I looked out the window a few days ago and saw three deer bedded down in our lower field.
Here in our little valley, no one hunts (in their own backyard), so the local deer are very relaxed, even at this time of year.
When I stepped out onto the deck, the deer lazily got to their feet, stretched, and looked at me.
Then they all casually moved off into the woods.
I like their attitude.
I finished feeding the cows late one afternoon. Walking back through the barn, I almost stepped on a woolly-bear caterpillar on the concrete floor. These are the larvae of the Isabella tiger moth.
I scooped it up and brought it outside. It had curled into a ball at this indignity and refused to uncurl.
The reason I was interested in having it uncurl was because I wanted to see the proportion of black to red.
Legend has it woolly bears can predict the winter. If their rusty band is wide, it will be a mild winter. The more black there is, the more severe the winter will be. While there are some data to back up this folklore, it's by no means definitive, and may in fact reflect the conditions of the previous winter (which frankly makes more sense).
In any case, my particular woolly bear refused to uncurl, so I finally scooped it up and placed it in a less vulnerable spot than the barn's concrete floor. It will find a place to overwinter, then emerge in the spring to spin a cocoon and transform into an adult moth.
Since we can't depend on the woolly-bear caterpillars to predict the weather, I guess we'll do what we've always done as winter approaches: Prepare to be snowed in for three months. That's the tactic we've taken each year since we moved to Idaho. In the 20+ years we've lived in this state, that philosophy only paid off during two winters (2006/7 and 2007/8, if I recall), and then it paid off in spades because those were very harsh winters. While we weren't snowed in for three months, it got close.
Got firewood?
Blueberries are amazing plants. Not only do they produce an abundant harvest...
...but they put on a show as well. The leaves turn brilliant scarlet.
It's like their last hurrah before they drop all their foliage and prepare for the next year.
It's a win-win no matter what season.
A couple days ago, I was raking leaves in the yard when I heard the distinct honking sounds of a flock flying overhead.
It didn't sound like either Canada geese or swans. The flock was enormous, too large to take in on one camera shot. But what kind of birds were they?
By cropping the photo, I could see black wing tips.
Aha! Mystery solved. These are snow geese.
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| Photo source: Travel Through Pictures |
Snow geese are famous for their spectacular feats of migration, typically about 3,000 miles twice a year. What a privilege to see them in action during this accomplishment.
In August, I harvested the two beds of garlic I planted last year.
The garlic has been sitting in a box on the back porch, waiting for planting. Periodically we'll dip into it for some fresh garlic for cooking, but mostly it's just been waiting for planting.
Last week, I finally got things done. First I had to prep the beds. I wanted to plant four beds instead of two this year, which meant weeding and raking things smooth.
This time of year, the oak that dominates this corner of the garden is stunning. There are worse things to do than prep garden beds under autumn foliage, y'know?
Prepping the beds didn't take long. I raked off the summer's straw mulch and put it aside, pulled a few weeks, raked the dirt smooth, and voilà.
Next I sorted the garlic.
I knew I could fit 100 cloves per bed, so I made four piles of 100 cloves each.
I laid out four rows of 25 cloves each. I later revised this to five rows of 20 cloves each, which fit better, but didn't get a photo.
After each bed was planted, I mulched it with straw.
And that's it, except for a little light weeding, until it's time to harvest late next summer. That's one of the things I enjoy about growing garlic: It's almost maintenance-free and produces an abundant harvest.
What's not to love?
It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.
It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.
It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.
Up to this point, we haven't had to feed the cows. They've been picking at the new-growth grass in the pasture, and we've rotated them around a bit to other locations as well. However we knew those opportunities would become limited as autumn advanced.
On November 1, we decided it was time to start feeding them, at least in the evening. We've had hay stacked in the barn since last year, but haven't used much of it.
So on the evening of Nov. 1, we went out and put about a third of a bale in the feed rack.
Then we called in the animals. They were a bit suspicious and weren't inclined to be cooperative.
But it was late and they were heading into the corral for the night anyway, so with a little persuasion, they came into the barn.
The moment – the moment! – they realized they had hay in the feeder, they plowed in and never looked back.
They've also been sleeping inside the barn every night, which I like. We're having rainier weather moving in, and it pleases me to know the animals are snug and dry in such conditions. It also means I have to clean the barn every day, but that's just part and parcel of having livestock.
Now in the evening, they're all waiting for me to fill the feeder. Oddly it's Filet (our massive and pregnant Angus) who leads the herd into the corral at night. She's usually the most stand-offish since she's a former range cow, so we find it amusing that she's the most eager to get into the barn each evening.
Very soon we'll start feeding them twice a day, and once there's snow on the ground we may even keep them locked in the corral. We're also close to using a stock tank heater to keep their water unfrozen (I had to break a layer of ice on the trough this morning).
Winter's a-coming.
Don has been working on a complicated project on the back porch (which will be a future blog post) for the last several weeks. As such, he has a large selection of both hand and power tools in constant use. He came into the house the other day with an expression both sad and frustrated. "My circular saw just died," he announced.
This Craftsman tool is something he's had for decades, literally. He tried to figure out when he purchased it, and concluded it was shortly after we were married, which would put it somewhere in the early 90s. "Older than the internet," he observed. You can't ask for more than that when it comes to the lifespan of a power tool, especially one he used as heavily as this circular saw.
Without much option, Don took himself into town to purchase another circular saw.
The new circular seems to be working fine, but it's not his old tool, y'know?
There's a certain nostalgic sadness at losing a trusty tool, especially since this new one is unlikely to last through a quarter-century of hard use.
So this is a requiem for Don's faithful old circular saw. May it rest in peace.
We've had an unusual late summer and early autumn. The weather is perfectly normal; but what's notable are the things missing.
The biggest missing thing is wild plums.
This part of Idaho has wild plums up the whazoo. In years past, they've been so thick, they've weighed down branches and carpeted the ground.
But this year? Nothing. Literally nothing. Zip, zilch, zero, nada. Of the hundreds of thousands of wild plum trees in the region, apparently not a single one yielded fruit. Lots of people were commenting on it.
Another thing missing this year, believe it or not, is blackberries. With wild blackberry bushes everywhere, normally there is tons of fruit.
This year? Absolutely nothing. And I mean nothing. The bushes all look healthy, but they bore not a single berry.
Another thing missing: Rose hips. Wild roses are a thorny staple around here, and they've always produced abundant rose hips.
Unlike the plums or the blackberries, there are some rose hips on some of the rose bushes, but they're small, scarce, and anemic, even though the rose bushes themselves seem healthy.
Another thing missing: Honey locust seed pods. We have a honey locust tree in our yard (when I photographed this, the leaves had almost all dropped).
Normally this trees drops hundreds of big honkin' seed pods. This year? Hardly any, maybe one percent of the amount we normally get.
Another thing missing: Mushrooms. Last year we had loads and loads of mushrooms popping up everywhere.
This year? Nothing. I've seen precisely zero mushrooms around us. Last year we had tons, especially after a hike in the mountains. (To be fair, there might be mushrooms along the hiking path; we haven't been there this year.)
The one thing that hasn't been impacted this year is apples, both wild and domestic. We have thousands of wild apple trees, and they've been producing heavily (no doubt to the relief of the wildlife, considering the dearth of other fruit). Our own trees produced a bumper crop.
As for everything else, I have no idea why we're having such a shortage of routine things. To the best of my knowledge, this year hasn't been wetter or drier or hotter or colder than normal.
Go figure.
Well here it is, November 1, and I'm embarking on the usual November madness: NaNoWriMo.
As most of you know, NaNoWriMo is thirty days of insanity as participants attempt to crank out a 50,000 word book in thirty days. Unbelievably, it works. Why? Because it gives writers a deadline. It's rather amazing how effective a deadline can be.
So I'm pounding the keyboard for my next Amish romance, with the working title of "Adele's Redemption." Onward!
