Hello readers! My best intentions to write regularly always fall apart when life happens and I have things to write about. We have been steadily getting ready for winter, like the new goat waterer, secured to the fencing and ready to have the floating water de-icer added when the time comes.
For this winter, it’ll be kept full by hauling water out in 5 gallon water jugs, once it’s too cold for the hoses. We will get a water line at some point, but I’m not sure exactly where the place where I will want it permanently placed is, so hauling it will be for now. It’s only maybe 200 feet from the house to the water, so we will make do :)
It will suck just a bit if we end up finally getting massive dumps of snow this year, though.
We harvested the potatoes in time for Thanksgiving (that was October 11 this year in Canada) and I am really happy with how well they did. They got nearly flooded several times (thanks to both my memory and Mother Nature) between some serious drought and that insane heat we had in June, and I really expected some serious rot… but ended up getting about 20lbs of absolutely perfect russets from seed potato size to a few gigantic monsters, and lots of in between They’ve been made into our Thanksgiving mashed potatoes as well as the best home fries we’ve had yet. We don’t really ever see fresh potatoes up here, so these are a real treat.
Thanksgiving was quiet but turned out pretty special, as the biggest and best Aurora Borealis we’ve seen in the 10 years we’ve been here, showed up that night! This one was visible as far south as NW Oregon, and I was thrilled that I had JUST gotten a new phone that could take decent photos, especially night photos! For the curious, I went from a 5ish year old Samsung s7 to a s20. Huge upgrade!
The sauerkraut that I started on September 19 is slowly doing it’s thing, though I had too much packed into each jar so it was fermenting slower than it might have been. I pulled enough out of the 4 original jars to make 2 more and they’ll be finished up in another week or two, after which they’ll get water bath canned to preserve until we are ready. We don’t actually eat all that much sauerkraut, so I don’t want to risk it going bad in the fridge, even if it can stay good for months.
- The Garden & Greenhouse this Week - July 17, 2024
- Avoiding cooked chicken in a heatwave - July 8, 2024
- I think the peppers are intimidated by the tomatoes - July 1, 2024