Frost is Late This Year

This morning for the first time this year, the trees and grass are white with frost. It's pretty but it's a harbinger that winter will soon be here. The horses are getting fuzzy with their winter coats, and I hear the honking of ducks and geese flying overhead. Their "V" formations pointing south. I wish I was going with them. Winter could hold off for a few months and then go right into spring as far as I am concerned. Winters are brutal here on the farm. It's not just the ice and snow and freezing water buckets and so on, it's the lack of sunshine that gets me. I always feel down during the winter. It's the SADD syndrome, and it sucks. Here in SE Michigan the official frost dates are Sept 15 for early frost and Sept 30 for the late date. Last night, October 27, was our first frost. It's a month late. I hope that means spring will be a month early as well.

I've been getting ready. At the local produce stand, I bought 50 pounds of potatoes for only 30 cents a pound. I also bought a large sack of onions, and a beautiful purple cabbage that were half the regular price at the supermarket. We had sweet and sour cabbage with Murphy's smoked ribs and smashed potatoes (skins on of course) with a tiny bit of onion in them . The market closes on Holloween. I hope to get some of their un-sold pumpkins and squash for our chickens. I canned the last of the tomatoes - almost the last. I still have a five gallon pail of green ones. I hope to make them into picallilly if I get time before they all ripen. Either way they will get used. Murphy pulled the pole bean plants with some very big beans still attached and fed them to the chickens roots and all . They had a field day with them. I'm also cleaning out the freezers to make room for the 50 meat chickens we will process in a few weeks, and turkeys, too. It's amazing how many containers of mystery stuff there is in there. What makes me think I will remember every morsel? I need to be pro-active here and mark everything. There are some old chunks of mystery meat, too. They have been in the bottom of the freezer so long that I no longer trust their viability as food. Out they go. The summer glider is taken down and ready for storage as soon as I clear a spot in the green building. Luckily I brought the  pots from the deck inside last week - geraniums, spikes, chives, parsley, tarragon, and rosemary. I also planted my garlic. It needs to be mulched before the ground freezes. I'll use the soiled hay that lines the chicken nests. They need to be re-bedded. I cleaned the coop and put down fresh bedding last week. The cleanings are in one of the boxes that yeilded two crops of green beans and some potatoes last summer. It needs replenishing. I need to cover the lavender, too . . . and so on.
Well, I'm off to deliver some eggs and then come back to make bread - sourdough this time - and clean up the kitchen. Never a dull moment around here - though I think most people would find my life rather dull.

Keep warm.
glee