doomed

While taking my morning wake up walk I found myself subconciously tallying up the estimated next few days death toll due to the impending freeze. We'll lose the little cherries so abundant on the tree, guess the plums are a gonner, too. Are the paw paws far enough along to abort? Will the baby nuts and seeds and berries all come crashing to the ground on the third morning, instead of rising from the dead? Will the drought make it so that this first try at reproduction be the final effort for the critter food crops for this year? My sister Mary says that it will drive some birds northward, where things aren't so far along.

Took some premortem memorial photos of wildflowers and brought in reams of lilacs from the bush to "stink up" though house right good.
After work today, must cover with row cover the spinach, lettuce, herbs, bring in the potted ferns, spread straw around the peas, bring in firewood, rustle up some kindling...whew! lotta work comes from screwed up weather.

paw paw prolificacy

this is gonna be the year for paw paws! the trees are loaded with many, many blooms to the branch. This color is so mysterious and lovely to me, I have tried to duplicate in dying yarn, with no luck.

maybe I can try making paw paw wine this year!

chick(en) peas

spinach is up! (in the covered beds, only) and the lettuce that was up to eating size got severly frostbit as the remay cover blew off while I was at mom and dads and the temp got down low. Its all good, th0ugh, long as you have enough seeds, you just keep planting,
The portable pen has passed its first week of operation, with out falling apart, and the chickens are laying perkily, so it must be working for them, as I am not feeding commercial chicken feed to make them lay,
In the 25 years that I have raised chickens, I have tried every permutation of pen, coop and cage possible. I liked the hoop coops, but I believe I am going to like this design the best. (will write an article about coop design someday, pros and cons)
The sugar snap peas and snow peas and more spinach are planted now, too, just in time for more cold weather,
We had some rain,, need more. (am having troible typing, sliced my index finger with a razor blade-dumb trick, guess I will give up and not write ll the clever things I had planned too..ha!)

owls, fur and rain

found this lovely fur on the way to the old barn ruins out back...it was spread a little here, a little there, like bread crumbs along the trail. I wondered who got the rabbit meat that once was wearing this hair, don't think it was the dogs, because they like to flaunt the remains that they drag in, arranging them in the side yard that gets the most sun and is their afternoon napping area.
Though I do think it was the puppy who scattered it along the trail, I guessed that the predator was more of a legitimate one and I wondered if coyotes had moved in close again. So tracking the sparse trail towards the edge of the woods, gathering up the little tufts along the way to spin , I found the largest pile under a limb in the woods that is a known (well known to me, at least) barred owl hangout.
I like barred owls, I like to know that they are ever diligently swooping down on voles in the night, and their calls are comforting and musical.
So I thought of the owls this afternoon when I was working in the cabin and happened to glance towards the window. The gloom that had been hanging over the sky all day had suddenly gathered up darker and it looked just on the verge of actually dropping a much needed rain. Two things popped into my slow mind and caused me to speed up to put my boots on. One, you better get your firewood in for the evening so you aren't hauling it in a downpour, and two, is there an owl out there somewhere calling because it is about to rain?
As I wheeled the dolly towards the wood shed the first sprinkle hit my face and I heard the owl calling from his outpost tree by the old barn. Yes! should I be keeping score of the weather reporting owl?

boy howdy its cold

woke up to 7* outside, a toasty 49* in the cabin and 39* degrees in the bedroom. But thats ok, because I am living in the living room right now, all close to the stove. Makes it easier to chunk a stick of hickory on ever so often during the night.
They are calling for snow!!! Yippeee! it will make critter tracking so much the better. Now if I didn't have orders to fill, I could spend the whole day tracking.
This evening, just in case it does snow, I brought in extra firewood so it can stay dry, and drug home a sassafrass limb and a poplar limb, sawed and split them for "fire briskers" it takes that in this weather, just your regular old perk along fire don't get it.