Week 73: getting cold
Not cold feet mind you, literally cold!
We have still been in the 80s for the past month, but yesterday was a high of 72 and today is a high of 58. Brrrr!!!
At least it gave me motivation to decorate for fall, something I haven't done the past two years while going through the remodel.
Here is my newly painted mantle with some decorations.
Now I'm off to make some soup and I may light a fire too!
Sweet hubby is in the shop building my pantry base cabinets. :) My birthday is in a few days and I told him what I really wanted is for them to be finished and me NOT be the one doing the work.
So how about you? Is it getting cold where you are? What do you do when it does?
Comments (40)
autumn.4
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agotexasgem we fired up the fireplace for the first time last night! Brrr but it is so cozy. We have yet to fire up the furnace, just can't do it. It is now 52 - started out at 48. Woohoo a 4 degree warm up! We are
supposed to be back in the upper 60's next week though. :DI love your mantle. This cold weather has given me the fall decorating bug - last fall I didn't have it in me after 'the build' so I get what you are saying. We need to pick out pumpkins soon. I did make a fall wreath for the front door (thank you pinterest). I am not a crafty person per se but it was fun!
Texas_Gem
8 years agoRelated Discussions
UGH! Looks like more cold air next week
Comments (18)When I put my maters in the ground last Sun the projected low for us was 31; now it's 27. I have bunches of 4 and 5 gallon buckets which will cover the plants. I also have lots of half and whole gallon jugs to fill with hot water to set under the buckets, so I think the maters will be ok. And if not I have backups for most of them. But the fruit! What am I to do about the fruit? The almonds and plums are already gone but the peaches, pears, cherries, apples, grapes, strawberries and figs are all in bloom. AAACCCCHHH. I'll put sheets over the strawberries and fig bushes but the fruit trees are all pretty big. We may tie old feed sacks around some of the limbs and try to save something at least. And baby chicks are due to arrive Friday morn. Dh plans to insulate the brooder box and turn on the heat lamps Thursday to get it good and warm in there....See MoreCold mornings next week?
Comments (21)Scott, Are you serious? 22? How many hours did y'all stay that cold? Lee, When you said "May 10th" I felt sick, and then I read on and saw it would be only the 40s. Well, heck, compared to last night, the 40s are a piece of cake. Thanks for the heads up, though. It is a reminder that cold weather still can slap us around in May. I start putting more tomato plants in the ground tomorrow. And, for anyone interested, I covered up every planted row with my DeWitt 10-degree frost blanket, even the cool-season crops that didn't really need it. I figured since I had it, I'd use it. We were below freezing for about six hours, much of that time at 28 degrees, and there is not one speck of damage on anything growing in those rows that I covered, and that includes summer annual flowers growing as companion plants in the veggie beds. Next year I am going to plant more stuff earlier and just drag out the row cover as needed. There is a lot of dead foliage on trees and vines (trumpet creeper) that had leafed out, and my pecan tree got hit fairly hard, and now the tiny little leaves are shriveled up and just look sad. However, all those will bounce back fast. The comfrey was in bloom and was feeding tons of bees a day, and it froze back to the ground, but will regrow quickly. Considering how cold it got and how long it stayed before freezing, the amount of damage on trees, shrubs and vines is minimal and not unexpected. I heard the helicopters seem to have saved the peach crops at Livesay's Orchard in Porter. Yay! Dawn...See MoreDecember 2017, Week 4, Christmas and Cold Weather
Comments (85)Nancy, Y'all have had quite a bit of cool weather already, and I think that helps the rosemary because the cooler weather has hardened off the rosemary to gradually cooler weather (or, at least, this is how it is supposed to work). The years in which I've lost rosemary were ones where the autumn stayed flat out hot forever, and then the first cold spell hit hard in December like a tornado flying across the plains, and the rosemary could not take the sudden change from very warm weather to intensely cold weather....like, 70 degrees one day and then 18 degrees the next night, with worse temperatures following after the 18 degree night. The only other time I've lost rosemary was in a winter that was very cold/very wet and the soil just stayed too wet for the rosemary for months. That's why I now have one rosemary plant in a bed raised 18" above grade level and the other one in a large urn that's a couple of feet tall---if the rosemary is not in well-drained soil now (the urn has a cactus soil blend to which I added extra decomposed granite), then I'll never have anything in well-drained soil because I don't think I can make anything drain better than that tall bed and that urn. I hope you have fun painting the furniture and making decorating decisions. I enjoy doing things like that so much. I don't know if 4 cold days will faze the bugs at all. It is so complicated. Some insects have anti-freeze type substance in them that helps them survive winter, so I think it just depends on what insect you're talking about. Time will tell. This morning Tim removed a very, very large leaf-footed bug from his car that we assume got into the car trunk at the police station. It was hideous-looking. I told him to not bring home ugly bugs like that. It was a good 50% bigger than any leaf-footed bug I've ever seen here, and maybe even more than 50% bigger. It possibly wasn't a leaf-footed bug (I didn't go over and observe it that closely) and might have been a kissing bug, which I don't think normally could take our cold weather up here. Regardless, except for that hideous thing, I haven't seen many insects lately and take that as a good sign. Possibly they all are just hibernating, as they tend to do, in mulch, beneath leaves, etc. We need a really cold, prolonged spell that lasts weeks to knock back the insect population significantly and I doubt we'll get that, but constant recurring cold spells, with warm days in between, could help kill insects. One thing to do is to rototill the garden soil in cold weather, so you stir up bugs underground and expose them to colder air surfaces at the ground level. That exposure helps them freeze to death. Rebecca, While they may prefer well-drained soil, I grew calendula in the ground in beds with barely amended clay for several years after we moved here and they did fine. Granted, it was one drought year after another, except for 2004, so they might have done better in the clay in dry weather than they would have in wet weather, but they also did well in 2004 when it was pretty wet in the spring. You can find southern peas dried, canned, frozen or (at some stores) freshly shelled and sold in plastic containers or bags in the fresh produce section, ready for cooking, usually with an expiration date of about 7 days. I don't know if you'll find any specifically labeled PEPH--but you might if your local stores carry one of the brands of vegetables produced in the south. Margaret Holmes' veggies include canned White Acre peas, but I'm pretty sure all their other southern peas are listed on the label as Field Peas or Blackeye Peas (either of which might/might not include PEPH types) and I think Glory Foods' peas also are only listed as Blackeyed Peas on the label. I'm pretty sure I've seen PEPH sold canned before, but don't remember where or which brand it was. Keep in mind that the average consumer calls all southern peas (whether they are PEPH, black eyed, green eyed, crowder, zipper, lady or cream peas) black-eyed peas and it generally is only gardeners or southern chefs who would refer to different kinds of southern peas, like PEPHs, with their proper name. If you want southern peas in what might be a more palatable dish, you can buy (or make) a traditional southern dish called Hoppin' John. Some Hoppin' John recipes are basically just peas, onions and peppers along with a few spices and others also include tomatoes or other ingredients. Here's one example: Margaret Holmes' Canned Hoppin' John When I make Hoppin' John, I usually use a lot of jalpenos so ours is pretty hot. Our PEPHs are shelled, frozen, and ready to cook along with our New Year's weekend ham, but when I want them fresh and have run out of frozen ones, Central Market has them freshly shelled, sold in plastic containers, for a very reasonable price almost year-round. I believe theirs generally are raised in far south Texas. Nancy, Canned southern peas are nowhere near as good as fresh or frozen, but they'll serve the purpose for observing the southern tradition of eating southern peas, preferably on New Year's Eve at midnight as the new year begins, for good luck. We just wait and have ours at noon and at dinner on New Year's Day since we aren't going to be awake and eating peas at midnight. Keep in mind I am anti-canned veggies because my taste buds prefer the flavor and texture of either fresh veggies or frozen veggies. That doesn't mean all canned veggies are bad, but just that I find the other forms preferable. They are people, I am sure, who hate the frozen version and prefer the canned one too. Kim, I'm sorry you're ill for the holiday weekend. Please stay put and take care of yourself and get well. Flu is running rampant right now. The linked map shows how widespread the flu is, as of last week: Weekly Flu Map for W/E 12/23/2017 It probably is wise to stay there in Denton until the weather settles down since all sorts of light winter precip are possible over the next few days. We're under a Winter Weather Advisory here through 6 a.m. tomorrow (and y'all are under one in Denton until midnight) but nothing really is happening here yet. I'm hoping nothing falls from the sky. We had drizzle before we reached freezing temperatures, but by the time the temperature dropped to freezing this afternoon, the drizzle had ended, so I think we're lucky so far. Jennifer, All southern peas count towards fulfilling the Good Luck requirement. I've lived in the south all my life, and it never has matter which southern peas you ate for good luck, as long as you ate southern peas. When we lived in Fort Worth, our next-door neighbor, a lovely woman in her 70s/80s got together with a bunch of people from her church every New Year's Eve and they ate southern peas right at midnight for good luck. They said if you weren't eating them at midnight to welcome the new year, you wouldn't have good luck. We've always just waited and had ours at noon on the 1st. It probably is a silly custom, but it doesn't hurt to eat the peas, so why not do it? Amy, Uggh. I wouldn't have been able to eat oyster stew again either after finding that big wad of hair...and I don't want to think about where the hair might have come from. Tim is outside making a shelter for a feral kitty who's been hanging around, and we've been feeding it this week and trying to tame it. Feral cats here usually will not survive all the predators wondering around in the winter, so I'd like to bring him or her indoors to stay safe from the predators and the cold weather, but most feral kitties won't let you pick them up and bring them in, so a big box with a fluffy old comforter on the covered patio will have to suffice. I might take a heated throw blanket out there, plug it into an outlet in the garage, and try to keep the kitty warmer on Sun and Mon nights if I cannot get it to come in tomorrow. (Most cats like me better, by far, but this one prefers Tim, so he might have better luck trying to pick it up and bring it in. We do always wear thick leather gloves when attempting a feral cat rescue.) It is cold and cloudy here, but otherwise quiet. Our VFD/PD/EMS GroupMe mermbers are giving us constant updates from all over the county and beyond (if they are traveling), and even though there's been drizzle and there's been freezing temperatures, there hasn't been freezing drizzle yet. We're keeping our fingers crossed. Dawn...See MoreRecord cold coming next week
Comments (42)I found the post about the maples. You have to click on the 105 more posts and then the 5 more posts that appears after that, under the initial post to see it. That is a wide variation in Ph you have in that area up there PL. There're many types of soil in MN and farms around me that have slightly high ph (7+) with clay loam soils but many more with soil that's poor and acidic. Nice color on that maple btw. :-) My Sugar is not looking like it will have great fall color but it's still a hard maple with beautiful leaves and dense shade during the growing season. so I think I'll keep it. I haven't tested ph on this place but it's deep sand underneath which make regular rains and/or irrigation a necessity (there can be seasons where it rains enough but not regularly). They may have had black dirt hauled in around the house when it was built. Otherwise quite sandy a foot or two down from the surface. The climate here doesn't have such wide swings in temps generally but the season is about a month or so shorter than my brothers in z4 and 5. And or coarse because of that, the winter is longer and more harsh. I see the Ash tree is turning yellow but not much else. The hydrangea paniculata has turned with the frost but flowers were going brown anyways. I just cut the grass but probably not done with that yet. They're talking close to 80f by Tuesday but lows get to low 40's to mid 50's for the most part all month. We received 3/4" of slow rain last night. We haven't had rain since August and totals then were scant. Lane, have you tried any of the Alpine firs up there? I've heard that elevation matters with those kinds of trees....See More
Melissa Kroger
8 years agolast modified: 8 years ago
omelet
8 years agomushcreek
8 years ago
funkycamper
8 years agoTexas_Gem
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoGuess who has the best hubby in the world? Oh, that's right, its me!!
Base cabs are in!
They need to be painted and right now we will have the plywood (painted) countertop but I hope in the future to put in a soapstone counter.
So excited!!!!
Melis- I understand, sometimes I don't decorate for fall until mid November, it is hard to get in the mood when it is so warm out. I could have, but didn't, swim on Thursday. Now I wish I had since it was the last day our pool would be warm enough.
Omelet- enjoy! We are having a lot of rain right now too.
Mushcreek- congrats on losing the insulation! It is worth being cold. :)
Funky- you'll have to show us the pumpkin when its carved. My kids want to carve one now and they don't understand that if we carve now, it will be mush by Halloween. Nice to see kids excited about seasons and holidays though.
funkycamper
8 years agomushcreek
8 years ago
cookncarpenter
8 years agolast modified: 8 years ago
raee_gw zone 5b-6a Ohio
8 years agoheatheron40
8 years agoautumn.4
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agozorroslw1
8 years agoTexas_Gem
8 years agoToday I slept in, watched movies, played video games and hung out with my kids while hubby spent all afternoon working on the pantry cabinets.
He filled in any knots or imperfections with wood filler and sanded everything. He even rounded the edges so I wouldn't scrape knuckles while reaching into any shelves. First coat of paint is on now.
Tomorrow, the second coat will go on and the counters will get painted as well.Can't wait to use my pantry to its fullest potential!! :)
omelet
8 years agomgmum
8 years agoautumn.4
8 years agoraee_gw zone 5b-6a Ohio
8 years agofunkycamper
8 years ago
CEFreeman_GW DC/MD Burbs 7b/8a
8 years agomgmum
8 years agofunkycamper
8 years agoautumn.4
8 years agoTexas_Gem
8 years agoHappy Birthday Christine!! I knew you were another October baby, but I couldn't remember the day.
Hubby put the second coat of paint on the pantry cabs tonight and we ordered our dining room set!!My pantry should be useable by tomorrow night and my table will be delivered on Friday!!
I'm not sure why but I feel guilty sitting around relaxing while hubby is working, even though it is a gift to me.To help assuage that guilt, I put up two shelves in my mud room/utility room tonight while hubby was painting.
These shelves are above my desk (which I purposefully excluded from the photo as it is a huge mess)I run the entire household from this "station."
Pay bills, manage schoolwork, doctors appointments, etc.
For the past two years, all of these functions have been spread out and difficult to manage. Now that I have 8 feet of storage capacity right above a work space, it should be much easier.
Tomorrow I'm going to clean my desk and organize my shelves.It is hard to believe that after 2 years, I am finally coming to an end.
I feel like I've been living out of boxes this whole time (I haven't) and I'm finally "unpacking" and setting up/decorating my space to live in! Yay!!!! :)
Texas_Gem
8 years agoHappy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, I finally have my pantry!!! :)
I may just spend some time tomorrow moving things back in, rearranging, admiring, etc. :)
Later this week, or maybe this weekend, we will finish the flooring. Cabs had to be in first.
I can't believe I'm actually on the cusp of being able to do a reveal!!
I have already started drafting it but I've got a lot of before pics I need to hunt down.
Texas_Gem
8 years agoBirthday KAW
Sour Cream chicken enchiladas with spicy refried beans and tortilla chips. :)
Off to have a slice of cake now!
debrak_2008
8 years agoCEFreeman_GW DC/MD Burbs 7b/8a
8 years ago
rebeccamomof123
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoCEFreeman_GW DC/MD Burbs 7b/8a
8 years agoAnnKH
8 years agoTexas_Gem
8 years agoTexas_Gem
8 years agoChristine- I have to ask, did you by any chance get a new table? Carrie got one on her birthday, my table was just delivered today, seems like a pattern! ;)
I also finished the flooring and all the trim in the pantry. In fact I was laying the very last section of flooring as they carried my table in. :D
Yes, the photo doesn't show much but I want to have SOMETHING that will be a surprise on my reveal!
CEFreeman_GW DC/MD Burbs 7b/8a