Last night. Yep, I had to go and talk about it, didn’t I….
Archive for the ‘Weather’ Category
First Frost
27 September 2010Popcorn
25 September 2010I harvested all the popcorn today. Got one 5-gallon bucked filled with husked cobs from 15′ of row.
The quality of the cobs varied greatly, with some only 10-20% filled in, dependent, as far as I can tell, on the quality of the soil in which they grew. Pretty much what you’d expect, but the results were striking:
Also dug 20 gallons of coffee grounds and 4 gallons of kitchen waste into the west beds.
The growing season this year has been very long, with our warm, early Spring and not even a light frost yet. We’ve almost always had some very light frost by mid-September, but not this year.
Where are we? Part One
9 September 2010It’s been a heck of a summer. Obviously, I’ve posted very little, and I feel the need to catch up a bit.
First of all, the weather. It was a warm, wet summer. We used the air conditioner more than we ever have, and our electrical bill shows it. It rained at least every 3 days almost all summer — naturally, since I had 250 gallons of water in the always-topped-off rain barrels. Maybe I’ll get to use the water from them next year. At least I’ve got them made.
I think when I empty them out for the winter in a few weeks I’ll put one in the basement to catch the condensate from the furnace. That will give us 55 gallons of emergency water that could be run through the filter and made potable, winter or summer. In the winter it gets condensate from the furnace, in the summer it gets condensate from the air conditioner. I’d like to set up another one also that captured water from the roof whenever it was flowing in the winter. That shouldn’t be that hard. Think flexible hose that can take freezing. But what about when the barrel was full and over flowing? Let the sump pump handle it? There has to be a non-electric solution to that….
We hit upon a great way to use the stored wheat berries we have (after grinding into whole wheat flour): pancakes. The boys love them. I bought a big cast iron griddle that covers two burners on the stove, and I really like making them, although M doesn’t like them (pancakes, that is, not these specific pancakes).
Grape Leaves, Rain, and Bears
5 June 2010So I’ve started reading Stalking the Wild Asparagus, which I’ve known about almost since its publication in 1962, but have never read. I resisted reading it because I didn’t know what it was and it quickly became a cliche. But better late than never.
Anyway, I read about eating grape leaves in STWA and decided to give it a try, especially since the season was right and I knew of a wild grape vine on our property putting out a lot of new leaves after I hacked it back. I stuffed them with a mix of beef, rice, sunflower seeds, onion, parsley, dill, and olive oil (recipe from Joy of Cooking), and they came out very good. G ate them but D did not. Grape leaves, dill, parsley from our yard, beef from across the street.
Meanwhile, we’re on the verge of having too much rain. It’s raining hard again right now. You watch, now that I have 250 gallons of rainwater stored, it will rain every 5 days all summer and the garden won’t need any of it.
We also apparently have some bears living in southern Wisconsin now, and a few at least visiting our town.
Weather and Electricity
8 April 2010So in the last four or five days we finally got our rain, probably a couple of inches at least. That’s a relief, I really don’t like it when it’s dry in the spring.
On Monday night, lightning knocked out our power for a couple of hours in the middle of the night. Last night, a dead tree got blown over onto the electric wires about half a mile from our house and we lost power for two and a half hours in the evening.
And it was nice. We got the boys to bed shortly after the power went off, lit a few candles, had a drink, and just sat by the woodstove. It was very quiet and peaceful. No refrigerator running, no computers to distract from the present, just the sound of the wind to keep us company. It was a reminder of how far we’ve strayed from what has been normal human existence for the last few hundred years.
Yes, it was only one evening, but it sure fueled my off-grid fantasies.
Ending and Beginning 