Puttin' Up the Harvest

I swore I would NOT go anywhere this weekend (broke that promise to myself by dashing into work to cut two emergency mats for an artist/client) so we could cross off all the things on the TO DO list!

Brian got an early start by renting the big tiller and chewing up the garden soil. Then he went and picked up another rik of wood--that's now the 9th, 3 more to go for winter.

The burn ban was lifted in our county after a nice, and well-deserved storm. So we burned what we had cut down in the middle of the garden. That will be tilled back in and then the whole garden gets a nice heavy blanket of chopped maple leaves for the winter. Although the chickens are sure to make a mess of all that ;)

Today, on the inside, I will be:
* cutting and freezing the last pepper harvest
* cutting and dehydrating the baby peppers
* cutting and dehydrating apples
* figuring out something to do with all those yummy beets
* juicing and freezing the last tomato harvest
* making butter
* re-arranging the freezer

Plus the usual Sunday chores of laundry, cleaning the hen house, composting, cooking for the week.
I'm getting OFF the computer and getting busy!

Sarah

Don't Mess with the Hormones

Today, I forgot to take the afternoon hormone until 3:30pm.
Not good.
It didn't help that I had met a friend, artist Carmen Hurt, for lunch at the Mass Ave. Wine Shoppe...a wonderful establishment run by Jill Ditmire. So naturally, I couldn't turn down the opportunity to sit outside on a warm fall day with Carmen, a nice sandwich and a glass of Carmenere.

Combine the two--no hormone and a glass of vino with lunch and...

I had to leave early, before 5:00, and when I got home, had enough energy to put down the purse and laptop and collapse on the couch.
For an hour and a half :( Then made myself get up to lock up the chickens for the night and start a fire. But I didn't roast that thawed chicken as planned.

*sigh*

I've got to get this pill thing under control. I'm not used to taking them, nor am I happy about it. But the pituitary is toast.

Sarah
P.S. I'm sure tomorrow I'll write a positive post.

PPFA Indiana

We just finished our Fall Framing Fest 2010 this afternoon with a docent led tour at the IMA of the American and European Galleries--with an eye for picture frames. Our docent, Susie, was great! She had an armload of research with her and gave us some very interesting information.

Stuart Altschuler, owner of Prestige Framing Academy, flew in from the east coast to help us with our print competition (yippee, I won the Open Competition), share information from the PPFA national board and teach us all about enhancing our web presence! It was very informative--Stuart really knows his stuff!

We all got a chance to catch up over a yummy lunch sponsored by Larson-Juhl and Lifesaver. And afterward, last night a few of us enjoyed lively conversation and dinner at The Marker.

Now I come back down to earth to clean up chicken poo and finish the laundry--never a dull moment around here ;)

Sarah

One Less Hen :(

We lost one of our girls today. Still have no idea why. Just noticed this morning all is well and this afternoon she was sleeping in one of the nest boxes...floppy comb and listless.

I separated her form the others as chickens are notoriously mean to an ill mate, plus I didn't know if she was contagious. So she sat in a little cat crate while I did an exhaustive search on line about what might be wrong with her.

Brian got home and we stacked another rik of wood which takes about 45 minutes. When we finished she was already dead, stiff and cooling....poor little thing.

The others seem perfectly fine. But so did she yesterday!
I'm still trying to find out what happened. I'll post a comment when I have an answer from the Backyard Chicken Forum.

In the meantime, I'm digging an enormous hole in the compost area--off limits to the other chickens. Plus she'll have all winter to decompose before using any compost on the garden.

Sadly,
Sarah

Which Came First?

Chickens and Eggs:

If you are in Indianapolis and are interested, we have a couple of offerings.

1) We are selling our eggies (lovely little brown free-range, cage-free, organic yummies) for $1.50/half dozen or $3.00/dozen -- just to pay for organic chicken feed. Our girls are always hungry! They are still about a Grade A medium to large size. But they are getting bigger by the week!

2) Our Amish co-op is placing its quarterly fresh chicken order. You order whole or parts from me and I deliver it fresh same day it's processed. Processor is Miller. Good stuff, far less expensive than nasty grocery store chicken and it's CLEAN! Let me know this weekend.

Sarah

The stack

Encroachment of wood...that's what we have on the porch this time of year. We are in the thick of the wood stack.

We heat with wood (almost) exclusively, save a little in furnace in the basement, when the mercury dips to the single digits, to keep the wood floors a bit warmer. So we stack between 3 cords (stinks, not enough) to 4 cords (more work, and have wood for outdoor fires). This year it's one rik (3 riks = 1 cord) at a time in a giant bag. Think Polar Express ginormous Santa bag. Twelve riks. That's a lotsa stacking, but doing only a rik at a time, it's much easier on our aging backs.
We still stubbornly hang on to the summer porch though! Even as we only barely have room for a smaller table, two chairs and our loungers, we still insist on it! After all, it's 80-some degrees out today! Sarah

The Card

I used to violently rip up and destroy the mailings Brian got a decade or so ago. After all, I was in my mid-thirties. I didn't have a boyfriend deserving of an AARP mailing! He wasn't even 50 yet! SHEESH!

And last week, it happened.
I got the envelope--with MY name on it. I'm not 50 yet either. But this time I'm thinking...

...well, there is a 10% discount, right?

Sarah

Thanks Pop!

This is the Really Big Painting. Thanks for all your help stretching and framing, to my Pop, Roger Adams!

Sarah

Framing, Farming and Fate: That's a Really BIG Canvas!

http://avframinggallery.com/home.html

That's a Really BIG Canvas!

I'm working on the largest piece ever--at least in my shop.
Abstract acrylic painting on canvas my Sandoval of Cincinnati for a couple of clients.

I put 3 work tables together to get enough surface area to stretch it. This thing measures 77.5" x 106.25" (that's 6.5' x nearly 9' for those of you who don't want to do your own math)!

I'm building the frame right now. Need to rotate it to glue up the last corner, but I need 3 handy volunteers, one on each corner! Anyone free downtown?

Sarah

"We just stole your cat..."

...our very nice new neighbors announced as they crossed the street to our yard.

We already knew. It had been kind of a joke earlier in the summer and had been growing more obvious as the weeks went on.

Snowball, (we would later discover was his third name) had moved away from his former family around the block to live at our house several years earlier. They got a baby and a dog and he was outta there! It was bound to happen again. You see, Snowball is a neighbor whore.

He's a wonderfully kind and genial black cat. Why Snowball? Because he has a distinctive white patch of fur on his right flank. He looks like he's been hit in the @$$ with a snowball. Not very creative, but somewhat ironic. He had been hanging around the neighbor's porch instead of ours. When called, he no longer comes over.
**sigh**

I will certainly miss him. Though he's not far, and we all joked that we can come visit him anytime, he's still gone. And he is one to remember.

Sayanara, Snowball! Miranda and Jeff, enjoy his company!

Sarah

Harvest is not without its hazards.

Some may be so unfortunate as to lose parts in heavy machinery. Some may lose their crops from Nature's wrath.

Then there are those like me.

I just seeded, sliced and froze a whole harvest of hot peppers...without gloves.
Ouch...

Sarah