The impulse to argue online, or just to share knowledge, is a strange thing. It’s a thankless thing to do these days, when so many people are just waiting to be triggered by anything.
This morning, on a forum about a completely different topic, someone brought up pit bulls. There was the usual nature/nurture argument between “it’s the owners turning them mean” and “it’s the breed.” I quickly knocked out a couple hundred words about how it’s both: the breed was designed over many generations to be an aggressive fighter, but now it draws people who want to encourage that behavior.
Once I start burning wood for heat in the winter, I like to keep the fire going, because that’s easier than starting a fresh fire every day. The down side is, even a small fire in the furnace means you’re getting some heat, whether you need it or not. So these sunny, 50-something days get up to 80 in the house, and you have to start cracking windows. It’s almost nice when the weather settles into winter temperatures, so it feels good to keep it toasty all the time.
Guy’s second annual Deer Drag has begun. He found another deer carcass, probably one the neighbors dumped behind their place, and is bringing it home piece by piece like last year. First there was a chunk of meat, then a leg, then a couple nights ago the whole spine and ribs. He hadn’t showed up for a while at night, so I went looking for him, and he was working on it in the neighbors’ front yard.
Guy’s second annual Deer Drag has begun. He found another deer carcass, probably one the neighbors dumped behind their place, and is bringing it home piece by piece like last year. First there was a chunk of meat, then a leg, then a couple nights ago the whole spine and ribs. He hadn’t showed up for a while at night, so I went looking for him, and he was working on it in the neighbors’ front yard.
Took me a while to get this one uploaded. It’s probably the last video of the garden for this year, unless I do one last one with snow on. There will be at least one more as a sort of wrap-up with some planning for next year.
We got a light frost a few days after I hoped we wouldn’t in my last video. It was borderline, though, so it killed some things and just singed others. I harvested as much as possible the day before the frost, so I spliced a video of that into the center of this one. If the next frost holds off for a week or two, there should still be more beans coming along from the plants that survived.
Winter is coming up fast all of a sudden. A couple days ago it was 90 degrees, now it’s dipping down into the 40s at night. There are a lot of green tomatoes and beans on the vine, so hopefully the frost will hold off for a couple more weeks so they can ripen. The squash are done, so they just need to sit in the sun another week to cure before they go into storage.
Trying to keep up with the green beans and tomatoes, canning most of them. The watermelons seem to have a fungus called anthracnose, so I’m just hoping they produce some ripe melons before they die. Watermelons don’t ripen off the vine like tomatoes and some other fruits do, so there’s no picking them early. The butternut squash look great, some of the biggest I’ve ever gotten. The dry beans will need picking soon, so we could use a few dry days to get that done, but unfortunately it looks like rain.
We’re in full-on harvest season now. The cover photo is all the stuff I picked in one day, not counting a pound of radishes I pulled and cleaned earlier that morning. Some of the tomatoes have gone to make ketchup. Thirteen pounds of tomatoes cooks down to three quarts, so that uses them up fast. Several quarts of green beans are put away in dry salt or brine, some traditional preservation methods I’m trying out.
Picked over four pounds of green beans today, and there might be that much again tomorrow. Will have to start canning some this weekend, or take some to the farmer’s market. Cooler weather and regular rain lately have things looking great. The fall plantings of peas, lettuce, carrots, spinach, and kale are all up and growing. Also picking a lot of tomatoes and some Swiss chard and sweet corn.