Quick Hit: Clock change, and hard rain.

I'm enjoying the last pre work morning light I'm going to be seeing for some time since the bane of my existence (only slight hyperbole) comes this weekend, the end of daylight savings time. I have to say I genuinely don't really understand the point of DST to begin with, but there it is.

We're having a lovely foggy morning after a hard night of rain. As you can see the trees are for the most part clear of leaves by now. The funny part is that while it's relatively warm right now, because of the weather sweeping through, everything else shows that fall is over, and the world is going to sleep. At least where we are. Down in the valley 20 minutes away it's still peak foliage. I'm hoping to be able to get a good comparison photo to show to everyone before that goes away, since it's such an amazing illustration of the difference between here and there.

The concern with rain is always the driveway, but thanks to the work on the driveway, it still looks great! It's a great relief after almost one inch of rain in less than 24 hours. As you can see from these photos it's actually looking great! Obviously this isn't going to be eternal, it's going to require attention and maintenance but if we can keep it almost this good for the next few years by doing spot work over time I'm going to be very happy.

This weekend is Halloween, and it's a big time of year for me personally, so I'm looking forward to getting back to focus on the homestead and preparing for next year. Hopefully I'll have a rooster for our next post, but if not, we'll let you know as soon as we have the newest Mr Bond.

Planning for future poultry.

The challenge with living so far from where I work right now is, as the shorter days set in, I'm having problems getting photos for the blog! It's especially true when I've been working some extra hours between my primary job, and doing some overnight shifts for a second job. It's been a bit inconvenient honestly, but one of the challenges with something like small farming/homesteading like we are is, you have to make enough to pay for the "normal" life expenses like food, and home costs. Right now, the money side of things is a bit of a focus since I have some opportunities.

Surviving plants, and chicken thoughts.

We have a big surprise coming out of some days in the teens. We though the Kale was done, and were going to cut and blanch the leaves. Before we had a chance to, turns out the Kale is just fine. Some of the weaker leaves aren't doing as well, but overall now that we're back up into the 50s and 60s during the day the kale has fully bounced back.

Some of it is a little worse for the wear of the Critter exploring the texture and general feel of the leaves. These things happen, frankly given how much kale is produced how easily, the Critter tearing some of it up isn't exactly a big deal to me. Either way, we're going to have Kale for a bit longer which is a nice thing. It isn't the only thing that survived the frost, though the other survivor isn't exactly unexpected either.

First taste of winter weather.

Soon the fires will be lit, and we will be warmer inside. But first, we have to make sure it's going to be safe for the small person and that he won't get at the stove. We really want to avoid that kind of burn. To get that safe we're going to have to install the gate around the stove, which I should be able to do Thursday, and re-clean the chimney.

One surviving tomato, and poultry thoughts.

I think we've found some tomato seeds to save. This plant is incredibly stubborn and very hearty. It isn't doing very well at this point, but really I didn't expect it to be alive at all at this point given the number of frosts it's taken. Anyhow, there's a few last tomatoes holding on despite the cold weather and frosts, and it's kinda fun to come out and see. That bright red tomato under the right side of the plant, that one is probably going to be what I pick for seed saving. 

Peak foliage, and kitchen labor.

As we've been focused inside if it weren't for having to drive back and forth to get materials and tools we'd forgotten or didn't know we'd need I'd almost have missed the most dramatic part of fall arriving. Almost, it's hard to miss it for real when you're living in the middle of it, even when you are face down working on floors. As for the work on the kitchen, lots happened, but not as much as we wanted.

Turkey foolishness, and more home work with help.

An amusing occurrence occurred that puts something of a lie to the turkeys being smart. Let's be fair, they're smart at what they do, but figuring out what a fence is still isn't one of them. For some reason the black turkey who is the (mostly) dominant turkey wandered into the chicken pen and got stuck. No I don't mean physically, I mean for almost 10 minutes making contact and alarm calls pacing back and forth along the North fence line trying to figure out how to get out, when he could flap his wings once and be over.

All about the driveway.

After a very busy and physical weekend, our driveway looks very different from how it looked last we checked in on it, and far better than it looked in 2014 before the Lady of the House and I repaired it by hand. This time fortunately due to different circumstances we had the proper equipment to handle regrading the driveway, and just as importantly someone who knew what they were doing.

Hard rain, falling leaves, and driveway repair.

Day by day we see more color in the leaves, and more of the plants die off. The water pepper, a constant around the property and favorite food of the rabbits is on the way out, or already gone. One of the consequences of this is that we are going to have to start actually feeding the turkeys instead of just supplementing their diet of foraging with scratch, mostly to keep them coming back. As the fall comes I suspect we'll have an easier time finding the turkeys since they'll be wanting food actively.