It's that time of year....

 October 14, 2024

Fall is always a busy time, dismantling gardens, preserving and/or storing the harvest, and getting everything ready for the coming cold. Every time I go outside with a specific goal in mind, so many other little things seem to line up to be done before the major chore...and time flies by, but gradually, things are being accomplished. All the water barrels have to be drained, temporary eavestroughs removed, any thing that would not benefit from being frozen, has to be put into heated buildings. All the garden beds need to be cleared out, stakes and cages stored, manure and compost spread. Finally the temperatures have dropped enough that pollinators are very scarce now. I like to have everything tidy and ship shape before Mother Nature lays her blankets of frost and snow.

We have not had a killing frost yet, just mornings of patchy frost here and there on the grass. 

We still have a couple of rows of spuds to dig. The temperature in the root cellar has come down to an acceptable number, so after a few days drying on screens in the barn, they will be all checked over and stored.

Voles have been very prolific this year, and they have done a little damage on some potatoes, eaten big chunks out of my peppers, and have been chewing on carrot tops. I have been harvesting peppers since they were big enough, have used them in two big batches of pasta sauce, made red pepper jelly, roasted red pepper ketchup, dehydrated a few, and have diced and frozen some. This is the final harvest. It has been a good pepper year.

 We've certainly been enjoying the fresh greens from the hot frame, and so far, it has not been cold enough to make me lower the glass.

Some pictures from the trail cameras recently. We've put a new camera down on a late-ripening apple tree behind the barn, and it has garnered some interesting shots. This sequence of a doe eating an apple...

Spike...

 Mama bear and her fat, lazy cub...

who managed to climb up and jiggle the camera angle after this shot, as further pictures after this one were of the ground. Thankfully no damage was done.

Birds, squirrels and mice are still appearing on 'Bird Cam' on the branch of the oak tree. Robins are still here,

and this is a similarly sized thrush, a Hermit or Wood thrush??

Leaves are coloured and beginning to fall. Thanksgiving is the time of peak autumn colour around here. A couple of pictures of some colour in the woods.

                                        Happy Thanksgiving.

A bit of this and that, and winter prep....

 October 2, 2024

We've had a lovely stretch of warm, sunny days to finish off September. October has started a little cooler due to an overnight cold front that pushed through and dropped an inch of rain last night. Autumn mornings are very dew-wet, and sometimes quite foggy, but the sun has been able to burn off the fog, and dry up the dew, until by afternoon, it is perfect to be outdoors.

I recently sliced up a bevvy of fresh garden vegetables, and made canned coleslaw. We'll see if we like it.

Some garden-fresh red peppers going under the broiler for roasting...roasted red pepper jelly in the making.

A recent warm afternoon was perfect to clean all the garlic and onions and get them prepared for winter storage. There are a few shallots there as well. This is the first time growing them. The red onions were grown from seed, the yellow from sets, and there isn't a very noticeable difference in size between them.

I potted up a couple of pretty geraniums, and some coleus for bringing indoors later. Behind them is a little fig tree I got this spring, and it has grown 3 figs. No chance of them ripening before frost!

The plum trees are prepped for winter with firmly staked deer deterrent cages to prevent the winter winds from bowling them over. The trunks are wrapped to prevent vole chewing. There seem to be a lot of voles around this fall, and if we get a good depth of snow this winter, they will create havoc under it. Two winters ago, they girdled an unprotected small crab apple tree, and killed it. Lesson learned...wrap the baby trees!

There is a bit of leaf colour appearing around the clearing, and expect it to intensify over the next couple of weeks.

 

 Garden clear out is awaiting frost now. In the meantime, there are still cherry tomatoes, lots of greens, and the root crops are still in the ground. I'd love to get at it, but the root cellar is still a little too warm for storage...and these guys are still active.

Pumpkin Pie and mushrooms....

 September 23, 2024

That would be an odd combination!

Finally, the September drought has broken with a lovely rainy day. The broccoli side shoots were getting ahead of us, so this morning I blanched and froze a good picking, two and a half pounds more are now stashed in the freezer. Seeing as the steamer was hot, in went a quartered pumpkin, and it cooked while I made a batch of pastry. 

Voila! Pumpkin pie!

The new hot frame is doing very well...except for some vermin that was having a random dig in it, so Hubby made an hardware cloth frame to cover it, and today put an handle on it so it can be easily lifted and propped up while accessing the interior. We are enjoying some beautiful crispy greens. 

On the trail cameras, apparently this young buck (see his spikes?) was getting a little too personal with this doe....who put him in his place.

Blue jays are showing up noisily, in their new winter finery, after being scarce all summer...

In the bush, lots of different and interesting fungi are appearing. This one, a 'Bear's head tooth' fungi,

and this one...

the 'late fall, or resinous polypore'. So many interesting shapes, colours and textures.

Asters are giving us a lovely bit of colour in the gardens, but although there are flashes of yellow here and there, fall leaf colours are still to come.

It's Shaggy time!

 September 18, 2024

Just did a little foraging for breakfast this morning...Shaggy Manes are coming up all along the side of the garage in the gravel which is now growing up in clover, so they are very much cleaner as they emerge.

The frost scare earlier in the month had us covering the tomatoes, peppers and melons for three nights. Now the temperatures have swivelled in the opposite direction...the days are sweltering with a humidex closing on 30C. (86F) It is just not what one expects in September! It has been quite a stretch of these hot days, which the weather forecast says will continue on into early next week. Not ideal temperatures for working outside!! The nights are only getting down to the mid teens, (60F), so the windows are wide open. The Whip-poor-wills are still here and calling evening and morning, and the Barred owls are a little more vocal of late.

We are getting a number of different bears showing up on the trail camera placed by a pile of apples we put back in the bush, raked up from under the two trees closest to the house. Bird Cam. in the oak tree gave us a surprise...

This is our resident Broad-winged hawk. After this shot, he returned at a different time and proceeded to preen, fanning his feathers out at odd angles, but the lens was fogged up, so not shots good enough to post. 

Another visitor to the oak limb is this little guy...

There are many shots of him running up and down the limb, as well as more of the flying squirrel who seems to spend a lot of time doing the same. The limb must be a good 'jumping off' spot for him. 

The squash and pumpkin harvest is in...cleaned and lined up in the storage room.

I like growing things like this that don't require immediate processing! They will keep while I tend to stuff that won't keep.

In the front porch kitchen is a roaster oven of pasta sauce simmering down, covered by cheesecloth. It is a new to me recipe that I'm giving a try. It seems a better way than standing over the hot stove stirring. The dehydrator has been busy drying apples, and I think just one more load will complete our winter supply. They are delicious just eaten as is, but re-hydrated are good in baked goods and one favourite way of eating them is cooking them in a winter morning's pot of oatmeal.

The garden is being slowly dismantled. All the tomato plants are out except the cherries which are drooping with clusters of fruit. 

Asters, planted here and there in the gardens, are now blooming and adding colour to the predominant yellows and oranges of the tall marigolds.

I still have the bulk of the pepper patch to process, broccoli is keeping us in side shoots, and there are lovely turnips rutabagas and cabbages still to come. Potatoes are waiting patiently in the ground for the root cellar temperature to cool down into keeping territory.

Bears, bears...more bears

 September 6, 2024

Last week I posted pictures of a sow bear and a pair of cubs. This week's camera chips have shown us this...

See the eye glint of the third one coming behind? (Click the pic for a better look.) So...do we have a sow with triplets, or two sows with two and three cubs respectively????
We do know we have this fellow,

walking between the end of the garden beds and the camera mounted on the back porch on Monday night. The ghostly apparition behind him is a caged tomato plant with a cover over it...because a frost warning was out for Monday night!! Thankfully it didn't freeze, although it definitely got a little nippy, but temps have now gone back to a more normal range for this time of year. Last night, on driving home after dark, I rounded a corner on our road to find a cow and calf moose in front of me. Boy, are those critters big when they are up close!

Bird Cam has yielded more pictures of the flying squirrel and this one of a Yellow Shafted Flicker.

Garden harvesting continues.

Peppers this year are amazing. I blanched, sliced and dried these few for winter pizzas, and am contemplating what to do with the rest. All my squash vines have come down with powdery mildew, so as soon as it dries up after today's drizzle, the plan is to harvest all the squash and dispose of those vines somewhere other than the compost. 

A recent "Hubby-build", is this Broadfork to use in the raised beds. It loosens and aerates the soil without disturbing the soil structure. Looking forward to using it, instead of digging the beds over.

We still have at least three Hummingbirds entertaining us while harassing each other in and out of the flower bed, but expect them to head south very soon. This Monarch was looking fresh and colourful, and will probably be going south soon as well.

It is that time of year.

Another random bear...

and some beautiful cream puff clouds from earlier in the week.

Bears, bears, bears.....

August 31, 2024

It wasn't what I'd planned to post about today, but on doing our weekly trail camera SD card pick-up and seeing the bear pictures, plus knowing they've been about, evidenced by the strange dark, seed filled protrusions here and there in the grass around the yard that just appear overnight....

First of all...in the yard..these guys...twins??

One of them heading right for the camera which is mounted on one of the small solar panel poles, but on a different night. Oh Oh!

He must have lost interest, as no damage.

This is got to be with mom...unless mom has grown an extra ear, the second little guy is on her far side.

Bigger bear, different camera.

One of the above, or a different, solo yearling? It is checking out the pile of apples we have raked up from around the two trees that are closest to the house.

(The time and date stamp on the cameras are mostly wrong, but perhaps the temperature reading is correct!) This is the ATV trailer this morning, two days worth. If we left them, we'd be knee deep in windfalls and wasps.

These two are frequenting the yard regularly, Scruffy and her buddy. Scruffy, because she doesn't seem to be able to shed her winter coat. All the other deer are sleek and fawn coloured. We've noticed her on the trail camera pictures since spring. Click on the pictures to get a better look.

They are under the crab apple tree, just about 30 feet from the window through which this picture was taken.
Garden harvesting continues... A bowl of broccoli...

Apples and sunflowers...

My first beautiful pumpkin, of which there are many more...

And I'll stop with this absolutely beautiful girl...I think it is a female, Common Green Darner. I noticed a glimmering, gold coloured shimmer in the grass when I was doing my morning garden walk-about Thursday. What on earth??? Her wings are golden gossamer. She stayed long enough for me to get the camera, and I took pictures, but she blended into the grass a lot. Next morning, Hubby spotted her resting on the lilac bushes and got a better picture....

I'd say there is nothing 'common' about her!