Our autumn jobs list has shrunk:
Cows are home, after loading cooperatively out of a tired corral on leased fall pasture. Prior to load-out, we spent a long afternoon bolstering sagging rails and rotten posts with fill and fakery--wire here, bits of plywood there, an old barrel elsewhere--blocking gaps, and adding height to create an illusion of strength adequate for getting our docile reds on board trailers bound for home. Our bluff worked.
Cows are home, after loading cooperatively out of a tired corral on leased fall pasture. Prior to load-out, we spent a long afternoon bolstering sagging rails and rotten posts with fill and fakery--wire here, bits of plywood there, an old barrel elsewhere--blocking gaps, and adding height to create an illusion of strength adequate for getting our docile reds on board trailers bound for home. Our bluff worked.
Since then, we've marketed steer calves, booster vaccinated heifer calves, poured cows and heifers with Ivermectin, and moved them to fresh pasture nearby.
A half dozen acorns from the bur oak trees in our yard are stored in the fridge in preparation for spring germination and planting. Additionally, Katrina and I gathered a bagful of acorns, hammered them open, and extracted a quart or two of nut meats. They currently are soaking in cold water baths, changed twice daily, to remove bitter tannins. After their bath water clears, I plan to sprinkle them lightly with salt, roast them to toasty perfection, and give small experimental samples to my siblings at Christmas. If roasted acorns pass muster with family, we'll harvest more ambitiously in the future. Until then, raccoons gather nightly in our yard to plump on remaining fallen gleanings.
As for my fencing project, corner posts are set, brace posts are machine pounded, horizontal wooden braces are nailed and wire X-braces are twisted tight, in-between metal posts are all hand-whammered, both wire gates are in place, the bottom wire is stretched, stapled, and clipped in place all around, and two additional strands of wire are in place around part of the enclosure. Wires yet unstrung, on what is intended to be a five-strand fence, must await better weather, for I have neither the inclination nor the oomph to build fence in snow and single digit temperatures.
Though bird watching is not among our remaining must-do jobs, sighting a Blue Jay in the shelterbelt was a memorable first for me; frequent glimpses of partridges huddled within our dense chokecherry thickets are always satisfying. Such comfortable, indoor, window-birding will continue until we emerge from our early blast of winter. For now, I'm content with a good book, a cozy lap robe, and time to blog, with only occasional forays outside to chop ice in stock water-troughs and photograph snow laden crab-apples and juniper gnomes.
A half dozen acorns from the bur oak trees in our yard are stored in the fridge in preparation for spring germination and planting. Additionally, Katrina and I gathered a bagful of acorns, hammered them open, and extracted a quart or two of nut meats. They currently are soaking in cold water baths, changed twice daily, to remove bitter tannins. After their bath water clears, I plan to sprinkle them lightly with salt, roast them to toasty perfection, and give small experimental samples to my siblings at Christmas. If roasted acorns pass muster with family, we'll harvest more ambitiously in the future. Until then, raccoons gather nightly in our yard to plump on remaining fallen gleanings.
As for my fencing project, corner posts are set, brace posts are machine pounded, horizontal wooden braces are nailed and wire X-braces are twisted tight, in-between metal posts are all hand-whammered, both wire gates are in place, the bottom wire is stretched, stapled, and clipped in place all around, and two additional strands of wire are in place around part of the enclosure. Wires yet unstrung, on what is intended to be a five-strand fence, must await better weather, for I have neither the inclination nor the oomph to build fence in snow and single digit temperatures.
Though bird watching is not among our remaining must-do jobs, sighting a Blue Jay in the shelterbelt was a memorable first for me; frequent glimpses of partridges huddled within our dense chokecherry thickets are always satisfying. Such comfortable, indoor, window-birding will continue until we emerge from our early blast of winter. For now, I'm content with a good book, a cozy lap robe, and time to blog, with only occasional forays outside to chop ice in stock water-troughs and photograph snow laden crab-apples and juniper gnomes.
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