Last of the veggies and beets

We spent a lovely day in the yard spreading wood ash, raking leaves and picking the last of the carrots and beets (about 6 gallons all in). 

Jess distributed a fair amount of the veggies to the neighbours and then we washed up the rest. It all went into the fridge for consumption over the next few weeks. I made a veggie pot pie for dinner with everything but the red pepper and the sweet potato for the crust being from the yard.

Tonight we may have a fire or we may bottle the rest of the cider (depends on my energy level!). As I was raking leaves today I remembers I wanted to move some of the raspberry suckers around to the back so that will be tomorrow's project. Along with harvesting some daylily roots to see what they taste like.

I also noticed this odd striped pattern on the south hedge. Interesting how different alpine currant plants have different frost tolerance points. I so wish this hedge produced something useful but that is a project for another year.

A hundred pounds of yeast and some copper line...

 ...sings the wife as I haul a bunch of bottles and Jessica into the basement to finish up the first batch of cider. This batch sat for about six weeks after the final racking so is likely as ready as it will get.

Jess handled the bottles and the siphon while I ran the capper, the camera and for more bottles at the end. A full carboy fills 32 660ml bottles (note to self for next week...).

I ran out of brown beer bottles but fortunately I had some green ones with the same size cap. And then I grabbed and sterilized a couple of flip-tops I collected over the winter. 

We'll be back at this on the weekend to bottle the other carboy In the meantime, we've been trying to get out into the waning days of autumn for walks and bike rides. This is a great time of year to spot asparagus plants for next spring. I have cycled past this plant maybe 200 times in the past few years and only noticed it when Jenn said "is that where you get our asparagus from?" It is next year, dear.

Thanksgiving prep

With Thanksgiving almost upon us, we spent much of yesterday preparing. Pies were made, husbands were dispatched to the store, etc.

Jess and I pulled some beets out of the garden for dinner. I'm pretty sure we ended up with four types.

There are three red (including a cylindrical) as well as a lovely set of golden beets. These join carrots and potatoes from the yard on the table.

Our neighbours recently pulled down two huge fir trees that have overshadowed the fireplace we have in the back. We've never use this for fear of burning the neighbourhood down but with the trees gone, we fired it up.

Overall, a wonderful way to spend a crisp autumn evening.

 Now to fetch the inlaws!

Some sidewalk maintenance

As part of neighbourhood reconstruction, the city tore out the sidewalk and poured a new one. That disturbed the cobbles in our walk. The new sidewalk is also about a quarter-inch higher than the old, which messed up the grading of our walk (although a quarter inch is better than the eight-inch difference one block west!). 

So today I renewed my man card (and got Jess three credits towards her own card) by pulling up six feet of cobble, regrading and laying it down again. This went reasonably well and Jess seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly. She was too young to help when we put the sidewalk in back in 2008; she was much more useful today.

It was also a good chance to once again teach the difference between left and right under some pressure. I'd be worried about her seeming inability to distinguish left and right, but it took her three years to figure out the difference between the front and the back door (at one point, when she was five, we were certain she was just screwing with us). I assume an hour of "No, your other left!" will pay off when it comes to teaching her to drive.

I left the city to restore the part between the sidewalk and the curb (assuming they get around to replacing the curb before the snow flies). In the end, you can hardly tell where the join is and it is nice to have a functional front walk. If only I could do something about the driveway the city pulled out. Three week ago... .

We also raked leaves into the front garden beds, I had a long bike ride and I poked around the yard some. The fall rye is coming in and seemed perkier with the slight increase in temperature.

I expect we'll yank the last of the veggies next weekend. I'm hopeful to get a bit of lyme and bonemeal into the beds tomorrow. Assuming I can bend over after this morning's work! I may also bottle some cider.

Garlic, tulips and cherries

Fall is well underway, with the leaves finally starting to come down. I was out for a walk at noon and saw some ice building up on a local fountain (water shoots up from four corners into central bowl).

Jess and I have been busy with yard work, although the cold weather has dampened our enthusiasm. Last night we put six heads of garlic into the ground for spring and also 40 tulip bulbs. We still have another 20 or so to go. You can see the ongoing sidewalk replacement behind Jess (week two without a driveway...).

I also shucked the last of the beans from their shells. These are scarlet runner beans that I'm saving for next year (or the year after).

Tonight we went out and plunked in an Evans cherry that my friend Marc gave me. I'm quite excited by this very generous gift--we've picked other people's cherry trees in the past and the resulting pie is great!

Tomorrow I will be lifting and re-laying some of the cobbles on the front walk. The city is supposed to come and fix this (part of the clean up of the sidewalk work) but based on where they are at, they likely won't be back before the snow.