Saturday, September 23, 2017

Summer Wrap Up


Happy first day of fall! Though there's been days of snow here, that's what the calendar says it is. :) 

Though it's not firewood destined for my little stove obviously, here's a quick video showing some of the huge variety of chores I help with around the property where I live which vary constantly with the seasons. (If you are new, I do not own the ground where my house is parked, I trade work to the owners for being able to park here.) These logs are headed for a much larger stove in a very much larger house, but firewood is something I really enjoy doing.


As summer wraps up, I've have a few friends over for dinners with a bonfire.


I'm not sure if the weather will allow any more of these this year or not, but maybe if everyone brought a good warm jacket!



And sometimes even in the summer, the cool temps late in the evening make everyone want to hang out inside instead.



The garden and flowers overall have continued to look wonderful this summer. Maybe partly due to having no freezes through out the summer which is more normal.





As things wrap up, I've been busy preserving all the food I can. Pickling, canning, drying, and fermenting as much of what I does grow here as possible. Some day my goal would be to eat almost nothing that is not produced on my own property, but in this cold climate, I don't think I will quite pull that off.


I baked bread for the first time in years. Due to several food intolerance, I'd pretty much stopped eating it for a while. But I do love eating and making fresh bread so I decided to experiment with a much older variety of wheat and see how that made me feel. It turns out I experienced none of the lethargy, brain fog, or indigestion I have normally had when eating most wheat products so this is an experiment I might have to repeat!




While most things are still green, and fall colors never really appear around my house with almost all the trees being conifers, you are starting to be able to see fall colors in the small brush and weeds.



Smoke continued to blanket the area for much of the summer, mostly from more distant fires as there were none very close to my house. And thankfully the smoke was not as thick or choking as it has been in many other places in the west. But still, midday should not look like the above photo. 


This is a no filter shot of the setting sun where you can see the smoke is thick enough to even allow you to see sun spots on the lower right side!



And then it turned to winter as you could see in my last video. Washing much of the smoke out of the air and putting a damper on most of the fires thankfully.




And the snow sped up my need to harvest as much as possible from the garden. :) So that's been keeping me busy all week as I try to juggle what to harvest now so as to not loose it to freezing, and what to wait on because if it survives under the garden covers, it may grow and produce a little more.




Enjoy the start of fall whatever the temps in your area!





13 comments:

  1. very nice. sums up a great year for you.

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  2. Where do you store your root crops for the winter?

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    Replies
    1. What doesn't fit in my house, I store in a neighboring shed.

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  3. You never said how you liked the read. What kind of taste did it have, and would it make a good sour dough?

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    1. I loved the bread! I'm sure it would be fine for sourdough, but I haven't made any in a while.

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  4. Living off the land some will say is hard. Driving to the store, making the purchase, trudging to the car, drive back home, lug in the house and oh yes there is a ton of rubbish from store bought items. So then it's off to the recycling center (I hope) and home again. To me, planting, harvesting, canning and baking is just a lot more gratifying and we sure don't have those beautiful views from our grocery stores! Bread also looks wonderful. I've not had any luck baking bread, if you have any pointers to share, I'd welcome them. TYFS just beautiful!

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    Replies
    1. There's lots of great blogs and videos out there on bread baking that probably have much more info than I would have...

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  5. I love this time of last harvest and the busyness that comes with it. Of course we don't want to waste anything!
    Question: where do you cure your onions before storing them?

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  6. I've used Einkorn flour many times. It makes a good loaf of bread. I'm not sure what recipe you used God these loaves you've baked ( which look delicious), but if you use the No Knead recipe that ferments overnight, you'll have even less issues.

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  7. Hi Ariel,
    I love your posts and just finished watching your latest house tour on YouTube. So informative and your tips, e.g. using larger propane tanks for better fuel vaporization in winter -- who knew? Keep it up and happy holidays ahead. Thank you for your posts.
    Annette

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  8. So much food! What percentage do you freeze, what percentage is canned? What percentage do you gift/sell?

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