Monday...

And hard at work writing after a most productive weekend. I did take time out last night to celebrate Samhain (one night early). Our Samhain pumpkin:



Being as it's a pie pumpkin from my garden, we baked and ate it. I've have pictures of my Jack-O-Lantern pumpkin up in a day or so.

Nos Calan Gaeaf Da i chi!

-GRG

Thursday...

No post yesterday because I was offline all day due to a power outage. Denver had its first autumn snowstorm, and it was a big one:



I think we got about 8 inches here, though it's hard to be sure. The several days before had been warm and sunny, and I spent them frantically preparing house and garden for what we got. One of Tuesday's last tasks: potato and beet harvest:



No writing yesterday as I had intended because no power. I could have used the netbook, of course, but wasn't sure how long it would be before I could recharge the battery. A few years ago after a late spring blizzard I was out for three days... Thankfully, only 22 hours this time!

-GRG

Monday...

Busy again in the garden yesterday and today. Our first big winter storm is due tomorrow night, with possibility of 4-8 inches of snow and lows Wednesday night in the teens (F), so I've had a lot to do the last few days in putting the garden to bed and making the garage ready for those geraniums etc. which are too tall to fit in the cold frame. Almost done now - I'll bring them inside tomorrow, pick the beets and batten down a few other things. Wednesday should be a good day for writing, and I'm looking forward to getting back the Druid book!

-GRG

Friday...

A touch of frost last night. I was expecting it, and harvested most of the rest of my vulnerable crops (peppers, eggplant, squash, tomatoes, basil, and the last cucumber). Not much damage that I can see so far except to the zucchini leaves, but the next few nights are supposed to be colder. Still haven't picked all the beans - we'll see how that goes.



Writing continues to go well. I'm up to 19,000 words now - about 50 pages. Steady does it, or as the Welsh proverb has it, "contestant tapping cracks the stone."

-GRG

Friday,...

Cooler weather yesterday, which was nice. I'm making good progress on the new book, and have set up a page here for information about it. I'll add new bits from time to time. In the meantime the harvest goes on:



Back to work!

-GRG

Wednesday...

Wednesday already! I've been busy with the book the last couple of days - over 1,000 words a day, which is fast for me. Now if I can just keep it up... Weather's still warm - too warm for this time of year, though not setting records. I picked the three remaining ripe pumpkins today lest the squirrels get them; the three younger ones are changing color, so may have time to ripen fully if the weather holds.



Back to work now...

-GRG

Friday...

Cooler weather at last! And I've spent half the day working on website and email stuff - what a waste! I'm going out in the garden now - but one picture first of the green beans (3.5 pounds) I picked yesterday:



-GRG

Wednesday...

First, here's the link (and a second link)for Saturday's event. It's a fundraiser for Gateway Battered Women's Shelter, run by our local ADF group. We're Dwygelli, and we open (4:00-4:45 pm). Here's our card:



Next, a picture of Monday's tomatoes:



Weather's still hot, with temperatures well above seasonal normal (as in mid-90's again today, close to a record high), but it should be a little better starting Friday. Maybe then I can get more writing done...

-GRG

Monday...

The weather's a bit cooler today, so I'll be canning tomatoes. The Romas in particular have been very productive this year, so we'll have a good supply. I'll put up pictures later.

On other news, we'll be doing a short set of songs and storytelling to open for a charity event this coming Saturday. Links later...

-GRG

Wednesday...

Nothing much new... I'm harvesting the onions, which have all made their bulbs and lain down for the season. Back-filling with a few marigolds. This is the third and last batch of onions, harvested today and drying in the sun:



And this is yesterday's batch with their tops braided:



Not much progress with writing, alas, but the weather cooled off yesterday, so there's hope...

-GRG

Friday...

Almost Lammas, and harvest in the garden is going great: squash, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, beans... Here's some of what I've picked in the last couple of days (there were also two zucchinis and more tomatoes, but we ate them):



Some of the corn is seven feet high and starting to bloom... Back to work now.

-GRG

Equinox

We celebrated the equinox with a tomato harvest. A number of the small-tomato type plants -- Isis, Red Pear, Purple Russian, Green Zebra, and two of the Red Zebra / Speckled Romans -- were done for the season, so we picked the usable fruit and cleaned up the beds. The Red Zebra and Striped Roman next to the corn are still carrying a lot of green fruit, so we left them to get on with it. We also picked all the big Hillbillys and Brandywines that were ripe. We had one of those along with corn and squash from the garden for the vegetable part of our celebration feast. And yesterday I canned ten pints of tomatoes! This has been a very gradual autumn in Denver -- still no frost, although it's been close a couple of times -- and we're now having the sort of warm, dry weather that we usually get after all the tomato plants are dead. Don't know how long it will last.

On the writing front, things are still going well: I finished chapter 15 today -- half the projected total -- and started the next. Figures on the sidebar as always.

Happy equinox!

-GRG

Tomato harvest...

Remember those little tomato seedlings in the cold frame last spring? Most of them did rather well -- especially the Hillbillys. I've canned 9 pints already and will be doing more this weekend, when we celebrate the Equinox with some garden harvesting activity.

And I've got 3 pages written so far of Chapter 15.