Love the sink

We got 2 inches this weekend so my garden is really happy. Especially since I was too sick to anything but pick and sell.

My claim to fame this year is that I have harvested 175 squash for a total of 958 pounds................and counting.

Hazel, Sadly, appliances aren't made to last the way they once were. I have spent hours (more like days and days) reading online reviews of appliances this summer and fall and see that so many of them need repairs within months of being purchased, and I'm shocked by how many need to be replaced in 1-3 years. Tim works with a couple of guys who had their new refrigerators die and need replacement within a year of being purchased, and their refrigerators were supposedly high-quality name-brands, not cheap pieces of junk, so they were not just shocked, but furious, and I don't blame them.

The backsplash is going to be white subway tile. I haven't even really decided on the grout color yet because I don't have to decide until we buy the grout. lol. We, too, wanted something basic and neutral that will withstand the test of time so that we aren't wanting to change it again in 10-15 years. There was a part of me that wanted a different kind of backsplash, but I feared I'd get tired of it quickly and regret it, so I decided to stick with subway tile.

The farm sink is new. It is the reason we have a new kitchen. I would have been happy with just the new sink and a paint job on the old cabinets and a new countertop to fit the sink, but Tim didn't want to replace part of the kitchen and keep the rest of the older cabinets, so we ended up redoing the whole kitchen. I'm not sorry we did.

I love, love, love my sink. It looks so much better than the stainless steel sink we had before. I hope it won't be hard to keep it white and pristine (so far, it doesn't seem to be). Mine is a double sink and I keep dishes waiting to go into the dishwasher on the right side, leaving the left side open for use. It also has both a cutting board and a colander made specifically to fix over the sink while in use. I love both of them too. With last week's big produce harvest being the first one since we put in the sink, I was able to see how well it functioned for washing and cutting up produce and it worked great so I am a happy camper. Our first home, which we bought in 1984, had a white sink so in a lot of ways, we've gone backwards, but I was so tired of the stainless steel sink. Our son is planning to put in a black sink in his house but I have mixed feelings about whether I'd really like a black sink.

We put butcherblock everywhere. I hope it works out well. I am slightly uneasy about it being beside the sink, and we almost chose quartz for that wall, but I just thought butcher block gave me more of the old farmhouse kitchen look I was going for. If it doesn't hold up well by the sink, we'll replace it, but I have no complaints about it so far.

I haven't done anything with the window yet. It is likely to get a Roman shade or white wood blinds because it is a west-facing window and I want to keep the afternoon sun out of the kitchen in the summer months. There likely will be herbs growing in the window in the winter and spring though.

Flies always come into the house when rain is approaching or likely, so consider the flies a good omen before you swat them and kill them.

Kim, That's terrific rainfall. You've had such a good year there in terms of rainfall. I hope you're feeling better soon. There's a terrible upper respiratory virus going around at work and I've threatened to kill Tim and Chris if either one of them comes home sick with it and gives it to me.

Carol, That is a huge claim to fame. I am astonished at how much your plants have produced this year. They've been like the little Energizer Bunny that keeps going and going and going. I've had years when I might have had that many pounds of tomatoes, but I haven't had that much squash. Honestly, I don't want to raise that much squash because we'd never eat all of it.

I'm planning to finish processing all the peppers today. Or maybe tomorrow. I'm not sure I can do all of the remaining ones in one day, but I want to try. I still have more to harvest, so I need to use up the rest of the ones in the fridge, which I think amounts to maybe 7 or 8 gallons of poblanos, Anaheims, bells, banana peppers, hinkelhatz and habaneros. At least I finished up all the jalapenos yesterday, except for a half-cup of sliced ones I saved to use in cooking today.

I noticed the OK Panhandle Counties have a freeze warning in effect for Wed. morning. Some of the mesonet stations there already have recorded freezing temperatures this fall, but I don't think the freezing temps were widespread. Based on their Freeze Warning, I think maybe they will get their killing freeze tomorrow morning. How amazing is that? Their average first freeze normally happens by mid-October, so they've had several extra weeks this autumn.

Now that the weather is cooling off to temperatures that tend to send the snakes more towards hiberation, I'd like to start cleaning up the fall garden. And I will, just as soon as the mud dries up a bit, so maybe on Thursday. The compost pile is looking forward to the tons and tons of vegetation I'm about to pile on top of it.

Dawn

I was thinking about dumping my kitchen scraps right on the raised beds and covering them with leaves...but just realized I could have a variety of volunteers come up in those beds this spring.

We put a light in the coop last night to give the chickens a couple more hours of light. They are still losing feathers and not laying eggs. Our neighbors' chickens are all doing the same thing except the people to the east because their chickens are just a few weeks old. I had to buy eggs at a store twice now. The last ones are from Natural Grocers. They are only selling free range eggs now...and I had a dollar coupon. These eggs are certainly more like our own eggs in taste and appearance. The organic eggs I bought at another store are pale and not as tasty....even though they are organic. I've become so picky about eggs. Can't wait to get more baby chicks in the spring.

Carol, what are you going to do with all that squash?

Stopped by sister's house yesterday while the boy was at a trombone lesson. She harvested all her tomatoes--both red, green and everything in between--and made the most delicious salsa. She didn't use a recipe. She just has a knack for salsa making. She pulled her plants--she done. Her garden is small, but she does a great job with it every year.

I have a list of no less than a hundred items that needs to be done. I really must get the energy to finish these items so I can be ready to go and garden next year. I really want to plant early...but have back-ups in case of a late freeze. Just need to get organized. I feel so lazy today.

Dawn, we went with subway tile too. It never really goes out of style, although it's not often the most "in style". It and white cabinets are a "safe" way to go. We chose a taupe-ish grout. I've had white grout before and it get's dingy looking. If I were home most of the time to care for it properly, I could probably make it work. But a big chunk of the time, things just stack up in the sink and aren't properly cleaned--normally the last half of the week--until I get a day at home. That's why I'm a little scared of the fireclay sink getting scuffed. Baking soda and white vinegar seem to clean it up nicely. Also, my husband enjoys cooking too and he's not careful with stuff. AND that's why we also chose not to do the butcher block on all of the counters...although I LOVE it. It's my favorite countertop. I'm a little jealous of your countertops now. We oil ours often--just with mineral oil. Is your son getting one of the composite sinks? I've heard good things about them. Well, I could go on and on about my decorating choices and all, but this is a garden forum...so I'll stop now.

Speaking of gardens, it's time to pull on the boots and go take a look...

Well, all this talk about subway tile has made me want to redo my kitchen backsplash now. Our kitchen backsplash is the tile they used on our floors. WHY do people do that?!!? I know, I know....saves money, but yuck! Doesn't look terrible, but.......ya, it's gotta change at some point. Oh, and I love that farmhouse sink!! I just recently replaced our faucet but I'd love to get rid of our stainless sink too for one of the farmhouse sinks.

The sweet potato plants that we plopped into jars with water are getting bigger and I am wondering what to do with them now, lol. I honestly don't want to throw them out but I can't house them all winter long. They really are doing well, maybe I should just try to pick the slip off and root them.

Are you all beginning to plan for Thanksgiving yet? I can't believe it's about 2 weeks away!!!! Where did the year go?! I am going to go to Aldi's this week and grab the baking essentials so I can get started on making the pie crusts, rolls, homemade noodles, and cornbread. All these things I'll put in the freezer till closer time. I use the cornbread in my crockpot dressing, which is my grandmother's recipe that I will always use....it's that good!! We usually have brisket and a turkey breast for the meat but I think we are tired of brisket for the year so we're going different and having enchiladas as a replacement. We did that one year before.....broke tradition. It's just the 5 of us, but you'd think we were having a houseful with as much as we make. But hey, you have to have leftovers right?!?!

It rained off and on the majority of the day yesterday and I am thankful for the cooler temps. Thursday and Friday are supposed to be in the higher 60's and no rain. I hope it stays that way since we are going to try to go to the zoo. The zoo is one of my favorite places!!! Found out they have a sloth now.....so excited! :)

Melissa, did you post a pic of your sweet potato plants on the okla gardening fb? I seem to remember seeing a picture of sweet potato plants sitting on a window sill very recently.

I haven't started planning for Thanksgiving, but my sister is hosting, so I'll just take side dishes. My kids are so big now that I haven't received lists of Christmas wants...which makes me sad. We usually go out on Black Friday--not to fight for stuff, but just because it's a tradition. We go to breakfast and shop. And I actually enjoy it. Wow. It seems like only yesterday I was buying Legos, bikes, and video games. I guess I can go to Hallmark and buy our ornaments--we all have a "series" that we collect.

Have fun at the zoo, Melissa. I feel like a sloth today! lol

Question: Carol, what are you going to do with all that squash?

HaHa, don't leave your car unlocked.

I have 3 large bins in my shelter and I just tried to think back to how many I have given away, and it is at least 3 dozen. I have a large garden wagon and my picnic table covered outdoors.

I am loading up a bunch and taking to George and Jerreth this week, and I hope he is ready for SEVERAL. I will probably take a load to my church, in case I have missed pawning them off on someone. If I still have more, I will probably donate them to the food pantry here in town. I think I will still probably have 50 plus pounds to harvest if we don't get a hard freeze soon.

I've cooked 2, does that count? LOL

Lots of great info! Dawn, I'll have to read my oven manual. It has a convection setting. Wondering if it will dehydrate. I may end up with more peppers than I can eat before they go bad. I look forward to your posting.

Hazel, Well see there, it would depend on whether you want volunteers or not. Deep in my soul, I love volunteers. How can a gardener not love plants that plant themselves and save the gardener all the trouble of either starting seeds indoors or sowing them outdoors and then having to water them, weed the outdoor beds as weeds will sprout along with the seeds you plant, etc? But, there's also a part of me that moans and groans when I have to weed out hundreds of excess seedlings and dig up/move hundreds of others during the already-busy Spring planting season. Still, for the most part, I'd rather have volunteers than not have them.

My grandfather did merely toss his compostables on the surface of his garden soil and let them decompose in place year-round. I don't remember him ever having a separate compost pile, but I think he did his tossing stuff into the garden row by row over time, so that was some organization and plan to it. As a kid, it drove me crazy because I didn't like the look of stuff like blackened banana peels lying there on the ground. That's how he did it when I was really young and he lived in the country. I don't remember if he did it that way after he moved to town, but he always had a great garden. You could trench compost by digging a trench 6-10" deep and filling it up with kitchen scraps, adding some chopped leaves and covering it back over with soil. The compostable materials would decompose under ground (but somewhat slowly) and the buried seeds likely would be too deep to sprout in the following growing season as long as you didn't turn over the soil and bring them up from their deep location.

It can be hard to get a compost pile that is started in the autumn to stay hot enough to decompose by Spring, but I push it along by keeping the pile hot enough (usually through the constant addition of green grass clippings from winter rye grass or just winter weeds I cut or pull) not only to decompose but also to destroy seeds and disease pathogens. The disadvantage of cold-composting in the garden in trenches or on the surface buried under leaves is that the winter compost pile might not get hot enough to destroy the seeds (including weed seeds) and disease pathogens.

Most winters, we get eggs all winter long, and we do keep a light on in the coop quite a bit, particularly when we have young chicks as they need the light on near their brooder for warmth. Our youngest chicks are now about 2 or 2.5 weeks old, so I know we'll have the light on just for them for several more weeks. The wider benefit will be that the chickens will keep laying more eggs (though not as many as they do in summer) because of the increased lighting.

See how easy it is to become addicted to having fresh, healthy eggs from truly happy hens? It is just a small thing, but an important one. Once you get used to your own fresh eggs, it is hard to eat the eggs from the store. Fresh eggs even have such better yolk color. I think chickens are the perfect small farm animal for gardeners. They help you by eating bugs and weed seeds, they dig and scratch and fertilize the ground as they free-range, they provide manure/old coop bedding for the compost pile and, on top of that, you get eggs. Some of them also have quite distinctive personalities and love to interact with humans (while others seem more like loners who just want to be left alone). When the chickens see me come out that back door with my compost bucket (especially during canning season when I carry it out multiple times per day), they come running straight at me at breakneck speed, eager to see what goodies I am about to throw on the compost pile. It is hysterical. It is a wonder I even get any compost at all because the chickens think the compost pile is all about them and quickly devour anything they deem worthy. There are some things chickens won't eat (peppers and beans are on that list), so I guess they leave enough for the compost pile to cook steadily along. All their digging and scratching even helps mix the ingredients together. I never actually turn my own compost pile. The chickens (and the wildlife that roams at night) do it for me.

I have felt lazy all week. I never sleep well in the first couple of weeks after we go onto or come off of daylight savings time. My internal body clock is a strong one and it keeps me on a steady wake-up routine, no matter what time I went to bed or what time the clock says it is, so when the time changes and I am trying to make my body adhere to a new clock time, it rebels and refuses to let me adjust easily to the time change. I noticed Tim has been dragging this week as well and isn't sleeping well or sleeping enough either. Hopefully we'll all adjust.

White sinks are going to scuff so we just have to accept that as a part of our choice to have a white sink. In the past, my white sink years ago was porcelain, and it was tough. You could use scouring powder and scrub that porcelain hard to get the scuff marks out. Baking soda does seem like a safer choice with fireclay. I've never had fireclay before, so guess we'll see how it holds up as we go along. I did put white plastic grid-style mats in the bottom of the sink because Tim and Chris are not as careful as me and I didn't want for them to be dropping things into the sink. I hope the grids will protect it from them. I don't think I want white grout. I may go with one of the gray shades since our cabinets are gray. There is a lime green glass tile I'd use if I could just put in whatever tile I wanted without having to worry I'd get tired of it, but as much as I love it in photos, I think I might get tired of it quickly and since tiling is so much work, I don't want to put in a color that I'd get tired of quickly because I don't want to have to re-tile the kitchen again.

I assume it is one of the composite sinks. He mentioned it when we chose ours, but his progress on his house moves along very slowly (he is young and would rather be hanging out with his girlfriend or his friends than at home working on his house, if you can imagine that) so he hasn't actually bought the sink yet.

Melissa, You know, for gardeners who raise edible plants, the kitchen is a very important place, so I'm glad Tim and I took the time this fall to update ours. I spend oodles of time in there during the harvest season, not just preparing meals with food from the garden, but doing all the food preservation chores. Part of this kitchen remodel involved improving our storage capacity and organization so I'd be able to have a specific designated area for all my food preservation gear. I've never had that before, so the canning and fermenting supplies were crammed into odd places and scattered around. Now I have a specific place to keep them all together. I canned in the new (very new since it isn't even 100% finished yet) kitchen this week, and it was wonderful to pull open a big drawer in a lower cabinet and have all my food preservation stuff right there together in one place. Anything that doesn't fit there is in a big upper cabinet above our refrigerator. That cabinet is 24" deep and 36" wide, so my big water bath canner slides right into it. I'm hoping the improved kitchen storage, organization and layout saves me time and aggravation on those days when the canning load is heavy. Tim thought I wouldn't love the large cabinet over the refrigerator as much as I do because I'd have to use a step stool to reach things, but I had to use a step stool to reach the items in the old over-the-fridge cabinet that was much smaller, so that isn't something new.

I have seen kitchens that have virtually the same tile on the backsplash (and sometimes on the countertop itself) as the floor and it isn't a look I would use, but I guess some folks like it. The nice thing about your kitchen is that it is your kitchen and you can make it your own over time even if everything in it wasn't exactly the way you want it when y'all bought the house. See--Hazel did a major remodeling and has the kitchen she wanted and I did a more minor one and have the kitchen I wanted. One day, you can change the things about your kitchen that you don't like and then you'll have the kitchen you want.

You could continually root new cuttings from your sweet potato plants. I know people who grow their sweet potato vines in south-facing windows all winter. They just run up thin wires or strings for the vines to climb, connecting the strings or wires from the growing container to a curtain rod at the top of the window. The vines climb and climb the strings or wires and they end up with a lovely 'curtain' of living plants surrounding that one window featuring the vine If I were to do that (we have cats and dogs indoors so I don't keep many plants indoors because the pets won't leave the plants alone), I'd have it in a sunny window in the spare room where I grow my seedlings in winter. I usually keep the door to that room closed to keep the animals out of the plant seedlings, so it would be a great place to grow winter herbs or sweet potato vines.

For about our first 8 years here in this house, we always had Thanksgiving here but now we usually go to my sister's house in Fort Worth. Her kids are married and have kids who need to be able to spend time on the holidays with the families of both their own family and their in-laws, so having the holiday celebrations down there make that possible for our nieces, nephews and their children. When they all come up here, it is such a long drive that they don't have time to see go to two homes on Thanksgiving day. Sometimes Tim works on Thanksgiving and we celebrate our Thanksgiving on a different day.

When we were younger and our kids were small and always had something specific they just had to have for Christmas, it was a family tradition for my sister and I to hit the stores hard on Black Friday. Back then (lol, in the olden days of the 1980s and early 1990s), no one but gas stations was open on Thanksgiving day and there was no on-line shopping, so Black Friday sales were a big, huge deal and you had to get there early or else. However, there was none of the craziness of opening stores at midnight or 3 a.m. or whatever, and I'm glad. It was hard enough to get up to be at Target by 7 a.m. But then, the kids grew up and the crowds in the stores got bigger and crazier, and over the years we stopped going out on Black Friday. The longer I've lived in the country, the more I hate to deal with crazy crowds on big shopping days. Nowadays, I do much of my shopping before Thanksgiving arrives, and I do most of my shopping online. It is so much more productive to just order stuff and let UPS and FedEx deliver it! I might go into a mall once or twice during the holiday season but when I do it isn't because we really need to go to the mall for anything, it is just that I like seeing the malls decorated and full of holiday shoppers.

Carol, Having too much squash is almost a burden, isn't it? You have to plot a campaign to get rid of it. lol. Sometimes a garden just does what it wants no matter what we gardeners want, and this year it appears that your garden very definitely wanted to produce squash.

Do you have a freeze or frost warning for tomorrow morning yet? I noticed this morning when I checked my forecast that some parts of NE OK had either a frost or freeze warning up for midnight to 9 a.m. tomorrow, but I don't remember if your county was included in that.

Sandplum, Even without a dehydrate mode, I believe you could use your convection oven to dehydrate produce if you are able to set the temperature in the right range, which for most things is around 140 degrees.

Yesterday in the kitchen was pure torture. I never really forget how miserable it is to process a lot of habaneros at one time, so I know what is coming when I am involved in that process but, wow, yesterday those pepper fumes about killed me! I couldn't get through the dicing of those peppers for Habanero Gold jelly quickly enough. I even opened a door and ran the range hood on high trying to disperse the ridiculously strong habanero fumes as quickly as possible.

We had cloudy skies and mist all day long but I don't think it really added up to more measurable rainfall in the rain gauge. Still, it was one of the first days that really felt like fall for once. We are supposed to be fairly chilly (for us, in this hot autumn) tonight and then we warm up nicely into the 70 again. A lot of you who are further north than I am may get quite a bit colder overnight tonight/tomorrow morning than we're going to get down here.

Keep an eye on your garden plants and forecasts. If I had the forecast I see for some of you for tomorrow morning, I'd probably be putting row cover over the tomato and pepper plants tonight, and likely would be moving the citrus trees and brugmansias into the greenhouse this afternoon. But, I don't, and so I won't, and yet, I feel like that first really cold night cannot be too far away even down here in southern OK.

It looks like autumn will not have spectacular foliage here. The leaves that are turning at all are just quickly turning a dull brown and falling off the trees. With most of the trees though, the foliage is still green and looks like it hasn't read the memo that autumn is here and winter is approaching. I expect all the leaves will suddenly turn brown and fall off the trees between now and Thanksgiving.

Now that the days are cooler, the morning glories have been staying open all day in the garden. We still have a lot of butterflies in the garden visiting the flowers daily, so I'm relieved that there's still a lot of flowers in bloom for them.

Dawn

Yes Dawn, we may have a freeze or frost tonight. We took squash to George today, and just rolled two garden wagons full into the bunkhouse for the night. I still have a lot on the vines that were almost ready to harvest a couple of days ago, but they are still on the vines. Sometimes the lake protects us for a week or two, and they are saying 38 for tonight. If we get a frost or freeze, I will be rounding up a lot of dead squash vines. I'm sure I have 50 plus pounds that I could have picked, but I wasn't home until after dark. Al and I picked a couple of baskets of peppers in the dark, and a few green tomatoes. If the plants make it through the night, I will pick a few more things. It isn't like I need more squash, but I hate to see it freeze if someone could eat it. I didn't cover anything. I just looked at it and thought that in a couple of months we will be starting seeds.

I needed a day trip and was glad that George could use the squash. He sent us home with a bag of sweet potatoes and two rabbits already dressed and frozen. Al loves rabbit and was happy with the trade. It wasn't supposed to be a trade, but it turned out that way. George always has something interesting.

Yes. I love volunteers too! I have several vines of something growing in the paths of my garden right now. However, I'm trying to be more organized with the squash--moving it around a bit each year. 2017 is it's year to move to the back garden. Maybe the squash bugs knew of my plan and that is where they are...waiting and plotting in the back garden. It's so weird how they just up and disappeared about 6 weeks ago.

Looking at banana peels wouldn't be very pretty, I agree. But if they were covered with leaves...

What happened, Carol? I left my car unlocked....lol.

Stay warm, y'all. It's cold this morning.

Carol, I had a sneaking suspicion that George and Jerreth wouldn't let you leave their place empty-handed. I'm glad Al is going to get to eat some rabbit.

I hope y'all didn't freeze. During the day they kept moving the Frost Advisory further south, all the way down to Pushmataha County in SE OK, and then they moved it east into central OK. I was a little surprised at how much it kept spreading. They dropped our forecast low to 43, which isn't cold enough for me to feel like I needed to run out and harvest the last peppers (I've harvested more peppers twice this week) or cover anything up, but I did consider it for a minute. Then, I got over it and shrugged it off, figuring we were unlikely to see a freeze or frost here even in our very low-lying microclimate. I also decided that if we went much colder than expected, which is fairly common here, that I'd be okay if everything froze. Like you, I considered how close we are to beginning the next gardening season and decided it was okay to let this year's plants go if that was going to happen. We only went down to 42 at our house and our Mesonet station dropped to 40.

I think the very low dewpoints overnight and this morning played a role in how cold it got. Dry air cools off more rapidly, and I know we had a heavy dew here this morning so if we'd been just a bit colder we could have had patchy frost, but we weren't.

After a foggy, chilly morning here, the sun is out and it looks and feels beautiful outdoors. I started the day with a cup of hot cocoa just because it was cold enough that I could.

I do have a lot of green winter squash in the garden that I'd like to leave there as long as possible so they can mature more on the vine, but the odds are that I'll be picking them green when we really are threatened by a freeze or frost here one of these days, but that doesn't seem likely any time soon based on our 7-day forecast.

When I looked at the OK Mesonet Min Temp map this morning, I noticed quite a lot of minimum temperatures in the 30s, including 30 degrees as far southeast as LeFlore County. I guess a lot of folks in Oklahoma woke up this morning feeling like autumn weather finally has arrived.

Hazel, It is unlikely the squash bugs really are gone. They probably are already hibernating and waiting for the 2017 gardening season to begin. Watch carefully for them around May (or late April if we are extraordinarily warm). If you can spot them and kill them before they reproduce next year, you can have a good long spell without them before more eventually come in from elsewhere. I had no squash bugs and no squash vine borers at all in 2016, which is about a twice-in-a-decade occurrence in our garden. We also didn't have them in 2011. So, I guess I'll likely have them every year for the next few years to make up for 2016 being so gloriously squash bug free.

I've been killing lots of leaf-footed bugs in the garden over the last 7-10 days. I figure that every single one I kill now means there's one less that will overwinter and be here to produce new generations next spring and summer. I also saw one green stinkbug but it got away from me before I could kill it. We still have tons of butterflies, bees, dragonflies, moths and butterflies. Oh, and sadly, lots of flies and skeeters.

Dawn

Dawn, we didn't get a frost but Al had to take a friend to the hospital this morning and when he left at 7:30 he said his car said 39, so we almost did. I picked a few small squash that I knew didn't have time to mature and cooked them like summer squash for lunch today, along with some frying peppers and fried green tomatoes. I don't usually cook lunch, but tonight is my school night in Tulsa so I will be leaving early. Looks like a few more squash will mature. LOL

I'm glad your squash gets to live another day or week or month, depending on what the weather does. Because, you know, y'all need another 100 lbs or more of squash, just in case the hundreds and hundreds of pounds you've grown and harvested already are not enough.

Our chickens like squash. Today I walked out onto the front porch in late afternoon and found a whole lot of chickens happily pecking away at a butternut squash that was part of an autumn display of winter squash, pumpkins, gourds and Indian corn. I tossed the damaged butternut squash out into the yard and they all ran out into the yard to devour it. Now that they've noticed the autumn display, it probably won't last much longer.

I hope school went well.

We are supposed to be in the 70s again on Saturday followed by a couple of slightly cooler days after that, but our nights look fine. Then, later next week, the forecast has us going as high as 77 degrees one day. Really? That seems a bit warm to me for mid-November. I guess our first freezing night certainly isn't coming any time soon down here.

It is kinda amazing y'all went down to 39 degrees and we went down to 40 considering we're probably around three hundred miles apart.

I found more green squash in the garden today. One is growing inside a pepper cage, shoving the pepper out of the cage. Another is on the fence, about head-high, hanging outside the garden. I guess that vine didn't want to stay inside the fenced garden. They probably won't have a chance to ripen, but then, you never know. I also found several more buff-colored ones inside the garden but didn't harvest them. I'm going to wait just a little bit longer for the rinds to toughen up a bit more. There's no rush since the weather is still so nice.

Well, my new greenhouse is up. I'm glad I only paid half price for it, because it's kind of flimsy. We need to replace our shed and we are thinking about a combo shed on the north, greenhouse on the south. But it would be a long way from the house, a long way to carry water. Maybe I can talk DH into a lean to greenhouse by the house. The old greenhouse was sturdier, but there were holes in the plastic. The plan is to set the old one up in the chicken run so they have some place dry to play this winter. Speckles has already quit laying. (She's the only one that lays white eggs.) As much trouble as she has been, she should have layed all winter to make up for it. I think she's pouting because we penned her up.

I wish my greens were bigger. I don't really want to fertilize, if we're going to start freezing, right? Persephone days start 11/26 for me. Boo! (Persephone Days). Oh, well, summer had to end eventually. Now I have to clean my house. Another boo! Time to plan again!

Speckles probably is pouting.

Based on the calendar our Electric Co-Op sends all members every year, my Persephone Days begin December 1st. It's okay. By then I am too busy with Christmas stuff to care. Well, I care, but don't have time to do anything about it.

I wouldn't fertilize the greens this week, but if next week warms up after the weekend (I haven't looked beyond Saturday yet partly because I don't want to know if it is going to stay cold), you might fertilize at half-strength or full-strength. Greens can stay pretty happy here in late November and early December if we are warm enough even though the light is low. We're so far south that they seem to get pretty much enough sun to keep going. I've had collards, spinach, cress, kale, some of the sturdier lettuces, cabbage, broccoli, turnips, beets, etc. survive all winter some years and they grew steadily, though slowly, the whole time. Or, they survived until it warmed up in March, which they loved, and I guess they lost their cold tolerance because of those warm days. Then, when we dipped down into the lower teens a couple of weeks later, they all had freeze damage. At that point it didn't matter because a lot of the overwintered stuff was going to bolt and I was already planting spring greens and cole crops as replacements.

As daylength begins to get longer after December 21st, the plants just get happier and happier every day. Some winters just don't seem very wintery here. This might be one of those years.

I left the mudroom's exterior door open this afternoon to let the lady bugs in after they began clustering on the outside wall. Every time I came in through the exterior door, lady bugs flew in with me all morning, so I thought I'd leave it open for them. Now they are climbing all over the ceiling and walls trying to find a place to settle in for the winter. It is like a swarm of bees outside the door, but they are lady bugs. So odd. Too early. I wouldn't want to come inside now and miss the warm days tomorrow through Friday if I was a lady bug, but clearly something is telling them to come inside now. Oh well, lady bugs are going to do what lady bugs are going to do. So, with them coming inside too early, I wanted them to have some plants, so I put one Thanksgiving cacti out there, a rosemary plant, a tropical plant that isn't in bloom (but maybe they'll enjoy climbing on it or searching it for tiny insects or something), and then I got a big green plastic pot and dug up one Laura Bush petunia, a Dusty Miller and a periwinkle for them, potted them up, pruned them back to make up for the roots lost to digging but taking care to leave them some flowers, watered the plants and put them that pot in the mudroom too.

Then I moved a few plants to the greenhouse for the ladybugs that are moving into it. Tim said there are lady bugs all over the whole southern side of the house right up to the roof. We think they are looking for a way in, but we caulked really well when we painted the house last fall, so I don't think they are going to find any cracks or crevices through which to make entry into the attic or any part of the house. That's why I left the mudroom door open for them. At least they can overwinter in there. I don't want them inside the rest of the house. Usually they go into the garage too, but I haven't checked today to see if the migration into the garage has begun.

I also noticed that some of the leaves on the red oaks are turning yellow. Usually the red oak leaves turn, um, red.....so the yellow ones look odd. I hope maybe they are going to go from yellow to red, but I don't think that is usually what happens. They usually go from green to reddish-green to red. Everything is so weird this year, and those yellow leaves on the red oak are a perfect example. I guess a bit of yellow is better than having them all just turn from green to brown and fall off the day after we freeze, which is more or less what happens most years when we stay too hot until the first freeze hits.

Our chickens mostly are still laying, but it will taper off more as daylength drops along with temperatures We do have the heat lamp on over the bird brooder and as long as that continues, which will be a while because the youngest chicks are only about 3 weeks old, then the older hens probably are going to be getting enough light to keep them laying.

The winter squash still are blooming. I just looked at those blooms today and shook my head. Other than making bees happy, nothing's going to come of those blooms, or at least nothing that will survive for long.

The leaves on my winter squash are turning black, like cold damage and none of the female blooms have pollinated. Nothing else in the yard looks frost damaged. I'm the only one who can't grow Seminoles.

I've not seen lady bugs in the house, but I have found a couple of lacewings. I vacuumed up the flycatching spider web last week. Thanksgiving guests might not understand. Stupid cabbage butterflies are still in my garden, and crickets, but I haven't seen grasshoppers.

We drove to Bartlesville Sunday, the leaves up there and much of the pastures are brown. I think they had a freeze that last cold night. I saw 7 hawks and THREE Great Horned Owls on the drive. Hawks I expect, but I've never seen owls while driving that road before. We left right at dusk, so their hunting time was just beginning.

I don't see us putting a light in the coop, though DH says he's going to put a heater in their water, so he will have to run an extension cord out there. Do you worry about your chickens water freezing? I don't look forward to going out in the cold to close the coop. (my job, since DH works 2nd shift).

Today I realized the new green house has no window. I am going to have to cut a vent in it, and then figure out how to seal it when it's cold. Went on line to see if I could find a new cover for the old one and found many just like mine for the price I paid (which was SUPPOSED to be half price). Grrrr. Can't seem to find anything like my old one. Time to build a real one.

Our forecast is deteriorating a bit with them sometimes showing us dropping as low as 33 and 35 instead of 38 and 36, so I'm going to expect frost damage or freeze damage. I'm okay with that. With the daylength getting so short, I cannot even tell if the peppers I left growing a little longer actually have made any more growth since the last time I harvested. If the warm growing season isn't over, it is now so slow that it might as well be over....nothwithstanding the fact that we're supposed to be around 80-82 degrees today and tomorrow before the next cold front arrives.

We haven't even frozen yet, but the native plants in the fields all have pretty much gone dormant and faded to that tawny wheat color they achieve in late autumn. The only things green are a few cool-season weeds, winter wheat or cover crops if people have sown those. The trees are fading fast...not really breaking out into pretty colors before the leaves fall, though I did notice some of the native roughleaf dogwoods (scrawny understory plants more like thicket shrubs than trees) are trying to turn a sort of burgundy-red. Most of the oaks are just turning brown. Every day I hope for autumn color, and so far the most color we're seeing is the ladybugs who've set up the winter hibernation site in the mudroom.

If you can build a hooped row cover, you can build a greenhouse pretty easily. Lost Creek has hoop benders for different sizes if you want to make it from EMT or fence piping. Or, you could make one using PVC pipe with some wood sidewall and door supports for stability. There's been tons of photos of people's greenhouses on FB lately and some are fancy and some aren't. They all do the job though.

You can see Lost Creek's variety of hoop benders and such at this link, including, I believe, some photos of chicken tractors too.

Hoop Benders @ Lost Creek

We don't see owls as much as we used to. There's tons of crows here and they chase the owls away relentlessly. We have hawks overhead everyday trying to find a chicken to snatch for a quick meal. The chickens are pretty savvy and run underneath all the thick and dense shrubs that we grow precisely to provide chicken hiding places. We do have a lot of Mississippi kites that also hunt relentlessly, but they also have a hysterical fit when they see snakes out, so I like having the kites around as they've warning me more than once that there's a snake headed for the garden while I'm in it. They fly right above the snakes, diving at them and carrying on and screaming. Sometimes the kites noise attracts blue jays and then the blue jays relentlessly pursue the snakes. Anyone who thinks we have peace and quiet here in the country has no idea how little quiet we actually have--it's just a different kind of noise.

We don't have heated waterers. We just don't freeze that often here. With the waterers inside the coop, between the chickens' body heat and the light, the waterers usually don't freeze unless the temperatures get way down in the low 20s. With the outdoor waterers, I tip them over and let the water drain out when I close up the coops at night if we are expecting temperatures near or below freezing. In a really rough winter when everything froze a lot like it did in our last really big snowy year here--which I think was 2010-2011, everything did freeze a lot, but I just sat the waterers out in the sun to thaw quickly if I could, or I poured out the water at night so I could start out with empty waterers in the mornings. It can be difficult to remove the ice from a frozen plastic poultry waterer without breaking it, so I do try to avoid letting them freeze. We have three chicken coops and a turkey coop, and there's no way I'm going to buy waterers and run electricity to all of them (only two of the coops have electricity for lights).

Since Tim and Chris both leave the house around 4 a.m. on the days they work, I have poultry (and dog and cat and tropical bird) duty most mornings, hot or cold, rain or shine. I'm used to it. Now that we get dark so early, I also have evening bird duty. Chris works 24 hour shifts on the days when he works and Tim gets home after dark now that it gets dark so early, so I have to plan everything around taking the time to close up coops right at the point the sun is setting. It isn't a problem as it just becomes part of the routine, but I don't like doing it in pouring rain or in snow. Sometimes it gets dicey if we are out at a fire, because even though the chickens will put themselves inside at night, they cannot close up their own coop doors, so they are just sitting ducks for predators at that point. I try to run home from a fire for just long enough to close up the coops, but sometimes I can't. Sometimes it all works out because I can text Tim that I am at a fire and that he needs to close up the coops when he gets home. He might not be home right at dark, but he's usually at home within a half-hour of it.

Now that the gun portion of deer hunting season is about to begin, the pesky coyotes shouldn't be as much of a problem for a while. When the hunters are out on deer leases and such, the coyotes quit coming anywhere near our house. We don't hunt and don't allow anyone to hunt on our land, but folks hunt on adjacent land and that's good enough to solve our coyote problem for a few weeks.

We have a lot of bees and some black wasps buzzing around just outside the house, presumably looking for a winter home. I told them they aren't coming in. Other than that, the garden is mostly grasshoppers and leaf-footed bugs, though I have been doing my best to kill the leaf-footed bugs if I encounter them while harvesting. I'm not seeing much else, including cabbage butterflies (knock on wood). I also am not seeing any other pests lately. Perhaps the cold nights already have sent most of them into hibernation.

Today I watered everything that I need to move into the greenhouse on Friday. I may have to cut back some of the two large brugmansias as they now may be taller than the greenhouse roof. Oops. They have grown really well this year and I probably didn't prune them back very hard last spring because they didn't suffer much freeze damage in the greenhouse since we never got very cold.

Fire danger spikes for the next 3 or 4 days. I think it won't be as bad here as it will further north and west, and we haven't frozen yet, so I'm hoping we won't have fires.

I guess my last warm-season harvest from the garden likely will occur tomorrow. All that's left to harvest is peppers, a few green tomatoes, some icebox watermelons, winter squash, southern peas and lima beans. I think this may be the latest in the year I've ever harvested southern peas and lima beans. Maybe basil. Most of it went to seed, but some of it went to seed so long ago that new leaves have sprouted near the bottom. I might be able to harvest enough to make and freeze pesto.

It is so warm it doesn't feel like Thanksgiving is close, so I'm probably behind on holiday plans and prep, but Thanksgiving will be here next week regardless.

If I was really, really worried about high fire danger, I'd be out mowing the front pasture and roadside and, so far, I am not. I guess if they were to increase our forecasted wind speed for Thursday a bit more, maybe I'll get more worried and would mow. I'd rather leave the autumn grasses tall so the wild birds and other critters can harvest their seeds, but I'll mow them down in I have to.

The last few days in the garden with a likely freeze approaching are sort of bittersweet. I have to talk myself out of trying to dig up and save all the pepper plants, for example, and I have to talk myself into leaving the pineapple sage in the ground. (It survived last year in the ground. It is hard to look at all the blossoms and butterflies and realize how little time they have left together. Even after everything else freezes, the odds are that the autumn sage, salvia farinacea and Laura Bush petunias will remain green and in bloom. They made it through last winter with very little damage, and I think the autumn sage bloomed all winter and right into spring. I finally had to pick a date and just cut it back hard so it wouldn't start the new Spring growing season being too tall and lanky.

It sort of blows my mind that a couple of days with highs in or near the 80s will be followed by a couple of nights near freezing, but that's Oklahoma weather.

Amy, last winter was my first winter with chickens. And it wasn't a hard winter. It did get cold enough to freeze the water at night several times. Their water is in their covered pen but not their coop. Usually I took a pitcher of warm water to their coop and poured it over the frozen water to begin the melting process that the sun would soon finish. On the really cold days and nights, I put a small waterer inside their coop and along with a heat lamp. I tried not to leave the heat lamp on all the time for a couple of reasons with the big one being a fear of a fire. The way it's attached to the coop, a chicken can't really fly into it--- but an earthquake or some other thing could possibly make it fall. Right now, I'm turning the lamp on for about 3 hours in the evening for some extra light, but unplugging it before bedtime. I'm using an extension cord and plugging it into the outside of our house--the coop is about 20 feet from our bedroom window.

When we redesign the shed to make it part-coop/part garden shed, I will rethink how I deal with lighting, heating, and waterers. There is electricity in this shed.

Yeah, if I know my DH, there will be no getting around his plan. Personnaly, I hate chicken waterers. They're always dirty, either with poo or the dirt they MUST scratch up. I like the dripper type, but it seems they freeze more easily. I'm not thinking about anything for a few days. Maybe after Thanksgiving. I may look into one of those solar electric fence things for power.

I suggested we build a shed/coop combo, but DH didn't look real excited. I have seen geenhouse/coop combos, but I want the greenhouse closer to the house.

Speckles is the smartest dang chicken. She was out again yesterday. She followed me to the "gate", which is just 2 posts and the fencing is cut next to one post and it catches on the fencing attached from the other direction. As I struggled to get the gate open she pushed through the space I had opened at the bottom. She is squeezing through the fence somewhere. She develped the technique of sticking her head under a fence and pushing through. I may just have to stake down the perimeter so she can't do that, but I don't know where it is loose enough.

The coop has a drop down door and it is hard to get it to close. The wood has warped a little and I usually have to kick it to get it closed. I thought since it is so difficult I didn't need to latch it. DH says Speckles was out this morning, she just pushed the door open! Glad I closed the gate last night. I guess I will have to latch it from now on.

Speckles must lie awake at night thinking of new ways to drive you crazy, Amy.

Chickens can tolerate a lot of cold as long as there is good airflow in the coop so that high humidity doesn't build up inside up it. (High humidity often contributes to diseases.) There are plenty of people a lot farther north than us who have chickens in unheated coops or pole barns all winter long. Some breeds are more susceptible to frostbite, especially those with low body mass or large combs. Most of the breeds we have here at our house have been able to tolerate any cold weather that OK throws at them. In fact, we have lost quite a few chickens to hot weather and never lost one as a result of cold weather.

There are some creative ways to keep waterers from freezing in winter, both with and without electricity.

Here's 5 ways to keep a waterer from freezing:

5 Ways To Keep A Chicken Waterer From Freezing

We have waterers both in the coops and in the chicken runs. When the nighttime lows are expected to go below freezing, I either pour out the water in the waterers in the chicken runs or I move the waterers into the coop. Once in the coop, the waterers generally won't freeze until we go down into the mid- to lower-20s.

When is everyone cutting back their asparagus ferns? (First time asparagus owner/grower/gardener.)

Ace Hardware on S. Western has all their pots half-price. Purchased a couple for garlic. Still need to plant it!

Also bought a soil moisture "detector". Can't remember what it's really called. It appears I'm under watering all the herbs that live in my house. And all the plants I moved indoors a couple of nights ago. I'm sorta obsessed with this. If it wasn't so chilly, I would take a flashlight and play with it in the garden. Well, maybe not. I heard someone whistling near/on my property and couldn't see who it was...and they would not answer me...and it freaked me out a bit. Needless to say, I hurried in from closing the chicken door.

Chicken question. What's the longest your hens have been "on break" from laying? It's been over a month. They are still losing feathers, but seem happy enough.

Just saw this macrame plant hanger tutorial.

It seems I have some mice in my garden. I have an indoor only cat, who will play with them in the house (I've never seen her actually kill them), but will they damage anything in the garden? We usually see one or two in the winter indoors, and I'm sure they've been out there before, but I expect the chickens and chicken feed are attracting them. Dang beagle will chase them into a garden bed. She's as bad as Speckles (who was out again this morning), stick her head under a fence and shinny under it. It is much harder for the very fat beagle, but she does it. They are making her as crazy as the rabbit did.

Saw a flipping grasshopper in a pot of greens today. The freeze was supposed to kill them, and the white cabbage butterfly. I wish I had hanger-on lady bugs to put in the greenhouse, there may be some aphids in there.

It appears my cool season plants survived, with the possible exception of some beets that are kind of limp. I watered them before the freeze and again today. Hope we get rain tomorrow.

Anybody have good turnip recipes?

I would like some rain too, Amy! But it's not supposed to be in our area last I heard.

I'm fairly sure I've never tasted a turnip...so no recipes. What do turnips taste like?

Did get the garlic planted. Planted several cloves in a large pot, but had a few left over that were put in two 12 inch pots. From what I understand, garlic should be planted in pots that are at least 18 inches tall. Oh well. We will see.

Speckles sounds like a sassy miss. She and Stella could be friends. Stella is my sassy one. I picked her up yesterday and she squawked and made such a fuss. I just needed to look her over and she wasn't having it. The other girls don't mind being held. Have we seen a pic of Speckles?

I'm not crazy about turnips. They have that mustard-green-radish kind of taste. I have some "salad turnips" ready to harvest, maybe past ready. The one I harvested was bland. Put it in a salad. I need to do something with them.

Love turnips but roasting takes away some of the earthy taste. Just roast wit other roots and Brussels too its amazing. I use a lot of onion to help sweeten it.

Thanks, Kim.

Hazel, I cut back asparagus after it has frozen and turned brown. At that point the green ferns are no longer undergoing the process of photosynthesis and providing energy to the plant roots.

Be sure you don't over-water the herbs. Many herbs originate from the Mediterranean and have low water needs, so over watering them actually would be worse than under-watering them.

Could you tell if the someone you heard whistling was a human or some sort of bird?

Chickens will stop laying for several reasons. One of those reasons is the decreasing day length. When day length gets very short in November through January, chickens often stop laying. They generally need roughly 14 hours a day of light in order to lay, so if you want them to lay in winter, you need to keep a light on in the coop for at least part of the night. It is not necessarily a bad thing when they stop laying as it gives their bodies a chance to rest and recover. Many hens that stop laying due to day length will begin laying again as day length increases....often sometime in February, roughly around onion-planting time. By then we are well beyond the winter solstice and the day length has gradually lengthened enough for some of the breeds to start laying again.

We do not necessarily give our chickens light in their coop at night during the winter to increase egg-laying. We generally only turn on a heat lamp in the coop if there are small chicks that need the heat lamp while they are in the brooder. I just turned the latest batch of chicks loose from the brooder two days ago and they seem fine without the heat lamp, but I'll still turn it on for a few more weeks at night if we're going to go below 50 degrees because the youngest chicks are only a month old. The older they get, the less they need the heat lamp. In general, I probably don't need to turn it on at all for them now that they can run around the coop because they can sit next to bigger chickens at night whose body heat will warm them up., but I'll turn it on so they can choose to go back into the brooder and sit under the heat lamp if they want. Most winters are not so cold that the chickens need a heat lamp at all, but in our last really cold winter, which I think was 2010-2011, we had tons of snow and lots of cold and I did turn on the heat lamp almost every night during that cold winter. The heat lamp and the body heat of the chickens combined to keep the water inside the coop from freezing, so that was sort of an extra bonus as they could drink early in the morning without having to wait for me to remove the ice from the waterer and refill it.

Another reasons that chickens stop laying is that insects become more scarce and, without those insects as a part of their diet, the chickens are getting less protein. If you only feed your hens a chicken scratch in spring through fall, you might want to add a Chicken Layer type feed which has a higher percentage of protein in it.

Different breeds lay different amounts of eggs, and the breeds that produce fewer eggs per year tend to be the ones who take the longest hiatus from laying in winter, so not only are each person's chickens going to lay at different rates depending on whether they have supplemental light in winter or are fed a layer feed, but different breeds within the same flock can lay significant more eggs per year than others.

We still have quite a few hens laying but that may be because of the heat lamp in the big coop for the chicken brooder's last bunch of chicks.

Amy, If field mice get into the garden, they'll eat any and everything they find, especially as winter goes on. So, if you have greens, they'll often eat them. You need to get rid of them before they decide to stay there and breed more mice in spring or you'll end up with a major rodent problem. They'll eat seeds as well as plants, which can make spring planting time a nightmare. Glue traps work well in the winter garden as long as you don't have cats or chickens who can go into the garden and get themselves stuck to the glue traps. (Nothing is funnier than seeing a cat running wildly around with a glue trap stuck to them but the cat is panicked and doesn't see the humor in it, and getting the cat to calm down and let you remove the trap usually requires at least two people---one to hold onto the cat while the other tugs at the glue trap.)

We got at least 0.70" of rain last night, and we still had lightning to our southwest at bedtime so there's at least a chance a little more rain might have fallen after we went to sleep. It was a surprise because yesterday's showers had been patchy and had missed us and there wasn't much on the radar headed our way. After dark, though, new lines of thunderstorms developed and even though they were rather thin lines of storms and were moving fast, they did drop some rain. It rained hard enough to knock out the satellite TV and the internet.

Turnips aren't my favorite food, so I don't grow a lot of them and don't eat them often. I like them more for the greens than the root. Tim likes rutabagas, which seem to me to be a lot like turnips but have a bit of a slightly more sweet flavor.

Dawn

Speckles is so pretty, Amy! No wonder she's sassy.

The asparagus is beginning to yellow. I've tried to keep it watered as we've been crazy dry. I kinda like it in the garden---it's tall and looks crazy when the wind blows.

What I remember about chickens from last fall...

It was my first year with chickens and they stopped laying mid Oct. to the beginning of December. Once they started laying again, the eggs were broken. Caught the culprit. It was Peggy, the Black Cochin. She had not started laying eggs yet...she's was a late bloomer. I received a roll-away nesting box for Christmas about that time she began to lay. And the egg breaking stopped...even when they were suspicious of the new nesting box and preferred to lay in the corner of the coop. (they've since adapted to the new box). Maybe she was jealous and breaking the other hens eggs???

They get a light from twilight to about 10 pm. They are fed layer pellets. In fact, yesterday I spent a little extra money and bought one with extra protein for "feather regrowth". Something interesting from last year...Marjorie, a red-sex link, was my champion layer. She laid big eggs--double yolks everyday. I didn't like it. I would rather she lay regular eggs--kept thinking it can't be good for her. She got sick last October. She was brought in and put in a plastic dishpan in the bathroom. I diffused Breathe Ease (my favorite essential oil) constantly and feed her water and plain yogurt. And a syringe of red wine (an online tip). In two days, she was standing up and ready to go back to the coop. I realize my great grandma would think me ridiculous, but the chickens are my pets.

But...she never laid eggs like she did before. In fact, I'm not sure that she lays eggs at all. When the girls started laying again last December, their egg colors changed slightly. Before, I knew that Marjorie had dark brown. Ida, light brown and Peggy light brown smallish eggs. (Stella lays white). But they all became the same color. Anyway...I'm rambling.

I don't think Marjorie lays any longer. I think she has a genetic issue. She wants to lay eggs as she sits in the box often.

I found an youtube channel and the woman said she feeds mash and whole corn (something about an oil in whole corn) and her chickens lay year 'round.

I really don't mind them taking a break as their bodies probably need it. But I really miss the eggs.

Congrats on the rain, Dawn.

Sorry for the rambling. :)

This is the third try for putting up a post :( The first went to internet limbo, the second I accidentally erased!

We got a quarter inch of rain last night. I'll take it.

The turnips were a cool season experiment. My MIL used to put a turnip (might have been rutabaga) in the mashed potatoes. I was not a fan. The salad turnips are short DTM and have bulbed up. The purple tops have not, though, and I think they should have. I'm sure the chickens will eat them if I don't.

Last winter I bought a bunch of roots at Sprouts to taste test. Parsnips I love, but the all year footprint is annoying. I LOVE root parsley. It's growing with the parsnips. I have salsify - a few anyway - to try. We bought turnip and rutabaga, but I don't think the rutabaga got eaten. I roasted them all and ran out of room before the beet and the rutabaga, and then, got distracted and never cooked the others. I know we didn't care for kohlrabi. I'm always looking for something different to grow, then I can decide if it would be better use of space to just buy it. I'm thinking turnips won't get a return engagement unless I find a super recipe.

I think I have found where Speckles gets out. I always see her on the east side of the run, and there is a place where the fence does not quite touch the ground. I have seen her push her head under the plastic fence around a bed and just push her way in, so I'm guessing she's pushing under the fence. She's going to break her scrawny neck. She is laying again, but hers are always dirty. She's the only one that lays white eggs. I think she does it to annoy her human slave. I am still getting eggs but not as many as before.

Hazel, When a hen stops laying like yours did, that can be an indication of a health issue. Do yours roam freely? Could she be laying eggs somewhere else and you just haven't found her hidden nest yet? Early egg color (and even shape and size) can vary a bit. Some hens even will lay bizarrely shaped or formed eggs in the beginning---sometimes laying eggs with no shell or with the shell on the inside and egg on the outside. These odd first eggs generally don't last long and the hens' bodies then settle down and lay properly. We have had an occasional double-yoked egg here and there but not a continual stream of double-yolked eggs from one particular hen. It seems odd, doesn't it?

Feel free to ramble. I ramble all the time. And, I need to correct my husband's rain report of 0.70" from last night. Apparently he got that from the electronic rain gauge's indoor monitor which, when I checked it this morning, read 0.08", so I am guessing Tim's 0.70" was actually 0.07". (sigh) He and his eyes are aging and he refuses to wear glasses, which likely explains the error. I hope he's wearing his glasses when he is firing a gun at work. If not, heaven help everyone near him! As soon as I walked outdoors to mostly dry ground, that was my clue to go back inside and read the rain gauge myself. We did get hard rain for a couple of minutes, but that couple of minutes apparently didn't leave much rain on the ground or in the rain gauge. The outdoor plastic rain gauge reads 0.40" but I think we never emptied it out after the last heavy rainfall. Otherwise, there is no explanation for the difference between the electronic rain gauge's 0.08" and the in-ground rain gauge-s 0.40". Dry ground and a lack of puddles tells the tale.

I am (not deliberately) trying to kill all the plants in the greenhouse by forgetting to open the door first thing in the morning. I need to get into the door-opening routine again, but so far, I forget to do it every morning and then eventually remember and run outside, open the door, and apologize to the plants (who don't seem bothered so far by being in a roasting hot greenhouse).

Amy, Speckles is such a character. We have had hens that try to push underneath fencing and our solution was to use some of those 4" long U-shaped ground staples that they make to hold down landscape fabric. We used those staples placed at about 1' intervals to hold the fence down tightly to the ground. I also use those staples to hold down some of the floating row cover I use to cover plants on cold nights, but the ones I have now are fairly cheap and lightweight compared to the ones I used to buy They just don't make stuff like they used to. I'm not sure the U-shaped ground staples I have now would hold down the fence well enough to keep a determined chicken from crawling under it. There are some better-quality, sturdier U-shaped ground staples that are sold by DripWorks Irrigation to hold your drip lines in place, but they are a lot pricier and I don't use them for anything else but the drip lines. Our ultimate solution for the part of the chicken run where the chickens were forcing their way under the fence was to pour concrete several inches deep and about 4" wide on either side of the fencing, with the fencing at the ground level captured within the concrete. No chickens get out, no coons get in, so it has been a win-win solution.

I want to spend the day working on my 2017 grow list, but I have Thanksgiving baking to do this afternoon, so that's clearly not going to happen. Maybe the grow list can be a Friday project. I'd rather be at home working on the grow list than out anywhere shopping for anything on Black Friday. My sister and I did that Black Friday shopping in the 1980s and early 1990s when our kids were young, and we're both completely over it. There is nothing on this earth that would compel me to step foot in a store on Black Friday, or on Saturday or Sunday either.

Dawn

I forgot to mention a couple of things...

Probably the reason I've underwatered the herbs is because I've overwatered in the past. It's a balance for sure. With my new moisture detector, I"m trying to keep them on the slightly dry side...but not too dry.

The whistler was definitely human. So weird.

Bummer about the new rain total, Dawn.

The hens free range a little each day (on the days that I'm home they get a longer ranging time) usually under my watchful eye. But they are mostly in their pen. My intuition tells me that she has reproductive issues...I knew laying such large eggs and double yolks so often wasn't normal or good for her. It bothered me. Other people get excited about it, but I didn't like it. Also, I seem to remember reading something on a blog that I used to follow about one of the blogger's hens who had reproductive issues...only their hen had to be "put to sleep". Marjorie is a very sweet chicken. She doesn't mind being handled at all.

Amy, are Speckles eggs dirty when they come out or does she get them dirty after they are laid?

Hazel, I'm not sure, but I think they may come out dirty. however, the coop needs cleaning, but DH is sick. We'll see if it continues after coop is cleaned.

I was standing at the kitchen sink when I saw a large bird fly into the yard behind us. I kept watching to see if I would see it leave. It was a large Red Tail that hopped up on my back fence and eyeballed the chickens. (They were under the camper shell which we used to use as a dog house. It has become their shelter in the run.) I ran to the door and scared it off. A few minutes later the wild birds returned to the feeder and I figured it must be gone. Worries me.

Hazel, I hope the chicken will be okay. They don't always have to be euthanized if they cannot lay eggs, but sometimes that is the most humane solution if the chicken has oviduct problems and if the eggs are essentially building up inside her body and not leaving it. The most common symptom of a blocked oviduct (other than no eggs being laid) probably would be that the chicken begins to stand more and more upright as the issue develops and gets worse, so they stand and walk more like a penguin than a regular chicken. Have you checked her for lice or mites or some other parasite? Or have you dewormed her? Sometimes the failure to lay is a result of a mite or parasite infestation. In all the years we've had chickens, we've never had one that showed symptoms of having a blocked oviduct, but I know that it happens.

My husband no longer is "allowed" to report our rainfall totals. This wasn't the first time he misread the gauge and told me we had received "tenths" of rainfall instead of "hundredths". I blame it on his failure to acknowledge his eyes are aging and his refusal to wear his glasses or contacts at home. In his defense, he leaves for work in the dark, so he couldn't see how dry the ground was or he immediately would have known he had misread the rain gauge. The lack of rain at this time of year is somewhat normal and our rainfall overall for this year is about average, so I cannot complain. I just hope the skimpy rainfall in November isn't a sign of things to come, though I fear it is. Often, we get good rainfall---maybe 3 or 4" in November---before we go through the drier months of December, January and February. So, in that respect, it probably isn't a good thing that November has been so dry. Now that we've had several heavy frosts, there is not a whole lot of green left in the fields overall and wildfires will have more dry/dormant fuel. I wish that were not so. On the other hand, I'm not complaining. This autumn has probably had the fewest grass fires, brush fires and wild fires so far that I can remember in the dozen or so years since I got involved with our VFD, so we've had it pretty easy so far. I hope the quiet period continues. Our worst fire season is winter and we're getting too close to winter now.

Amy, Hawks and Mississippi Kites are relentless in the efforts to get poultry. Our chickens are pretty smart about staying close to someplace where they can run under cover. We have lots of trees and shrubs the chickens can run underneath in order to hide from a predator. It is not at all usual for me to walk out the door and see a hawk sitting in a tree in the yard while our chickens huddle together under a shrub, under a vehicle or even on the porch to hide from them. Once a few months back I walked out the door and the hawk was sitting on top of the chicken coop's roof. Usually, just the fact that a human walks out the door will send the hawks and kites flying away. Once Tim saw a hawk swoop down and attempt to pick up a guinea. It had the guinea in its talons when Tim reached it, and the hawk wasn't going to fly off without that guinea. Tim grabbed the guinea and wrestled it away from the hawk and the guinea was fine, only losing a few feathers to the hawk. The hawk flew off. We have had more trouble with owls than with hawks, but ever since I started feeding cracked corn to the crows, they chase off every owl that even thinks about flying over our property and they do it almost 24/7.

The chicken predators worry me too, but you can't be outside with the chickens all day every day. We just try to be as watchful as we can when we're at home.

The coyotes are plentiful this year but this week I don't think the one that's been a problem near the house has shown up, at least not during the daylight hours. It is likely the presence of deer hunters on surrounding property might be scaring him away a little bit. They howled all night long, though, and were pretty close to the house (and woke me up and I am still awake though I no longer hear them howling). I haven't seen a cottontail in ages so I suspect the coyotes have been eating fairly well.

I noticed late yesterday that our largest and most visible red oak in our woodland is finally developing some red foliage. There's lots of gold and yellow leaves now, but also still a surprising amount of green foliage. Winter weeds like henbit are sprouting, and the yarrow in the fields is already up and growing too. Despite the late warm/hot weather, the cool-season plants are sprouting and growing right on schedule.

Dawn

I looked out on a very...very....quiet back yard. I'm scanning for chickens, checking the wild bird feeder, looking at the power lines for the hawk. But he was sitting on my TOMATO TRELLIS staring at the bird feeder. He could have seen chickens, but it looks like they were under the wood rack. I've heard a fake owl will deter them, but seems like it would scare the wild birds, too.

My kids, who live a block from us have little shitzu (sp?) dogs. I think that thing could have carried one of them off!

When I planted carrots in spring I loosened the soil. scatered the seeds. Then stired the surface. As I started pullong the bigger ones. the seeds that were deeper started to sprout.

I am just now pulling a secend harvest.

That's really great, plantermunn! Who doesn't want a second harvest of carrots?!

Marjorie the chicken doesn't seem to be uncomfortable or unhealthy. I just wonder if she burned out quickly--with all the double yolkers and giant eggs...then she was sick last fall, but got better. She doesn't seem to be in pain. She's active. Just didn't lay the same amount of eggs as before...and maybe not at all. As all the brown egg-layers egg color changed slightly after their "break" last fall...and I can't tell who is laying what egg (except for Stella). But good news! There was a white egg in the nesting box today! That's the first in about 6 weeks. Stella lays the white eggs.

Amy, Hawks are very persistent. They'll sit on a fence post, unmoving, for hours, just scanning the area for something to eat. I get irritated when I see them on top of the chicken coop, or on a garden fence post. I don't like having them that close to free-ranging poultry or to our cats. A red-tailed hawk picked up my cousin's cat in the mid- to late-1980s and carried it off. She thought the cat was gone for good, but apparently the hawk couldn't hang on to the adult-sized cat and must have dropped it, and a few days later the cat showed up at home, relatively unscathed.

Plantermunn, That's a cool way to get a second harvest! I hope the carrots are sweet and delicious.

Hazel, I am glad that Marjorie seems well. Often, the early egg colors are not indicative of what the hens eventually will lay, but the colors do settle down pretty well after the chickens reach a certain age or level of maturity. It could be that Marjorie will begin laying again at some point. With chickens you never know. I need to clean out the chicken coop and 'feed' the compost pile but it is not my favorite job so I've been dragging my heels and putting off doing it. All the browns I'm adding to that compost pile do need the nitrogen from the coop cleaning so I need to get with it and get it done.

It was cold here this morning and I am slow-moving and not inspired to do much of anything so far.

Dawn

We had our first real freeze last night. Crap. I wasn't expecting it and didn't move the house plants back inside. I moved them once when we were supposed to freeze but didn't really...not completely anyway. But we did freeze last night--water in both the dogs' bowl and chickens' waterers were partially frozen. Sigh. And it was the plants we received when my mother in law passed last February. And the watermelons that are growing right next to the house froze too. Yes, I have "bush" watermelons growing in a narrow bed right next to the house on the west side. It's weird, but weird is what I do. And I"m trying to be okay with that.

How many eggs per person do y'all use each week. I'm curious. My sister and niece were out tonight and as it was getting dark they were looking in on the chickens who had put themselves to bed. They were peeking into their window. As soon as I came over to them and started talking the chickens all came down their ramp. They (sister and niece) were amused that the hens know my voice.

It was warm today so we put the outside lights up. My job was to put those plastic hanger things on the light bulbs (Yay for not have to staple strands of lights to the roof [Clark Griswold]) and the chickens kept pecking at the red lights...I was sitting on the ground and they couldn't resist. They've been obsessed with the front yard lately.

I was just glad to be home. I love being home. And I even baked cookies while my son and daughter played Christmas music on the piano. Could life get better?

Did I mention I went out about an hour later and a squirrel was having a fit. I've never heard one make that much noise before. As I walked to the back of the yard a different hawk flushed and flew down the drainage ditch. I believe my first hawk was a red tail, the second a Cooper's hawk based on the large size and black and white striped tail. I've tried to remember the first hawk, thinking I mistook the Coopers for a Red Tailed hawk, but I don't think I did. It was a huge Cooper's though.

On a recent trip to Bartlesville, about a 45 minute trip for me, I counted 8 hawks along the road and 3 Great Horned Owls on the return trip. I was driving, so I wasn't scanning for hawks, just noticing them on the fences and power lines. I suspect I would have had more if I could have paid more attention to the fields. I remember from my birding days that if there is a large birth/survival rate of prey like rodents and rabbits, the birth rate of preditors goes up. Hawks are opportunistic and have no problem eating road kill, though I think power lines and fence posts make for good hunting perches. The hawks can have my mice.

Well, we are back in the egg laying business around here. Yay! The girls are laying again. I've had both brown and white eggs over the past 3 days.

It still looks pretty. I do think purple greens always seem to look best in morning light. I don't know why that is.

That is very pretty. I like the idea of all purples.

Thank you. It makes me happy. It can be seen from the street, and I hope it will be pretty when most everything else is brown.

I've never grown purple "stuff" but ya'll are peaking my interest more and more. Love it Amy!! :)

Some of the kale down the center of that bed is scarlet kale and some is Arkansas Purple . I grew this beautiful Arkansas Purple last year, which kind of inspired this bed. (That and a conversation here this summer about color themed gardens.) This pic was taken last January. You can bet it made me happy to see this color in the garden then. I also think the Red Tatsoi and and Purple Magic Pac Choi are gorgeous. I doubt they will be as cold hardy as the kale, but we will see. Most of these things turn green when cooked, but the anthocyanins in them are good for you.