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.