cropping up everywhere, appears it's far worse than predicted.  Get those x-mas gifts early folks.

We've got to get the boat put away for the year, the snowblower up to the house and we'll start thinking about tarping the camper too.

The first of the ladybugs and stinkbugs have arrived Rose said there were bunches of ladybugs on the front of the house.

Halloween is Sunday, October 31, 2021, I don't know if that's good or bad.  We'll probably go downtown and walk around to see the kids in costume.

Saturday the 16th, Lots going on in Goffstown today, St. Matt's big yard sale, an antique snowmobile and mini bike show, and the Great Pumpkin Regatta all today. There was a great turnout as the rain held off all day today.  The
Great Pumpkin Regatta continues Sunday, I think with a race, and Punkin Chunkin.

We took a ride looking for some color, ended up in Concord, not a lot of color this far south.

We pulled the utility trailer out back, we're loading it up with scrap metal from around the farm.

I decided that seeing 40 or so percent of the leaves on our two maple leaves were already on the ground to load up the vacuum on the lawn tractor, we went over to where the vacuum was sitting in the hedge row. I grabbed one side she the other, simple right, hah, not so much, on the way out I managed to trip on a raspberry cane slamming me to the ground on my knees HARD, I almost smashing my face on the back of the tractor in the process, I got real lucky, Rose said so you're lucky you didn't lose all your front teeth, everything feels OK, we got all the leaves vac'd up. Rosie cleared all the squash and pumpkin vines as well as a ton of volunteer morning glory vines (for whatever reason Morning Glories took over many sections of the garden this year, all volunteers too.) and she pulled up the irrigation hoses and plastic this week.  This left me with nice clear beds to cover with leaf mulch putting the beds to rest for next year.  It's one of the best things ever vacuuming up the leaves leaving a pristine grass yard.

The design of the garden,  beds, and gate locations this year were awesome, our most productive and easiest to maintain.

Oh, I forgot, the yellow jackets have moved on, thankfully.

Stay safe out there...

October Already

October Already

It's Jarrod's Birthday today, Oct 1st when I started this post.

Leaves are turning fast around here, swamp maples are in their full red dress

Red Raspberries are setting fruit again, amazing

 

We've started watching the Squid Game series on Netflix. We're not normally the series watching type but this looked good.

2nd loaf of bread baked in the Dutch Oven rose more than the 1st loaf baked in a loaf pan, there's a white sandwich bread I'll try and bake next.

More work on the foundation needs to be done if it stops raining, kitchen side, finishing up with some hydraulic cement work and caulking.

We're still getting Blackberries too.  Crazy year

 Yellow Jackets

 

I was out mowing the filed last night, and went to check on the Yellow Jackets, I found something had dug out the nest though there were still a couple bees flying in and out, you can see the combs on the ground.  The entrance hole used to be 2" in diameter now it's 8+" wide.  I read that Yellow Jackets don't produce honey, I was initially thinking a bear looking for larvae, I saw that raccoons, and even foxes will dig into the nests for the larvae too.

 

Bees are loving the Bottle Gourd flowers, they're still covered with flowers and bees.

Supply Chain shortages are starting to crop up again,  At least we don't have to worry about TP shortages any more, the enterprising farmers around here have started growing it!

Now that's just funny...

Wash your Hands!