September summer

After nearly seven weeks straight of cool, cloudy and very wet weather, Mother Nature has blessed us with a true Indian summer. Beautifully clear sunny skies during the day, down to near freezing at night. We've had plenty of fog to go along with this welcome change, and I've been fortunate that it burns off quickly at home every day. In fact, they are forecasting record breaking temperatures tomorrow, wow!

The greenhouse is mucked out so this weekend all that is left to do is to hose down the benches and floors-and then stack everything back inside. This time, I will make sure that the items I will need for next spring, are near at hand and easy to access.

An very large cow moose helped herself to my cabbages, so I only managed to get four smaller ones put away for the winter. I made one last pass through the garden and scrounged up another half dozen zucchini's, and then we let the chickens loose. Talk about some happy birds! Oh my goodness, they are everywhere, scratching, sun bathing, making holes in the dirt and so forth. They even come when I call, the older birds knowing my call means "goodies" and the younger pullets following along. It can be quite the sight to see nearly a dozen chickens come stampeding your direction, lol! On a related note, next year we'll set up horse panels around the garden to stave off any forays by the local moose.

We've gotten the majority of the firewood cut, split, and stacked already. Still a pile to split and stack and I hope to get after that this weekend in the afternoons. In the mornings, I have been out hunting. Yep, that fat old broad on the four wheeler with a rifle in one hand, that would be me ;) My hub went hunting too, upriver at a cabin for five days....no luck at that time. He'll be back in town for the closing days and one can always hope. In the meantime, there is me. I made a huge newby mistake last weekend, though. I totally forgot I had binoculars in my pocket, and passed by an opportunity to shoot because I couldn't see details. You can be sure I won't be making that mistake again, lol I have a hunting partner and I'll be out as many times as I can manage this weekend, no matter what. Sleep can come later, right?

The biggest fall chore (aside from firewood, of course) is done as well....we have processed all the salmon, yippee! This year we made a very mild smoke, it is positively yummy. It's a three day project from beginning to end, and I think my hub gets better and better every year. All I know is folks seem to really look forward to our salmon, including the relatives down south. It's nice to see the jars in the pantry, that's for sure.....but gosh it is a lot of work.

Back to the weather.....well, with this long sunny stretch, a person would think that getting up decent hay would be easy, right? Sorry to disappoint, but that is not the case. Instead, it takes longer than the normal time, due to heavy dew and low lying fog every morning. It's been very still so there have not been any winds to help dry the hay. But I am optimistic that we'll have horse hay, instead of being in a near crisis situation. Now I am not so stressed about where I am going to find hay, whew!

Last night I managed to get some berry picking in, and have enough high bush cranberries for at least one batch. High bush cranberries are pretty much a family effort, and all the berries end up with me so that I can make cranberry ketchup for us all. Another one of those "all day long" projects but the results are marvelously tangy and flavorful.

Get out and enjoy the sunshine, everyone!