My son, 2 years ago, enjoying the fall colors. Get out and take some photos this next month – it’s a FREE backdrop for some fun family photos.
I LOVE this time of year. Crisp mornings and cooler nights. Yesterday as we drove to school my five-year-old son says from the backseat, “The world is so beautiful, there are so many colors!” He is right. And the sad thing is, I was busy thinking about all the traffic and wasn’t paying any attention to our gorgeous fall colors. If only the world was seen through the eyes of a five-year-old, I think we’d all find a little more joy in our day. Take some time and enjoy these fall colors, they don’t last long!
Last Sunday my awesome husband hauled and stacked an entire cord of firewood. We don’t use our wood stove as our primary source of heat, but I do LOVE it. Reminds me of growing up in Alaska, where it was our ONLY source of heat the first five years of my life. A cord of wood costs us about $200 delivered and I fork over the money for a few reasons:
1.) I love the real heat from a fire on a cold winter night! It’s a special treat.
2.) It helps reduce our heating bill, just a tiny bit
3.) The most important reason: It is so valuable during power outages and emergencies. We were comfortably warm during the entire snow storm and power outage last winter (How long was it? 3 or 4 days, I can’t remember). We didn’t have to fork out big bucks for a hotel. We were able to loan firewood to friends and family. I was able to cook warm meals on the wood stove top. It was our Plan B and I was so, so grateful for it.
So that’s why we get the wood delivered every year. It’s an extra expense but is worth it to us. Do you used a wood stove?
Yesterday the kids and I were out enjoying this crazy warm weather. My daughter was watering the mole hills. Like we need more of them. Maybe she’s optimistic something will pop up. My son was helping water the actual plants, which are on their last legs.
Now for the real garden stuff. . . As I mentioned last week it’s just really all about the tomatoes right now. I harvested lots and lots of tomatoes! So exciting. I wish I had just an ounce of experience to can these beauties, but I’ve never canned before and I’m just not sure I’m up for learning this fall, too much on my plate. This is my big goal for next summer – to master the canning process. And of course I hope to bring you along on the journey.
As for other things growing – we are down to a handful of leeks, a round of peppers, zucchinis, chives and an occasional cucumber, We have a large flowery bush right in the middle of all our raised beds and I think there might be a mouse in there. GROSS. Sorry but I don’t get too excited for rodents. Anyway, I briefly caught one eating one of my cucumbers, so . . .we are pulling out the big flowery plant. It’s been an eyesore ever since the big snow storm last year anyway – so we’ll just replace it with another raised bed. 🙂
We are getting another PUMPKIN! I noticed it yesterday and it’s already the size of a large apple. I’ll share a photo next week.
What is this plant that has popped up in our unused garden bed? It seems to be everywhere and it’s completely volunteer – I didn’t plant it.
In the chicken coop we are dealing with a broody chicken (read more about that here). After reading all your suggestions on my post and on the Queen Bee Facebook, I’ll just let her be and I won’t worry too much about her. I was concerned she’d starve to death, but I’ll just keep encouraging her to get up and go eat and drink. Last night I put some food by the nesting box so she could eat but she pecked at my hand! So I guess she’ll just have to get her feathery toosh out of the nesting box to eat.
Chena, one of our Jersey Giant, chicken struts around the yard. We stopped watering the lawn over a month ago – so it’s a beautiful brown and green mix right now. Do you let your grass turn brown in the summer or do you keep it green with watering?
I’m not sure how much longer I can do my Saturday in the Garden posts, which I enjoy. . .things might be completely shut down in the next month or so. What do you think I should I replace it with during the winter months?
If you’re just now joining my gardening journey, I’m learning as I go grow and sharing along the way:
- First I built the raised beds
- Then I added dirt
- Then I added plants
- and for fun, we created a DIY Worm Compost Bin
- Our first harvest, lettuce rejoice and be glad
How’s your garden doing?
How well I know that glare from a setting hen!
Heather, your kids are adorable!
Thank you Anna!
I love, love our wood stove and use it all winter long! Most of my neighbors changed out their fireplaces for pellet stoves and each year as I stacked wood they would make it a point to tell me how great a pellet stove was and I should make the switch. A few years ago we lost power for 7-8 days and we kept warm and cozy in our home with our wood stove. I cooked and shared meals with neighbors until they went to hotels, it was a ghost town around here! 🙂 They no longer tease me about having a wood stove vs a pellet stove. My electric bill is so low the electric company sends out a tech to make sure our meter is working, haha! Truthfully nothing beats the heat and fire of a wood stove in the winter. So cozy!
Oh Heather you lucky lady! I WISH we had a wood stove, we moved into a house with one of those fancy shamancy just for looks gas stove :/! I guess I am couponing my way to a actual wood stove eh? 😉
Also If you want to learn how to can, I would be happy to teach you. A group of my girl friends and I always get together this time of year for a small canning party (even tho it seems to get bigger every year).
oh and we have squirrels terrorizing our garden this year. boo! they found our sunflowers, cucumber and tomatoes, they don’t really like the zucchini< go figure.
ps- I am surprised your chickens dont tear apart the garden! Mine were so nice to my garden last year when they were just pullets this year they went to town and demolished half of it scratching for bugs, so a fence was built. sigh.
I love reading your posts. Such fun!
Hi Heather,
We call that “unknown plant” donkey weed, named after our neighbor’s donkey because he would be everywhere and show up in the weirdest places. My suggestion would be to pull it out ASAP because if it goes to seed it can take over a garden and make weeding a relentless chore next season. It is hard to tell from the pic if this is the same plant donkey weed has a similar leaf look/pattern to a tomato.
Haha! That’s funny Brent. I think the plant is pretty evasive and fast-growing. It has little round green pods on it. I appreciate the help! I will pull it out this weekend.
We use our wood stove all winter! It was already in the house when we moved in, so no remodeling necessary. And we have 5 acres of woods, so my husband and son spend a lot of the summer cutting down dead trees and hauling the wood up to the house area. We rent a gas powered log splitter for a day and split and stack all the wood. We are able to heat 2/3 of our 3500 sq ft house with the wood stove alone (other 1/3 is to far away from stove to get heat, so we use 1 of our 3 heat pumps in the winter). We estimate this saves us over $400/month in electric heat during the winter. Plus no worries during power outages. We also donate cut/ seasoned fire wood to needy families in our church during the winter.