Thursday, October 26, 2017

Fall Must Be Over, Eh?

We knew it would happen.  Our long, lovely fall just may be coming to an end.  We've had rain all day today and the forecast is for 1-3" of snow overnight and into Friday.  At first we were being told to expect 5-8" but that's now been downgraded significantly.  Currently at 5 p.m. the temperature is holding at 41 degrees so we'll have to wait to see if it gets cold enough to allow snowflakes to fall and stay on the ground.

Continuing the completion of fall chores was thrown into high gear yesterday.

I planted the first of two beds of garlic on the 21st and finally got the second one in just yesterday, the 25th.  I'm not sure what happened this year as I try to have it all planted by Columbus Day, the 12th.  Did not make it this year.

With the threat of wet weather, we dug our potatoes on the 21st.  Not a good crop this year.  I'm not sure we got much more than a hundred pounds.  In our best years the taters have weighed in at over two hundred and fifty pounds all told.  As we said over and over as we were gathering up the scant quantity of spuds, "Well, we like rice."


In the flurry of oncoming bad weather, yesterday we harvested all our apples.  Again, a sparse year compared to usual. 

I finally, at long last, harvested the beets.  Got a very nice quantity of them and this coming week I'll be prepping most of them for the freezer with some stored "fresh" in the root cellar.

Chicken Mama and Gilligan got busy right after our duck and geese harvesting day, ground up a little over four pounds of duck meat, divided it in half and each made a batch of duck jerky using their own mixture of seasonings.  Both turned out very good, although Gilligan thought he might have put too much ground black pepper in his.  He thought of labeling it "Pepper Duck," but I suggested "Ducky Pepper."  (Get it?  Ducky Pepper . . . Dr. Pepper?  Huhn.  Well, I thought it was clever.)

'Tis time for me to think about baking our first batch of holiday fruitcake.  Maybe tomorrow when we're experiencing our first snow cover of the season (I'll believe it when I see it) will be the perfect time to do that.

12 comments:

Michelle said...

BRRRR. Haven't even had a frost here yet!

coffeeontheporchwithme said...

I STILL have to dig the last of the potatoes out of the ground. I sincerely hope you don't get snow. -Jenn

SmartAlex said...

My potato crop was less than half of what I expected also. This weekend I'll have to wrap up the landscape and vegetables that were holding on. I had a vivid dream this morning about picking the last of the bell peppers and judging their color. I think today is the last day for my big pepper pots.

Mama Pea said...

Michelle - And even more so with the "BRRRR" this morning!

Mama Pea said...

Jenn - If your weather is acting anything like ours, you'd better get thee out to your potato patch!

Mama Pea said...

SmartAlex - Yeah, what's with the potato crops this year? Maybe your dream was trying to tell you something?? It is that time of year! :o]

MrsDuncanMahogany said...

Yep, we got the snow yesterday morning. Its still here. Someone should tell it to shift itself. Its not welcome. Glad you got the rest sorted before the snows came. I think you may have gotten worse than us as it hit more to the south. I hope its done for awhile now!

Rain said...

Good thing you got your harvesting done Mama Pea!! The apple haul looks amazing! After Halloween I'll be starting to think about Christmas-time baking...but you do have your Thanksgiving in a few weeks now right? Have you decided on a menu?

Nancy In Boise said...

Great job! No snow here yet in town, 65 today and gorgeous! I want to try growing suds next year.

Mama Pea said...

MrsDM - As has been happening the last few winters, they got even more snow than we did SOUTH of us! Now, does that make sense??

Mama Pea said...

Rain - I have often thought you Canadians do it the right way . . . having your Thanksgiving in October. Here in the States, we have Halloween, then less than a month later, then another month later and Christmas is here. Too short a time between the two "family" holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas! Bah-humbug, I say! I can't decide this year whether to have a turkey, goose or duck for Thanksgiving!

Mama Pea said...

LHinB - You've never grown suds?? (Hee-hee.) I know you meant spuds! Do you have room for them in the traditional "on the ground" or will you have to go to a barrel method?