Crafting....

 Well, the weather has been a bit dreary and grey lately. We had a small skim of snow overnight on Sunday, but it has since melted off, except for a bit in north-facing, shaded spots....So, thought I'd post a more cheery header. This is a log cabin afghan that I crocheted quite a few years ago. I put all my yarn ball-ends in two bags, one of light coloured balls, and one of dark coloured balls and just pulled out whatever my hand grabbed and went with it, keeping the darks and lights in their proper sequence, of course.

Last spring, I started knitting this sweater for Hubby,

and worked away at it, mostly in the evenings. Being a 'typical' man, he just knew I was knitting, (again), and never asked what I was making. It has been stashed away all summer. Recently, I dug out the pieces, blocked and sewed them together while he was out. It still needs the buttons put on and a final blocking done.

Over the summer and fall, I was able to work through a few pairs of socks for Christmas giving.

These long, dark mornings are helpful, as I can never adjust to the fall time change, and still arise around the same time as in the summer, which works out to be between 4 and 5 AM. There is a pair for our son, for Hubby, his brother, (still working on them), and one for my friend. Also for my friend, is a shawl I've been puttering away at for forever..it seems.

It got put away so many times, as it got boorrringg! But, now it is done, and I hope she enjoys it's bit of warmth while she waits for the fire to get going in the mornings, while sipping her morning beverage.

An afghan...a C2C crocheted blanket, just random stripes, made out of an easy wash and wear acrylic, for our son. That also was put away for a long time, but finished this fall. The yarn was purchased for a much more interesting cat-patterned afghan, but on starting it, I changed my mind, as it was way too involved and I knew it would never be finished.

In September, I joined a hand quilting circle, and we worked away on some things, a couple of hot pads to start, then I made a pillow top and just completed that.

Our ancestors used to make quilts all by hand, and it is relaxing, and yes, addictive (!) to stitch away. It is a very portable craft as well. This brings to mind a  memory of long ago, when my mother had me cut out tiny squares, probably no bigger than 2 inchers, and showed me how to sew them together, by hand. It was a scrappy 9 patch. Many years later, when I returned home after a sojourn overseas, I found, on my bed, my little uneven blocks all sashed and made into a quilt. She had rooted out my squares and made me a quilt as a coming home gift. I'm sure she had to reinforce some of my wobbling stitch lines! That quilt has long since disintegrated, but was such a lovely surprise at the time, as I'd forgotten all about those labourously sewn together squares. Now with acrylic rulers and rotary cutters, one can be much more accurate.

Here are some squares and rectangles cut out ready for today's class, as I am hoping to make at least the center of this quilt, (a festive pillow top?), or if I get really ambitious, perhaps I'll finish the whole thing.

As for the garden...it is pretty much bare now, the herbs are keeled over from the frost, although the kale is still usable. The glad corms got cleaned and hung up in onion bags in the cool room. I had a lovely sunny day to do the job.

It always is amazing to see the shriveled up, depleted remains of what was, the spring-planted fat bulb, adhering to the bottom of the new, bigger corm.  Those old corms produced 2 flower spikes each, some even threw up a third spike, and grew a new corm as well!

Bush wandering...

 It is mid November, and crazily warm for this time of year here. The days are sunny and still, the temperatures going up into the teens C, (53 to 59F), and there have been only a few, very light frosts visible as a white coating on the grass, some mornings. 

The gardens are settled for winter, the garlic bed is leaf mulched, but in the herb barrels, the mint is still green and vibrant, the oregano shows only a bit of frost singeing, and the parsley is verdant. The chard and kale are fine, and we'll continue to use them until the deer find them, then they are out of there, as I don't want habituated garden deer!

 It has been wonderful weather for walking in the woods, the leaves crunching and rustling under our feet. I've noted a few things on my walks. The red squirrels also prepare for winter by drying things... Here and there in the bush, one finds a mushroom propped up in a tree branch crotch. A red squirrel has put it there to dry, and will retrieve it later and store it away. 

Here is a deer rub on a sapling, probably made by a small buck, maybe by the little fork horn that I showed a night picture of in the last post.

Day light buck pictures would be rare, as they are very, very cautious about showing themselves, the big ones get that way by being cautious! 

Yesterday, on a meander through the hemlock grove, my attention was immediately captured by a small, rapidly moving critter...it was Marty, a martin.

They are very inquisitive animals, and he came up to within 10 feet, looking at me with those beady black eyes. Martins never seem to stop moving, only just briefly, to look, then are off, fossicking around roots and rocks and logs. The resident squirrels and chipmunks knew he was there, and were all scolding madly within the vicinity. 

The temperatures are supposed to move into more November-like territory on the weekend, so, unlike a lot of folk....yes, I am looking forward to snow!

Pumpkins in the woods....

It is that time of year again....and all those pumpkins are looking for this...

or this.

 The annual two week rifle hunt for deer is on in our neck of the woods. Bow season starts earlier and carries on after this two week period, but for the rifle season, all hunters are required to wear blaze orange. We are located in an hunting area, private camps are around us as well as crown land and county forest, where hunters have been coming for years. It is wise to wear orange when out and about, so I don my orange fleecy for regular walks on the road, and even in our bush, as one never knows when someone has come wandering in by mistake. 

Once this madness is over, I feel a sense of freedom, as the bush empties out, and we can wander at will without concern.

We are finally getting regular frosts, after the October 23rd frost that put paid to my late blooming marigolds and nasturtiums. The kale pops back to vertical every day, despite the now regular nightly coating of frost. We are having a run of beautiful, crisp, sunny fall days, the frost causing the final aspen and maple leaves to come drifting down once the morning sun hits the canopy. Beech leaves hang on, and will stay until spring when the swelling buds dislodge the old leaves, which will fade from yellow, to coppery bronze before spring arrives.

Fall garden prep.....and wildlife

After a cold, rainy weekend, by Monday morning, the coolness had crept inside, the temperature nudging down into the 50's F. so we lit the fire, and kept it going all day, the first real fire of the season.
The weather teeter-totter has switched again, and yesterday was a sublime, sunny, breezy, fall day, the temperature up to 19C (66F) by afternoon.

 We did a walk around the trails over the weekend, in the dreary weather.

Leaves are really coming down and the trails are covered. On the cameras, a big, lazy bear came ambling by.

The video showed how slow and ponderous his gait was, like he was already half asleep. A Chickadee photo-bombed one camera!

We still have not had an hard frost, but Tuesday morning, we awoke to crispy white stuff on the ground and garden beds.

As the sun came up in a blue sky, it melted off the frost, and the marigolds and nasturtiums soldier on, the little crust of frost not seeming to bother them one iota. I have spread manure and turned over a few beds, but am still waiting for frost to really finish off those plants. Even after a few inclement days, the pollinators are out and buzzing in the blooms.

I dug out the beautiful egg plant....its roots stretched right across the four foot wide bed, and with a stem like this, no wonder it could hold all that fruit!

The last few carrots were pulled,

and the ginger plant dug out. It has a few small, tender rhizomes.

The last glad spike did bloom,

and yesterday I dug up all the gladiola corms, cutting that one bloom to come inside and be enjoyed. The plants are all stuffed upside down in pails to dry for a week or so, then I will clean and store the corms.

Yesterday, I planted 84 fat garlic cloves, and am now waiting for a calm day to spread the leaf mulch and hardware cloth, to hold it down.

Wild strawberries are blooming. I guess they are a little confused by this warm fall!

Golden October....

We are heading toward the middle of October, and still have had no  frost other than the light dusting mentioned in my last post. This is certainly an unusual fall with no frost yet. Daytime temperatures have been in the 20 to 24C range (68 to 75F) so far this week, and night time temperatures are what the average day time temperatures should be.

My marigolds and nasturtiums are still beautiful,

and I don't want to pull out the pea/bean fence and disturb them until the plants are frozen.

 Pollinators are still active, particularly in the borage.

Tree leaves are falling, the bright red soft maples are done, their red leaves spread around the base of their trunks on the ground. We are in the yellow and orange phase now.

Some of the garden beds are empty and ready for winter, while others hold a few plants.

The herb bed has blooming basil and savory, and a few calendula buds are still opening.

A friend gave me some small, leggy tomato plants late in the season. They were still in their starting pots, and suffering. I planted them out anyway, here and there where I could find a bit of space, and they have grown and fruited, but too late to ripen this summer. I plan on leaving the tomatoes on the plant until cold weather threatens, then bring them in and see if they will ripen indoors. It is a big, long paste tomato, that is supposedly delicious. I'd like to get seeds from it for next year.

There is one very late spike of buds rising from one gladiola plant. Will it or will it not get to bloom? I am waiting until the last possible moment to lift the glad corms. 

 

 

Hedgehogs, puffs, shaggys, combs and garden harvesting......

After that huge rain event, the bush and fields are erupting with mushrooms. The giant triple puffball growing beneath the crab-apple tree is expanding daily.

September 26

We sauteed up the fourth one that was off by itself, decided it was pretty bland, so we left the others to do their thing.

They are still expanding, volleyball sized now. Two of them seem to be totally squashing the third one. Their surfaces look, and feel like soft leather.

October 5

Shaggy manes keep coming up along the edges of the driveway, and under the tractor.

We harvested some of them, but they are so delicate and short lived, and love coming up through gravel, so it's hard to get all the grit off of them. 

Honey mushrooms are everywhere in the bush, as are smaller, more flavourful puff balls. On Sunday, I scored a Hedgehog mushroom.

Hedgehog and puffballs

It is one that I've been on the lookout for, and is the first one I've ever found. It was super delicious...now one of my favourite foraged mushrooms. I always slice the puff balls in half, to be absolutely sure they are puffballs, as poisonous white amanitas can be deceptive in their button stage.  

During a little walk around the trails yesterday, we found a couple of other edibles.

Bear's head tooth

Comb tooth

We have tried the comb tooth, and its flavour is very mild. 

 
After having a guest for the better part of last week, then a foggy, rainy weekend, I am finally getting back to dismantling the garden. The potatoes have been dug, some of them so big, one might feed three people!

We had two nights with a frost advisory late last week, and Friday morning we awoke to a white crust of frost here and there, over the grass. It wasn't a heavy frost though, and we had covered the frost sensitive plants. Yesterday I turned under the last bed of buckwheat and pulled the last tomato plants. We procured our load of manure over the weekend, so can now go ahead and get it spread on the beds and turned under. The pepper plants were still putting out blooms, but there is no way they would ever make fruit this late in the season, so I pulled them and harvested the remaining peppers.

They will be sliced and dehydrated for winter pizzas. I've been pulling and sharing my second planting of carrots. Here are a few I pulled just for a picture. They are long, and straight, with no sign of carrot fly maggots. 

Down beside the rock pile in the back yard, my tire planters are giving us a lovely last burst of colour, marigolds, asters and the last crocosmia blooms.

Fall garden chores....

Well, the weather person said it was going to rain...there were two and a half inches in the rain gauge yesterday at noon, and it is still coming down! We sure needed it though, as the ground was becoming dust-dry. The fall equinox occurred yesterday, and the rain and cooler temperatures have arrived, right on cue. (6 inches (!!!) in my rain gauge this morning at 7AM, and still raining...so glad we live on a hill!)

It's been a busy time, stashing away produce and fruit, processing tomatoes and trying to clean up the garden wherever things are finished for the year.

The squash and pumpkin vines turned yellow and mildew-y, so I harvested the Red Kuri squash and the pumpkins. The squash were starting to grow odd little bumps on them, but I think that is normal for this variety.

Kuris to the left, pumpkins to the right

We found a potato rolled out of it's hill, just laying there, and on investigation, it looks like some curious critter (probably our resident fox) sniffed its presence out, and dug it out to see what it was. No harm done.

The sweet peas across the front of the asparagus patch are pulled, the hardware-cloth fence removed, the soil turned, and yes, there were a few marble-sized potatoes there which had managed to grow despite me yanking out the sprouting tops regularly. I'll lift the existing old hay mulch among the asparagus stems, add some manure there, as well as along the front of the patch, then put new mulch over the whole bed. It will be just; The Asparagus Patch; from now on. There are lots of sturdy big stems and I'm looking forward to next spring's bounty!

The garlic and onions have all been cleaned and stored.

The garlic is amazing, but I'll never use it all. Plans for planting later this fall will be for less than the 100 cloves I planted last fall, for sure!

The onions have been so full of moisture from all the rain we had this summer, that they appear to have been splitting their skins while they were drying?? (They were intact when they were harvested.) I am concerned about how well they will keep this year, and will be checking them often throughout the winter.

The yellowing vines have been pulled off of the bean fence, and the dry pods I left to cure, have yielded some lovely big, fat, bean seeds.

Eight of the turnips are pulled and cleaned ready for waxing, but the main crop is still in the ground. 

We ate two small ones..Yum

 

Once things dry up after this rain, I'll be pulling, cleaning and storing the rest.

Tomatoes are still ripening, although I have pulled and tossed a few plants of those big, beautiful, but tasteless specimens. I am sure they will be back to haunt me next year, when all those seeds germinate from the compost! The paste tomatoes are pretty good, so I'm concentrating on them.

Two batches of salsa, one of chili sauce, and one of pasta sauce, are on the shelves. 

Carmen peppers and onions for Chili sauce

More tomatoes have been squirreled away in the freezer for later processing when the wood stove is going. On the agenda now is a batch of Grandmother's green tomato mincemeat, a Christmas tradition here, for pies and tarts. I ferreted out the amount of green tomatoes needed for the recipe, and there actually weren't a lot to find!

The eggplants are still producing, one plant in particular is so beautiful, and loaded with fruit.

On a recent walk around the bush trails, we found some mushrooms fruiting, but expect a whole lot more after all this rain, especially if the forecast for continuing mild overnight temperatures is true.