Art of Proprietation

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Annual MVM Harvest Festival

Things are getting cold.

A week and a half ago we got our first hard frosts. Three or four in a row. We had been having glorious late fall warm days up until then. A week ago Friday there was ice in the buckets, first of the year.

The cool weather coincided with our annual harvest party dinner. Every Year, as long as I have owned the house, we have hosted a Harvest Festival Potluck dinner. Fall is my favorite time of year, the best time for parties. It's always inviting to go into a house on a cool fall evening that smells of roast turkey and other season favorites. A lot of the food was local, but we failed in our quest for a local turkey. The closest we came was someone an hour away who could order us a "local" turkey that has been frozen since last thanksgiving. We'd be meeting the delivery truck there, less than three days before the party. And it would be a big turkey. It was going to be dicey as to whether it would thaw in time, and I didn't like the idea of all that driving around for a "local" bird. So, we went to fancy coop (not our regular coop) and got what we could get. That's the one downfall of our timing, it's not close enough to get in on the turkey mania.

It's gotten cold enough that we have recovered the greenhouse. My wife has been growing peppers and other warm crops in the green house all summer. We opened up the ends for ventilation and pollination but kept the body of it on to control the soil moisture and elevate the temperature. It worked out well, giving us the best crop of Anaheim and Jalapeno peppers yet. But with the hard frost we needed to close it in and get the winter layer of plastic on. We still have almost two months of greens to go for this year. Then the greenhouse will serve as a place to winter over cold hardy plants until early next spring. The greenhouse will warm up a month before the surrounding garden, giving us a leg up.

Since that frost we have had heavy rains. The leaves are down. We raked the neighbors lawn yesterday and filled our leaf bins. It's really fall now, no more swimming down by the river.

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3 Comments:

  • It's great to hear you talking about "fall" when up here it its looking much more winter-ish. Hopefully this snow will melt and we will have a respite for building projects to be completed.

    We all enjoyed the harvest festival. Good food, good people. Thank you.

    Holly

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:56 PM  

  • Did you get the does bred yet?

    By Blogger Danielle, at 11:29 AM  

  • Danielle.

    We just missed a heat this week. I was planning to get her bred at the end of the week, but she came into heat right after I left on a business trip and I wasn't able to get back in time. But now we are sure we have her heat pegged and we'll get the next one.

    mmp

    By Blogger MMP, at 7:27 PM  

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