Thursday, October 06, 2022

A Beautiful Day

Michael's progress on our fall list came to a screeching halt. He has strep. I knew he didn't feel well so Allie and I waited so I could get GG up, get him through the morning routine and settled with breakfast, coffee and a paper. Stacia stayed with him while we headed out. I had a pretty clear day after breakfast study with Allie.  I took care of some ministry paperwork and tackled the second of our inside freezers. The chickens were happy with my efforts. Much more freezer in this freezer than the others.  

GG took a nap at the same time that Stacia finished school. She and I went outside to see how much we could get done.  It was 64* at our place! Beautiful!  I want to get the garden beds covered and so we harvested the last crop in the beds - the carrots! Harvesting root crops is always like digging for treasure. One never knows what they will unearth. 

What manner of craziness be this? 


The rain has not been good for much of the garden - but this is my best carrot year. We haven't bought carrots in months, and we've been EATING from the garden.  In year's past most my carrots have been in the "baby" category. 

Due to the moose's repeated visits, we found we needed to sort of sift the dirt. We found lots of carrots under the ground with no tops left. 

Here is a Scarlet Nantes cop 

...And the Kuroda carrot crop. 

I have some Kuroda seed left and will probably plant mostly Kuroda next year. The Nantes is supposed to mature a bit faster. The Kuroda were bigger, oranger and sweeter. 

The girls like all variety of tops - they aren't picky. A few carrots had gotten GINORMOUS and split open - we gave those to Dash the rabbit. 

Nolan came home from work and suggested a "sibling outing"....Stacia went in to clean up so they could head to town. I continued to putter in the garden. I heard a noise in the woods. That is fairly common and didn't alarm me. 

Then, I remembered, the grizzly was spotted nearby. 

I looked up and saw brown. 

My adrenaline kicked in. I held my ground and looked again - ah - a moose's rump.  I made noises thinking he'd saunter off - he wasn't interested in leaving the area. 

I was by the blue tub. This is the closest I've been to a bull. He was plump. I realized I'd better vacate the area. 

Oh, yeah, he's coming into the garden. I backed off, got the wire hooked back up, went to the house and plugged the fence in and then came back to take pictures. 

About the time I took this one I realized the wire wouldn't stop him. He could get shocked and keep coming and he'd be mad. I left the carrots in the garden and came inside. I had alarmed the kids. 

Michael removed the plastic from the hoop house yesterday. Stacia and I cleared beds and covered them with plastic throughout the garden. 


I also pulled the sunflowers. I threw them into the woods. I'd love some volunteer sunflowers next year. When I pulled the sunflowers, I could see the Dahlia's under them. It's time for me to research how to winter the bulbs. 
The kids got back. 

GG was stirring. 

It was time for me to go pick up Arielle and move on to the day's next adventure. The Bella sale. Arielle had early-bird tickets. Krista and Larissa drove out and we met at the sale at 4:30. One thing led to another, and I got home at 8:21 p.m. No, we didn't shop ALL that time...but we did shop 3/4 of that time. LOL  It was nice knowing the 4 gherkins would take care of GG and Michael while I escaped with these gherkins. 

Larissa looks pregnant now - such a cute little baby bump. She was able to find many of the things on her wish list at 50-80% off. Yay, thrifting.  Arielle found Christmas gifts from her wish list at 80% off, clothes for the boys, a new wardrobe the next size up for Benny and a new bike for Benny. This is where she does most her shopping. I bought a few Christmas surprises and some clothes for baby Noah. So actually, I had a large garbage bag full of things. Arielle had 2 bags and a bike. This is Larissa's haul. So exciting...it all becomes real when you begin to buy the baby things! 

We zipped out for dinner before we parted ways. I couldn't resist. Krista has been traveling a lot with work (Guam and Hawaii last month). She'll be traveling the next two weeks, then she and Luke are going on a vacation. Larissa is about to go down to Texas for a month. It was our chance to connect with them before they travel. 

It turned out to be a full day for a day with very little on the calendar.