Busy days continue...

September 17, 2025

This stretch of warm sunny days we are experiencing, is perfect for getting on with winter preparation. We did have a touch of frost one early morning. 

Apple-ing:

  

Canning:

Picking:

 

Finding: 

lots of acorns...

 and loaded down apple trees.

There shouldn't be any hungry bears this fall!

Another trip to Ottawa. 

Golden Lake, a bank of mist rising, on a cool September morning.

Visiting the Arboretum at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa. 

What an amazing collection of trees have been grown here. This large oak tree was at the bottom of a somewhat steep slope, but above and behind the photographer is a very large grove of many, many different trees, many unfamiliar. 

Within the area dedicated to maple species was the largest Sugar Maple I've ever seen.

This amazing looking tree was in the W.T. Macoun memorial gardens.

A beautiful place to visit, well worth a trip in every season of the year.

Here are some visitors to our place. 
 

 

Busy September days

September 8, 2025

With these cool, dew-wet September mornings, my days are split between doing indoor stuff in the morning, and outdoor stuff in the afternoon.  Everyday, a little bit more gets accomplished in the processing and preserving department, and a bit more of the worn and weary looking garden, is cleared out. 

One morning it was bread and applesauce.

Another morning it was making another batch of sauerkraut with the last cabbage. What a beauty!

Here it is, just harvested, laying beside the fall greens bed.

These guys are loving these cooler days and nights.

We have had a couple of good downpours of rain, thankfully reducing the wildfire risk, and relieving me of the weekly watering routine. In the squash patch, I've been fighting powdery mildew, but as of now, am letting it go. The fruit are very mature, and I'm going to let nature take it's course. 

Last night and tonight we are under a frost advisory, so the covers are out over the pepper and tomato plants, and the still producing zucchini.  Warmer nights are forecast once we get through these couple. 

Today, I dismantled the cucumber fence. I am cucumbered out! The pickle shelves are as full as they need to be in the storage room, and the last pickings are fermenting in a jar with some dill and garlic. There are always a few mammoth green cylinders hidden in the greenery, how on earth did I miss them? 

What I did miss, was this..

A bird had built a nest in behind the screen of cucumber leaves, perched partially on the fence wire, nestled in the old pea vines. Inside was one little brown-speckled egg. One assumes and hopes that there were more, and that they hatched successfully. 

Hummingbirds are still visiting the flowers and the feeder, but expect them to become scarce very soon. They are usually gone by mid-September. Today a low flying flock of geese, in V formation, flew over. Coloured leaves are starting to show up, and a definite chill in the night-time air heralds the changing seasons. 

We had some gusty winds one evening, and the bean teepee took on a decided lean, so we buttressed it up with some guy ropes.

Some late-sown sunflowers have started blooming, and bees are loving them.

Hubby has been busy building me a new, taller shelving unit to hold my cookbooks. Can't wait to get them moved into their new home.

Beautiful clear blue September skies.