Hello!
Winter
has arrived here on the mountain with a few snow flurries and lots of cold
weather- some days barely getting out of the 30's and down in the low 20's at
night. For a couple of weeks we had some warm 70 degree weather days when
suddenly the temperature nosedived one afternoon. Now having 50 degrees would seem like a heat
wave. So, we are staying busy keeping our wood-stoves going. There is nothing
like a crackling fire to warm one's bones on frigid days. Outside the world
looks bleak with barren trees and the last of the hardy blooming flowers
gone. It makes one very thankful to have
a warm cozy house.
The
last few weeks, we raced around gathering buckets of branches for kindling and
helping to stack pickup loads of wood with Dwight under the carport. Every
sunny warm day found me with a paint brush or spray can of paint. I painted the back step railing, bluebird
houses on the fence, and trellis seats Dana made years ago in the enclosed
garden. I sprayed pinecones for wreaths
and anything else I had forgotten that needed a touch of paint. I was hoping to
get the arches and inside fence painted in the enclosed garden but ran out of
time as I am much slower than I'd like.
I've
also been collecting seeds from the garden to save for next year. There is always
something fascinating to me about saving seeds to store back. It's amazing how
one tiny seed can produce gorgeous flowers and veggies that in return make
oodles of other seeds. I also planted
more bulbs to come up in the spring- one never can have too many flowers- and
transplanted and divided other plants. I trimmed around the trees in the yard
for a finishing touch and put up chicken wire around the spots where I am
trying to get some shade gardens going where the trees are too close for Dwight
to mow. For some reason the ducks and
chickens seem to think that the hostas, ferns, and other shade plants are a
ducky and chicky salad bar grown for them and just when my shade gardens begin
to take off they eat everything down to the ground. So, I am duck and chicken
proofing my shade gardens for next year.
I
also put out heating water bowls and buckets in the duck and henhouse and for
Tex. Dwight rigged up a heating pad in the doghouse for Tex as for some reason
he is allergic to straw like we always did before to keep him warm through the
winter. I've closed up the beehive for the winter as well. During the last warm days they were really
going through the sugar water to finish filling up the last of the frames with
honey to live on this winter. The Canadian
geese are arriving from up North for the winter and the birds that haven't
migrated South are keeping me busy filling up the bird feeders.
Sending
lots of Thanksgiving wishes for a blessed Thanksgiving season from my house to
yours~
Dorcas
