How one thing leads to another....

 December 11, 2022

Presently, I am cleaning the oven.

One recent evening, I popped an apple pie into the oven, and, horrors, forgot to put a pan under to catch the drips. Not bad at the time, pie came out, I saw the mess, but darn it was late. A job for tomorrow.

Last night, (its dark in my small oven, with no light), popped in the clay pizza pan to preheat because it was pizza night. Here I am prepping the toppings, (I harvested the three small peppers off of my indoor pepper plant and used them).....and that awful burning smell arose. NO! I hate, hate, hate a stinky oven. It totally destroys the pleasure of the good aroma of stuff baking in there. Well, I smeared the smoking mess around a bit in the hot oven, trying to get at least some of it out...

This morning, a great day, the snow is falling, the ground is whitening, yeah, yeah yeah! Motivation for Christmas baking, but darn, I have to clean that oven!!! So, here I am, waiting...... I should use a baking soda paste, but I want to bake, so have cheated and am using up the last smidge in a spray bottle of Easy-off. Gloves, mask and window open.

As well as trudging along on the Papilon shawl, (I'm on the 7th and last page of the pattern) I've done a bit of sewing. There is always a pile of stuff that needs mending, and I make myself work through that before I do any of the fun stuff. Somehow, just recently, I've been hooked into replacing a zipper and fixing a pocket on a neighbour's favourite hunting coat. I have until next November....!!!

So, I made a little quilt sandwich, and fashioned a pouch for my NEW Kobolibre2!

Yes, I've given in. A lot of books I'd like to read are in electronic format. Our library is small, and yes, they can get books in on loan, but it takes a while, and if there is something I'd like to read, I'd rather strike while the iron is hot, so to speak. It will be an adjustment, because to me, there is nothing as good as holding a real book in one's hands. 

Another small project is a Japanese knot bag. I've cut it out, but that is as far as I've gone yet. 

So, the waiting continues...Hope the motivation remains! And YES, the snow is falling, falling, falling!!!

Lifestyles, contentment and thankfulness....

Leigh's post over at 5acresandadream.com has got me thinking, about  lifestyles, thankfulness and contentment.

Over 5 years ago, we retired from our jobs, packed up and moved here, to the hill. After a couple of years of fruitless searching, we found this property on-line, came to see it, and knew.

We downsized our living space from a 2 and ½ story house

with basement, dining room, living room, kitchen, back porch, verandah, (I loved that verandah!!)

and 3 bedrooms, to a square log cabin with no basement, unheated back porch, a bigger verandah, and the Battery House.

August 2017

It involved absolutely getting rid of 40 years of stuff we wouldn't need. We were never on the consumer bandwagon, but one does acquire stuff, especially as members of one's family pass on, and there are important family things one cannot bear to dispose of. I don't know how many truck loads of stuff we hauled to the auction barn. We filled two storage units, one small and one regular sized one, with the stuff we were keeping. Knowing that we were going off grid also contributed to the clear out...how many electrical appliances does one own, griddles, mixers, blankets, etc.? I knew how small the kitchen was, and what little cupboard space there was. When all was said and done, I don't really miss any of it, really, (although on recently making Christmas fruit cake, I wish I'd kept those cake tins with the removable bottoms!!)...but, bread pans work. A cake is still a cake, no matter it's shape, and the fruit cake pans, bundt pans, angel cake pans etc. all went. (can you see that I like to bake?)

It was very strange to lock the back door on the way out (oops, almost missed the kitchen clock on the wall), the last time, and be homeless for a week until the sale closed. We lived in a tent with a screened dining tent alongside it, on a friend's acreage for that week, no bills, no commitments...it was very freeing...just let the lawyers do their thing.

Our house is small, there is a place for everything we need, and mostly, everything is in it's place. The bonus is all the space we have outside, to watch the changing seasons, and the surprises that Mother Nature dishes out. To have free sight lines (within our treed boundaries) to the sky, to the morning and evening sun, the moon rise and set, to see the clear swathe of Milky Way across the night sky, to watch the sun throughout the seasons on its inexorable journey along the horizon, to the south in winter, and (yeah!) after December, head north again.

My garden THEN

Only part of my gardens NOW

I am content. We have our good health, food I can grow, heat from the wood we harvested, electricity from our panels and battery bank, and a source of good water. What else does one need? I am so thankful that we live in a country where this is possible.

 

Random stuff....

A Happy Thanksgiving to all our American neighbours. 

We have a nice skiff of snow now, that I hope won't melt, but temperatures are drifting up into the plus side of freezing today.

First snow

 Last night we ate the final fresh broccoli shoots and pak choy in a stir fry, livened up colourfully, by the chopped red peppers I froze earlier. I love to look at something I've made and identify all the stuff in it that grew in my gardens.

The overwintering pepper has put out 3 peppers, but seems to be slowing down on the blooming front now, since daylight hours are shorter.

Just before the snow came, we had visitors in the yard.

We watched a flock of turkeys meander all over, constantly vocalizing with each other. Apparently this wasn't the first time they'd been here, as a trail camera close to the house caught them strutting by on another occasion. 

When starting a knitting pattern, it is wise to read through all the instructions first. In the case of the Papillon shawl, that is a bad idea, as it looks very, very confusing. Even the designer says to just start and work through the instructions one at a time. With some trepidation, I finally did just that, and she is right! There is a lot of counting involved, but it is much easier than I expected, and the pattern makes total sense. 

There is still a long way to go, and think I'll have to invest in a longer circular needle cord.
Back at our Thanksgiving time in October, on a foray around the back roads enjoying the coloured leaves, we came upon an eagle and a crow arguing over some road kill. 

The bird swooped up in front of the car and perched in this tree, waiting for us to leave.

 

 

Winter...where art thou??

November 5, 2022

 Harvesting lettuce in November???

Plants putting out buds and blooms???

perennial poppy

delphinium

brown-eyed susan

We have had a long string of warm sunny days, with nights well above freezing. I find it very unsettling, as this weather, at this time of year, is such a deviation from what I have been used to all my life. 

The pond is low, awaiting winter's top up.

The pepper plant I dug up, potted, pruned and brought into the house at the end of September,

has been putting out blooms that I've pollinated, and now there are tiny peppers forming.

 There are furry, white butt bugs flying around...

aphids in their winged phase

Chainsaw milled hemlock timbers for next summer's project....the root cellar.

another pile is behind this one

 and chainsaw milled pine lumber for other projects.

Indoors, I started to quilt the Christmas wall hanging... but it is so warm and sunny outside... not much is getting done on it.

 

Come on snow!!

Preparing for winter...

October 25, 2022

Over the last few days, Mother Nature has blessed us with sublime warmth and sun, a reward for enduring close to a week of wet, grey days. It has been great weather for getting the garden beds ready for winter. Today is a little overcast and dawned foggily, but it is still fairly warm, and expected to go up to 20C (68F) later. Over the weekend and yesterday, the afternoon temperatures topped out at 23C (73F).

The leaves are mostly off all of the trees now, just the oaks

 

and beeches

 

 

still cling firmly to theirs.

 The trembling aspen leaves

seem reluctant to drop until a breeze wafts through and then they shower down like fat gold coins, carpeting the ground beneath the trees. 

With the last few dry days, the colourful leaves covering the trails, have dried and faded to brown,

 so now a walk through them is a noisy, crunchy business.

The garlic was planted a week or so ago,

and over the past few days, manure has been spread on the other beds, and my quota of mulching leaves for next summer has been collected, bagged and stored in the barn.

I just love my 'Yellow Beast'! Its makes short work of collecting all the leaves I need. (I reuse those industrial strength bags until they are in tatters.)
I dug out the crocosmia bulbs and rearranged them in the tire planter, so hopefully they will give me more blooms next summer.  It was obvious that the corms had spent a lot of their energy making babies instead of blooming! 

Asparagus ferns are cut and laid over that bed, a little more protection for the roots, until we get a blanket of snow. 

The strawberry bed has been dug out, replanted and mulched with some fresh straw I scored from a neighbour.

Hubby has reinforced the hardware cloth sides, and once the lids are put on next spring, I defy those striped vermin to get my berries!

The bed of greens and the broccoli patch soldier on, as we have not had a frost heavy enough to finish them yet. 

The winterberry bushes are loaded this fall, a vibrant pop of red colour.....lots of food for my feathered friends. 

The colours of autumn.....

October 13, 2022

It is a very busy time of year, getting the gardens cleared and put to bed. We have had a wonderful string of warm, sunny days and frosty nights. 

Here are a few shots of what has been going on here over the last while, as well as some drone shots of the colours around our clearing. It is raining and windy today, and all those beautiful leaves are fluttering down with every gust. The next chore will be collecting them for next year's gardens. Soon we will be under 'bare poles' again. 

The pansy pot soldiers on, visited by a few bumblers, hunting for whatever sustenance is available now.  

The last, later planted broccoli, headed up right on time for Thanksgiving dinner.

The field garden, cleared, edged and ready for next year's bed arrangement.

The raised beds, ready as far as they can go, at this point. We've had frosts, but not one hard enough to finish the brassicas.  

 The morning sun, just starting to light up the tops of the trees behind the garden shed.

The north edge of the clearing behind the barn.

West side,

And cruising towards the 'back forty'.

Frost-tickles...

October 3, 2022

We have had fairly light frosts over the last few nights, each morning's temperature a little cooler than the last. This morning......

The sun is rising in a clear sky, after a cloudless night. The stars have taken on their winter brilliance, glittering diamonds in a black velvet sky. The Big Dipper, higher in the northern sky now, rotates on the end of it's handle throughout the night, showing the way to Polaris.

Gradually the gardens are being cleared and prepped for their winter sleep. Each day, as the frost made inroads on more plants, they were removed and composted. 

A week ago, on a warm sunny day, I spent the morning cleaning the alliums for storage.

More recently, the turnips and carrots were pulled, the turnips cleaned and waxed for storage, the carrots layered in a spare crisper drawer in the refrigerator.

The white clover planted in the bare spots of the raised beds, are a luxurious carpet of green, tempting me to leave them be, but turning them all under is rising closer to the top of the 'to do' list. I had a small packet of old pea seeds that I poked in around the edges of this bed.

The pepper patch continued to grow, sending up new branches and more blooms. It seemed such a shame to rip them out...but..time was up. This is the last picking off of the plants.

The stems are thick and strong, a result of pruning the plants, early in their life.

I chose one of the Red Carmen pepper plants, drastically pruned it back, gave it a spray down with soapy water, rinsed it's roots free of soil, then put it in a pot with good potting soil, and brought it indoors. It will be an experiment to see if I can overwinter it. I like the variety, and it is an hybrid whose seeds have become quite expensive, so I'll be interested in seeing how this works out. So far it has shown no adverse effects from the rough treatment.  

The first pumpkin, cooked and processed into pie and muffins.

With the wood stove going lately, at least in the mornings, I have been processing the pumpkins and freezing the mush in two cup portions. I need to free up space in the storage room!