Nov. 5-6, 2010

I was first in line when the Bloodmobile opened at 1:00, but it still meant we got to the farm later than I would like -- almost 4pm. Day time temperatures were nice, near 70, and the trees were showing their fall color. We had a light freeze overnight, but not as hard as had been received the night before (Friday morning). It finished off the basil.

Walnuts
The huller had left lots of nuts un-hulled. So I went through the bags picking those out. The dust off the nuts was really bad and had me sneezing and my nose running. There were more un-hulled nuts in some bags than in others, which made me wonder if he had made some adjustment to the huller during the process. Perhaps to better handle these smaller nuts.

I used a hammer and/or pliers to get the hulls off the ones the huller had missed. Pounding them with the hammer was definitely faster. I ended up with 5 full bags, plus about a quarter of a bag that I had manually hulled. It will be interesting to see if they have any different taste or ratio of bad to good nuts.

I left two bags in the rabbit hutch, and have the rest in the back of the truck. I suspect I will store them downstairs in town, but if the rabbit hutch proves secure enough (I locked the door by jamming it with a stick) I may leave more at the farm. I'm still considering the attic as well.

Garden
With freezing weather, I had taken the rain gauge in so I wasn't sure if we had gotten any rain. There was a chance only one day early in the week. Either way the garden was very dry. Sally picked lettuce, bok chow, and spinach. She left 1 or two lettuce and bok chow plants since we had more than enough to eat. We'll see if they make it to our next trip. We've really enjoyed this fall crop.

Cut Trees
I carried the Stihl up the hill to cut more of the pines that had been laid over by the ice storm. This picture is of the largest, up by the pasture. Most were very small trees that had no chance of ever straightening up. I then started seeing many cedars and so started tackling them -- finishing off the tank of gas. I left the biggest cedar standing because the top was hung up in some oak branches. I hope a big wind will bring it down for me.