Planting potatoes

I'm slowly getting various things planted in the garden, notably the cool-weather stuff that can handle spring temperatures. Last week I planted potatoes.

Unlike last year, when I planted eight beds and harvested 230 pounds of potatoes, I'm limiting our potatoes this year to just three beds. That's because we are still swimming in potatoes and don't need eight more beds' worth.

I had already layered compost on the beds from a couple weeks earlier, so all I had to do was turn it over (which takes just a couple of minutes per bed).

Lots and lots of worms, always a nice thing to see.

 

 

Now let's briefly digress to last October, when I harvested all the potatoes from last summer's garden. We ended up storing them in burlap bags in the "cool room," a small unheated room Don built off our bedroom as extra storage space.

 

We were pressed into using this space as an impromptu root cellar, and to be honest it's worked out amazingly well. In previous years, without a dedicated place to store potatoes over the winter, they were ridiculously overgrown by April – fine for planting, but not for eating.

But last year's potatoes – and remember, we still have lots – are still in excellent shape, even after six months in storage.

For planting, I brought out the burlap sack that contained the smallest potatoes, which I used as seed potatoes.

I arranged three rows of seven potatoes each, for a total of 21 potatoes per bed, or 63 total potatoes.

Using a trowel, it doesn't take long to bury each potato deeply.

That's as far as I got last week, and ever since then we've been dodging some fairly major rainstorms.

With more rain on the way, the one thing I hadn't yet done was put straw mulch on the beds.

Mulching takes no time at all.

Mr. Darcy supervised the process.

Except for a little light weeding (notably, of the volunteer wheat that will grow from the wheat-straw mulch) – and watering, of course – that's all I'll need to do to the potatoes until October, when I'll harvest them.

It's a good thing I got the mulching done when I did, since we had a dramatic bit of rain move through today.

Four degrees, 150 feet in elevation

Since our return from Italy, Don, Older Daughter, and I – and Mr. Darcy – have been engaged in walking for exercise. We could all stand to lose a few pounds (including Mr. Darcy), and since we're walking the dog morning and evening anyway, we chose the morning routine for "power walking."

To do this, we use the road that runs along the edge of our lower property.

This road slopes down, so it's the uphill climb that we've been turning into our daily power walk. Don calculated it out. We walk this section (down and up) three times. The length of each section is about 850 feet. Multiply that by six (up and down three times) for a total of about a mile. The slope is nearly four degrees.  The change in elevation is 50 feet. For the three circuits, that's a rise of 150 feet.

Since this is Mr. Darcy's morning walk to encourage him to do his "business," what we do is walk downhill at the dog's pace, letting him sniff and explore. I have the leash at this stage.

When we hit the bottom, we turn around and power walk up the hill.

Don takes the leash at this stage and keeps Darcy at a heel so he doesn't get distracted by interesting smells.

When we get to the top of the hill, we turn around and let Darcy sniff and explore on the way down until we hit the bottom of the hill. Rinse and repeat. By the time we complete all three circuits, we're shedding our outerwear.

It's working. We're tackling three circuits without a problem and will probably add a fourth next week. Coupled with some light weightlifting and watching what we eat, we're all losing pounds.

Ah, the joys of getting older.

It snowed!

Stop the presses! Alert the media! Yesterday we had snow!

Granted, not much, maybe four inches. But hey, with the exceptionally dry and freaky-warm winter we've had so far, we'll take what we can get.

The conditions were exceptionally calm and picturesque.

The one unfortunate thing about this snow was its timing. Up until this point, the most we've had was a light dusting of snow that soon melted away.

This melted-off dusting meant the ground and roads were wet. Temperatures were expected to plunge yesterday evening (as indeed they did), which meant the roads would be sheets of ice (as indeed they were). Anticipating this, we called our pastor and told him we weren't going to risk driving to the evening Ash Wednesday service, much as we wanted to attend. We're still gun-shy about driving in questionable conditions after our Christmas Day car accident over a year ago.

So we stayed home and enjoyed the snow. So did Mr. Darcy.

We went walking in our pasture yesterday evening, and Darcy romped in the white stuff like he'd never seen it before.

The evening sky looked lovely as the clouds cleared away.

By this morning, the temperature had dropped to 17F and the walkways and roads were dangerously icy. I had to watch my footing when I went out to milk the cow.

As an interesting side note, yesterday on our porch, the bird feeder (which is tied to the railing) had been knocked off overnight. Since our neighbor's cats are always hanging around, I blamed them. (Note the kitty paw prints below.)

But the snow revealed the real culprit: A raccoon.

Today is clear as a bell and very beautiful outside.

It's also warming up, and as I write this (noon-ish), snow on south-facing slopes is already melting. Sigh. It was nice while it lasted.

The colors of November

Around here, October is bright. But while it seems November should be subdued and gloomy, in fact it's quite beautiful. As I told Don, "October is brilliant. November glows." Here are some photos as proof.

In an otherwise cloudy sky...

...a last shaft of sunlight escaped just as the sun set, illuminating a row of trees on the hillside opposite.

The changing color of blackberry leaves contribute to this late-autumn glow.

The leaves transition to yellow and red.

On a distant hillside, where blackberries have taken over vast swathes of land, the leaves are red.

Wild roses also contribute to November's glow.

The rose hips are abundant this year.

Like blackberries, wild roses can take over whole fields.

Water drops amidst the brambles.

Where pine needles meet mossy granite.

The weeping willow in our yard had some bright yellow leaves.

They turned even brighter when the sun came out.

I'm doing some late-season garden cleanup, including trimming back the strawberry runners.

The strawberry leaves, too, contribute to November's glow.

A bit of sunlight broke through the clouds while I was raking leaves.

The sun made the leaves glow.

It made Mr. Darcy glow as well.

This time of year, the leaves have dropped from the wild apple trees, but in many cases the apples are still on the branches.

A sun halo, which by some accounts predicts rain or snow. Accurate (for rain) in this case.

And those are some of the colors of November. A blessed Thanksgiving to all.