We got back from Broken Bow this afternoon. We unpacked, took the rental car back, grocery shopped and finally made it home to sit for a bit before the work week starts back in a few short hours.

Ethan was able to keep everyone alive. My pets are not easy to care for. Josi is crated when we're not home because she gets into things. Also, she can't have free access to water because she overdrinks and gulps it which then results in vomiting. She did that while we were gone. Ethan used an entire roll of paper towels to clean it. Seriously. That is a bit dramatic, I think. An entire roll???

Diana is probably the easiest to care for. She is indoors only. She eats twice a day and has no litterbox problems. Finbar is an indoor/outdoor cat who absolutely hates Sturgeon so can't rest well if he thinks Sturgeon is just outside the door. He will only drink from the bathroom faucet and will use the litterbox while indoors, but prefers to do his business outdoors. It's tricky to let him in and out with Sturgeon hanging around. Juno lives mostly in the shop in a 3-level catio with a heating mat. She comes up for a couple of hours in the evening for a bit of petting and socializing. She is very nervous and can't stay in for long because of litterbox issues. She mostly enjoys being alone. Her perfect world would be just her and me. Sturgeon is the new guy who is really not my cat, but I've purchased a heating pad for him too. We have a couch in the shop and his heating pad is on that couch so he has a cozy place to sleep.

Then....the 27 chickens. I have a couple of older girls. I give them special attention, but don't expect others to do that. There's just a lot of activity and managing going on around here.

Which is WHY it is so hard to get away.

Oh wait...there's also the 20 year old turtle.

My future self will have chickens and one indoor cat (and hopefully a miniature cow. lol)

The garden. Yeah.

I looked at it this afternoon. The broccoli, kale, arugula, lettuce, and collards looked just fine. Some of the cabbage got slightly bit. The chard did as well. The prize choi might be toast.

The turnips looked good.

The frost tender things that made it through the frost 3 weeks ago, are dead now.

So, I was able to find the beautyberry that I found last year in the forest. I took 3 cuttings. I really don't know what I'm doing here. Is it the wrong season to take cuttings?

There is a lot of clean up still to do. I'm very disappointed that we didn't have a little more fall. There's several things on my list that didn't get done. And most of it might not get done. We are heading straight into the holidays now and life will revolve around that.

Stella comes in from Oregon on Wednesday, so we'll be cleaning and preparing for her after work over the next two days.

It really was so nice to be in the forest. I kept the curtain open so I could see out. When it rained, it was just like those asmr videos I like to have on my TV while doing chores or even sleeping. Here's a nice one.

Anyway....I hope everyone is staying warm and cozy.

I did not try to save anything, other than an outside faucet. I was getting undressed for bed and remembered that I had an outdoor faucet with a manifold and hoses attached. When I went out to check everything was already frozen. I got lights and a heating mat to place on it hoping to thaw it before it burst. It was sometime after midnight before I got everything thawed and removed. I have not checked it under pressure, but I think I got to it in time.

It was down to 20 for several hours last night and all the plants show it. I will just play it by ear, everything is on its own the rest of winter.

Daughter, grand daughter and boyfriend came over today and I showed them where they could plant their garlic, which they did. I am trying to encourage them, but letting them do the planting.

Time is running out on me planting anything, but I still have a few seeds I would like to put in the ground, I would like to plant a cover crop in the north garden.

I get there can’t go away for too long. My 5 chickens, 1 dog and 2 bunnies acted starved when I got home. The bunnies were completely out of food and water which really should never happen. Their food bowl holds 4 days worth and water easily 3 days. The chicken food should have been empty and into the second 5 gallon bucket by time I got home since they weren’t free ranging at all I told the helper to feed them a lot more than I usually do. And the dog never scarfs food and she has been ravenous. I always feed her until she is full but no extra because then she just buries it. Well she can’t seem to get full. Hopefully everyone will catch up and realize I am not going to starve them. I hate they went through this while I was gone but we all survived so I am thankful for that. My peas I planted are coming on strong except one container the chickens found after the cover blew off. I have a bit more garlic I want to plant and then I want to work on consolidating and cleaning up around here. It really is a mess since I have been sick for so long. I hope I am on the mend now. Even though they have no idea what I have. They know what it’s not.

I just got back from checking my game camera. The camera was empty, and the food I put out was gone. I forgot to put the card back in the camera yesterday, but I am sure I put feed out late yesterday. I have to be crazy, I could fatten a calf on what I am feeding the deer. I fuss about the deer breaking my electric fence and eating my garden in the summer, then turn around and feed them in the winter.

I will try to get around and plant some cover crop today. The cover crop may take forever to come up, but maybe I can get some green manure out of it for spring, I even have a couple of places I can toss some turnip seeds. I have heard how deer love turnips, my deer wont touch them, maybe if they were not eating so good on range cubes, corn, and winter pasture they may like turnips better.

Getting rain again today. I would love to send it to someone or could I save it for next summer.

It is raining snowballs here. The temp is 37 degrees, but the rain Is more big slushy snowballs than rain, but it melts as soon an it hits the ground.

Kim, I'm so sorry that happened to your pets. Poor things. I hope they're getting back to normal now.

I can't believe next week is Thanksgiving. I feel like I've lost a month.

I really, really need to spend a day cleaning up dead plants and tidying up but it might not happen until after Christmas at this point. The holidays are here.

We had two delightful weeks or so of long-sleeve weather with no coat. Just a month ago i was putting on my Farmers Defense sleeves to protect my arms from the sun, and now I'm in my heavy coat.

Larry, that's great that your family got their garlic planted. I noticed yesterday that my garlic has popped up. It will probably be knocked down again.

I really don't have much gardening stuff to talk about. I made my Garden 2023 plan back in the late summer. I'm sure it will be tweaked a little. If next year shapes up like this year, I won't be trying to save plants for weeks/months. Hopefully that won't be the case and we'll have a slightly cooler summer with more rain.

I have a box of ripe tomatoes in the utility room that need to be dealt with.

What's going on with everyone?

Jennifer, I am still playing with the deer, and dreaming about next years garden. I guess the strongest thing bouncing around in my head is to be able to garden with no irrigation from our water co., some of those plans mean moving my garden. I really don't want to move my gardens, it is just too much work to start from scratch. I may put in a patch of pumpkins or sweet potatoes over close to the well, but, even that will be a lot of work. If I knew for sure that my grand daughter was going build here on the property I would not mind so much about starting a garden over near the well, because that is where she wants to build, but I would not be wanting to build at this time.

My min/max shows that we got down to 24 degrees last night, that is just too cold to think about playing in the dirt. I still want to start some plants, if I cant cure those feelings I may just start them on the light shelf and move them to neighbors greenhouse later. We are hoping to start a bunch of plants this year anyway, and if nothing else we can use the practice working in the greenhouse.

I need to go check my trail camera. Madge and I both are enjoying watching the deer with the trail camera. I have another camera ordered, should be here today or tomorrow. I would like to get a camera that will send a picture or video to a phone or computer, but I would not know haw to operate if.

I was late last night getting the feed to the deer and had 3 waiting on me when I got there. Of course they ran off. I am sorta wanting to see how long it takes them to come back, or if they did.

Lost my post. In short, I'm looking at seeds for next year.

Check out the Korean radishes at kitazawa. They appear to be like diakon. https://kitazawaseed.com/collections/radish

Amy those are sure pretty. I would like to get my seed inventory caught up. I did not take notes this year Of what I tried to plant. I usually do pretty good but this year not at all. I know for sure I have plenty of lettuce and radishes. Last fall or the year before I bought the MI Gardner grab bag and got mostly radishes and lettuce in there. I did not take advantage of that sale this year. I still want to be able to cold frame and grow salad greens. It’s probably not too late for me. I just need a good warm spell.

My chickens found my baby greens.

I bet you have some happy chickens.

It's getting too cold to get much growth on any of my plants.

My greens look terrible, too many 20 degree nights. They will live but the heavy frosts have burned the leaves, and may have taken out all of my 1/2" tall plants.

Spotify is playing the Persephone songs again. It's like they know.

It is so cold. We couldn't do this gradually. It has to go to real cold real quick.

Honestly, I don't know what will make it. The broccoli looked good before I covered them Wednesday night. The cabbage is bit. Rick came out and covered some of them in the kitchen garden. He has the SG covered already.

The turnips and radishes look good. I go out in the mornings and pull some of each for my lunch salad. Yesterday, I could only pull one small turnip out because the ground was frozen. I was in a hurry and didn't have time to find a tool to dig more out. I brought them in and cleaned them and left them on the counter. I couldn't find them after I dressed and fixed my hair, etc. The only explanation is that Josi ate them. She's been so bad lately about stealing stuff.

She's like your chickens, Kim. Lol

I feel extremely unorganized with the garden right now. Normally I have a better handle on things. The hoop house is a mess. I need to pull out a couple of tomato plants and finish putting lettuce in. It's ridiculous. I don't have the cups and trays stored away.

It's so frustrating, but I'm trying to just leave it. It is what it is.

I'm trying not to be so frustrated, though. It's not just the garden. Family things like holidays are being put on me. For some reason I have to talk to everyone and try to arrange everything. I don't want to do that. I know my sister is going through a lot right now, but I'm tired of being the one who tries to keep everyone together and who plans get togethers. I can do that role well IF everyone plays along. But if they don't...if they're lazy about replying to messages with what they want to do, then there's nothing I can do. I'm just so over it. I didn't cause the problems in their lives. It wasn't my choices that did that. My heart breaks for them, but I can't do anything about it.

Here's what I would do if I wasn't trying to protect my Mom: Plan a meal and get-together (I always do this well with games, crafts, cookie decorating) and those who come, come. If no one comes, then I celebrate alone. But, I want for my Mom to be happy and see everyone and feel good about it all, so I will continue to try to get everyone to respond and participate. Because it's important to her.

I decided to bake cookies tonight. Ethan and Stella went out for dinner so I didn't need to cook. Tom had a big lunch. It felt good to bake. I made a chocolate chunk cookie and an oatmeal cookie. Smells so nice in the house.

I'm looking ahead a week so and it looks like we're going to have good weather for a few days. Just in time for Christmas lights. Also, maybe I can get that garden cleaned up.

Hope everyone is staying warm and cozy.

Jennifer I too tried to keep it all together for years for mom. I found it was too much for me. I set up dates times let everyone know their party then I was done. If they did or didn’t I didn’t care. Not my worry. Several get together we had no tea. Oh well. Several people were hours late with their contribution oh well. As long as I was there with my mom or child I was fine. That’s what counts. Worry and stress just take away from the days. This year especially I refuse to lose precious minutes. On to gardens mine Is a hot mess of grass and weeds. I desire a major overhaul as soon as it warms up enough to work out there. I need to get a ton of cardboard. As I tear apart an area I am going to put down cardboard and some mulch or pine shavings. I want a much cleaner look this next year.

My garden looks okay for now, I will be knee deep in henbit before long, it is always a pain for me each year. I have a lot of bare spots where I would like to plant something. I am thinking that I might be able to get spinach to come up, but if it is spotty or has skips in it, it would just hinder me reworking the soil. I could plant more garlic, or save the space for onion plants, but that is nearly 3 months away.

I dont handle this cold weather very well. And I dont like sitting and getting in touch with my inter self, I can do that any night when I am in bed, or on the commode.

I am spending a lot of time feeding and taking pictures of the deer. So far I seem to be keeping them off the hwy. I feed them about 200 yards behind the house. I have my game camera set up and getting about 50 pictures a night. My food plots are not doing well, I think it would help the plots if we could get a little rain and some warmer weather.

Larry we usually have a warm spell before January so hope to plant more then.

It's quiet here.

About my family. I am happy and honored to plan things.....but, sometimes other people have more time than I do. It would be nice if they could help more. At least with the planning. I was in an overwhelmed mood the other day and really felt it. Thanks for letting me vent here. ;)

In the garden...

Well, the garlic is sprouting. I might have already said that.

A lot of things are alive but have damage from the frost/freezes. We will see if they go on to be productive.

Rick has all of his tunnels up...but they'll need to be opened up.

All of my little fruit trees and bushes were given a sprinkling of acidifier.....and I spread chicken droppings/zeolite around them. Maybe that will help with their health.

Maybe consistent rain would help with their health too. We still have large cracks all over the property.

I am not thinking too much about the garden right now. And won't do too much either. Winter weeds are abundant. I will go out today and uncover a few things.

I sure wish those cabbages had headed up. Maybe they will still? I made Reuben sandwiches last night for dinner and now only have one quart jar of sauerkraut left. The way I made the sauerkraut for these sandwiches: warm the kraut in a pot with olive oil. Grate an apple into the kraut, add some chopped onion, garlic, and a pinch of allspice. So good. When I made them vegetarian for me, I add the homemade russian dressing (it's SO good), fermented dill pickles (I'm on the last jar from the fall cucumbers), kraut and then swiss cheese. All on marble rye. It's a very good recipe. I add corned beef for the guys.

Honestly, though. I wouldn't have time to deal with a harvest of cabbage right now anyway and have limited space in the refrigerator.

I am about to head out to shop for Thanksgiving food.

Stella leaves tomorrow. I'm always sad when she leaves. Her grandfather is heading to Portland right now. He lives in Alburquerque. She's excited to see him.

So, what is everyone up to? What's everyone doing for Thanksgiving?

Seems like I've been MIA for a few weeks, though I've been reading I haven't posted. Nothing garden related here, other than trying to organize my seeds & plan for next year. I should probably pick a project & focus on that, instead of starting to plan out the circle bed, then deciding I need to work on the new garden location, then deciding to leave the garden where it is & focus on that, then deciding to do something else. I've been bingeing some youtube channels, & there's one guy I really like that does videos on garden experiments. He details what he did, why he chose to do that, then follows the progress all the way to end results & what he learned from it. My analyst brain loves it & it sparks ideas for my own experiments.

Jen, do you mind sharing the YouTube channel? I watched a guy who did stuff like that too. It was One Yard Revolution. It's not all he did, but he did some of it.

I agree that picking a project and focusing on it is good. It gets overwhelming and nothing is done well (At least in my life.) when I spread myself too thin. I have way too many projects and then don't really get to enjoy the things I'm doing because I'm not doing them well.

Really, I wish I had made our backyard the kitchen garden. If I could do it again, it's what I would do. But, a few years ago, we had the dogs in the backyard. I'm still considering making it a kitchen garden of sorts. With a couple of Vego beds...and maybe one of those handy Greenstalk towers. Maybe two. Berries in one, greens in the other. I want to plant fewer things honestly. I don't need 40 heads of cabbage. I need 6 good ones in the spring and 6 in the fall. If they were just outside my back door (especially in the fall) it would be easy to cover and uncover a small bed. A couple of dwarf tomatoes and lunchbox peppers in the summer would make it easy to grab stuff for lunch. Herbs for cooking as well.

The Vego and Greenstalk are expensive, though.

The current kitchen garden would continue to be a place to grow many things, too.

And if we ever get to a place where we need to grow lots of food, I have the ability and place to do that. And still want to do it to some degree, but while paying attention to the weather and such. If it's going to be insanely hot or dry, just not try to grow certain crops. Things like that.

And if there's ever a time in my life that it doesn't matter because I have all the time to water and water and water. and cover and cover and cover--then I can.

A lot of the homesteaders we watch, have one adult at home full-time and sometimes both adults are home full-time. It makes a difference for sure.

Many things to consider. Enjoyment is one of them.

Neighbor and I put in 3 more food plots for the wildlife, and I made another spot to plant food. We broadcast about 100 pound of wheat and 50 pounds of rye grass. It is late to be planting, but we have been late on almost everything this year. I cant get out and work in the dust and heat, that means I stay in a lot.

It has been a great day, I have worked outside a lot today, it was driving a tractor, but that is about all I can do, excess walking and lifting are in my past.

The very cold night we have really hurt out turnips and radishes.

https://youtube.com/@REDGardens

hello here's what i do for winter gardening.

May I be not ashamed of trying to keep the gardening going even into the depths of winter.

Rick

Rick, it sure looks nice.

Larry, I'm trying. But it's been hard since I got rear ended with my truck.

I had a lot of fall plantings to come up since it rained out east but then it froze out.

I had a lot of stuff freeze out also. I really wont know how bad it is till things start coming up in the spring, but at that point the henbit may have smothered it out, or I have tilled it in. It is really hard for me to time planting, it seems as if it is too wet to get the ground ready, too dry for anything to come up, or not enough time left for the crop to mature, then I have an endless supply of insects and critters.

Rick, I hope your car accident does not have a lasting affect on your body. I can tell that my body is much different than it way when I was younger.

Worst part about it is that I can't haul my tiller back and forth till I get my truck fixed.

Anywho , you all have a happy THANKGIVING !!!

Rick

Rick and everyone have a happy thanksgiving. Hope y’all have places to go and people to be with.

Thankgiving every one.!!!

Three seed catalogs came in the mail today.

I've decided that I'm not going to start seeds or even think much about the garden in January, and instead, focus on a few projects indoors.

Watching Hoarding Buried Alive today makes me want to clean out cabinets and drawers.

Stella left this afternoon. I always feel sad when she leaves.

I got the eggs ready to devil and baked cookies today. Tom got the brisket ready to smoke. He's putting it on the smoker right now. It takes like 12 hours.

It's been a slow day really. It's nice.

We did go out to buy new outdoor Christmas lights. Store was packed.

Here's a little rant. Ethan always wanted colored lights on our house, but our last house really "called" for white lights. So, after moving out here we did colored lights for him. They began going out in 2019 (how was that 3 years ago! It seems like last year!) but we used them anyway. Then bought new lights in 2020. I wanted a light, fairy-like look, so did a type of icicle light. They were so pretty, but last year, in 2021, sections of the lights were out. After a year! We already had them on the house and Tom couldn't figure out the issue. So, this year I got online and read reviews. Apparently, the lights purchased after 2019 have that issue. ALL the review after 2019 were bad. And there's nothing that fixes the issues. So, we decided to just buy new lights and went with a cheap warm white. Hopefully it lasts more than a year. But, if it doesn't, we won't be out tons of money.

Happy Thanksgiving, Friends!

In the garden world I have gotten no catalogs yet which is probably good. And I am going to be doing all winter sowing. It worked so well for last year. This year I will only grow what I can cover. I am about to rip out all the in ground beds. Everything will be in pots under a tunnel of insect netting.

We had one of our better Thanksgivings yesterday at my daughters house, which consist of soup and salad, and one dessert. I am hoping to convince Madge's family to start doing the same. Madge just wears herself out cooking. The kids have started bringing the food, plus cooking here, but Madge still wears herself out. It seem as though she just cant let go.

I have some cover crop coming up now, and I am thinking I may plant more. I hope we dont have cold weather that kills what I have coming up. I planted mostly wheat because it is cheaper and easier to get locally, but I had rather have grain rye.

I had a long talk with my sister yesterday about foregoing some of the traditions. She was upset, cursing, in pain, near tears. Certainly the complete opposite of joy. I used to be nearly the same. Years ago I started transitioning to where I am now. And in light of recent hospitalization It does not matter to me what we eat. It only matters being together. I saw 2 of my kids some of my grandkids and a few close friends. My daughter cooked I made gravy. It was perfect. I told my daughter if she decides one year to do tacos I’m fine with that too. My sister sadly had a horrible day. I tried to tell her it does not have to be that way. That is not love language lol. The garden. I was going to work out in it today but it’s only 50 the wind is blowing something fierce and I am supposed to stay well for more tests soon. I will probably do something like seed inventory. That always makes me happy.

Seeds everywhere

Kim, I would be ashamed to show you my stash. I just got through carrying a Craftsman tool bag full of seeds back to hide in the center bedroom, we are going to have Thanksgiving here with Madge's family tomorrow and I am looking for places to hide all my junk ( which cant be done), but I have to make an effort.

I have taken over the center bedroom for seed starting and food storage, it is a mess, just like everything else I have. We have not canned anything this year, but we have still a good bit of food rat holed.

My stash is a mess too Larry. I live in 152 square foot shed with 2 lofts. Half of one loft is buckets of seeds that I am condensing into small bags. What a mess.

Sweet potatoes. I have no idea what variety I grew but this year was the best textures and best flavor I have ever grown. I am going to save back one to make slips. I grew in potting soil just like I have the last 3 years. This year I only did 2 slips per pot. Grasshoppers took them down at one point but they came back with a vengeance. I hope plant more next year with the same results.