weather

so the weather shifted,
no more frost anytime soon,
the 90% chance of snow in 7 days just vanished as well,
so back to watering and not harvesting everything.

pictures

so I started to use the keyboard on the laptop and it broke again in about 5 min.
but I likely need a new one, they are not much, but need internet money to get it

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=acer+aspire+one+d270+keyboard&_rdc=1
so I will give it more time to dry out, then I will panic and try to get someone with internet money to order me one

so I did set up my laptop with an external keyboard today,

and here is the green house I dug

and here is it with the cover on it

then I thought about it, and a dog or person could just walk right on it and break it,
so I added a fence

not a very good fence, but the dogs should respect it...

I fixed the pump for the fish tank,
the magnet was running into the metal, so I bent the metal so the magnet would clear everything,
it is happily giving air to a fish.

there will be light frost tonight (like when this is posted),
tomorrow I will harvest all I can because it will frost harder and all the squash needs to be inside by then,
I will go cover the rice in a few min. and harvest it all tomorrow,
I am going to leave the rest of the sorghum to see what it does.
also will drain all (but one) the hoses and put them in the storage shed for the winter

peeler

when cooking things like squash you will end up peeling lots of things,
and there is no good reason why you need to with most things,
you can cook squash with the rind on and just scoop it out after it cooks,
but a good peeler is fantastic,
and here is the best one I have ever found
http://www.surlatable.com/product/PRO-604884/Kyocera+Ceramic+Peeler
it cuts just fantastic through all bu the hardest things, there is one bad thing about it though, 
if you push really hard on it the blade will break from the handle,
and you have to get a new one if want to keep using one,
it is the last thing that broke that I replaced

so things can fail,
like my peeler and the keyboard on my computer (and it has dried out enough to work now, but want to give it one more day before using it and then I will have pictures on the blog again)
and you will need replacements for things,
I have spent years getting ready for the gardening I am doing now, have collected shovels, water valves, all sorts of tools, seeds, and lots of things,
but when things break now, I have no way of replacing them,
to bad I did not have the money to get the extras I would need (but predicting what to get is hard)
or have the money now to replace anything,
homesteading is hard for a few reasons, a big one is that you have a small window to do well enough to be able to afford what you have that will break,
one solution is to go very low tech so you can replace everything with things you get from nature...

anyway, I finished the green house today and put plants in it,
I just dug a hole and put plastic over it.
tomorrow I will have pictures as my laptop keyboard seems to have finally dried out.

painting

so today was still wet enough to not have to water anything,
and with all the extra time I had, I helped out with paining the propane tank
there is one here that has been in service from the early 1950s
and it was showing rust pretty bad,
so it got all cleaned up and painted !
and with only one more day of warm weather left, it was time to do it.

I will harvest lots tomorrow before the frost assuming the forecast does not change, 
and try to finish the green house, but likely in the other order.

almost time to start planting the nitrogen fixing cover crops
that is all...

keeping track

so I have been harvesting lots of seeds lately,
some are direct from the plants and set out to dry, and others are from in squash I am eating,
so about now I have lots of little piles of seeds,
when I make them I keep thinking that I will remember what ones I left where,
and I usually do until I have about 5 of them in 3 days...
the most effective way I have found to keep track is to describe what it is on a small scrap of paper when I first get them, and that paper just goes with the seeds even into the envelope it will be stored in
from when I started doing that I have not lost track of anything.
I put all kinds of info on things, type, what it may have crossed with, year, weight, the look of it, what kind of plant it came from,

I am just saying that mystery piles of seeds are less fun than it may seem.

happy Halloween

have fun everyone !



if I am going to go to lots of work to put up something, it really should be a video and not pictures, but I sure can't do this every day

computer / green house

so I spilled some liquid on my laptop computer, and the keyboard is broken,
the rest of it seems ok, but the keyboard is fairly critical,
and more important, it is the only computer I have that can read the SD card from my camera...
so no more pictures till I figure out something,
I can remove the internal keyboard and use an external one, but don't really have the space to set that sort of thing up, and I have no budget for computer things, so likely no pictures again.

so today I used a tractor to dig part of a green house,
it is a big hole in the ground, and will be covered with a 4 foot by 8foot corrugated plastic sheet,
I am going to lift off the top to get into it, 
pretty simple, but should keep things from frost.
I plan on starting lots of yams in it for next spring,
and will put the peanut plant in it if I get it done in time,
and likely put some peppers in it.
it might even get a few citrus trees if it is deep enough,
so that is the update for now,
I will keep collecting cute pictures on the camera, so if you know me in person, ask to see them all.