Catching up

It's been a while... didn't plan on being away so long, must have needed a leave of absence...

It was a long growing season this year and I actually still have some cold hardy stuff growing yet. Just this afternoon (after the first snow flakes this year melted) I picked several small lettuce, kale, swiss chard, cabbage and broccoli. I pulled out the peppers and tomatoes out of the greenhouse last week end and transplanted 25 lettuces and put two cold frames over them getting ready for the inevitable deep freeze that is sure to come soon. Cold frames inside the green house should give us lettuce right to the end of the year.

Our green energy generation is doing well. The wind was slow over much of the summer but the solar panels made up for that. We generated more electricity than we used every month except this last month because we've only been using electric heaters to heat the whole house so far this fall. Today was the first day I started a fire in the kitchen wood stove. It's actually only been under 0 C one night so far where it hit -2.

We have two cords of wood tucked into the sheds and another one dried but with no room left to fit it in. I have another 3/4 for next heating season drying. Since we are going to have to cut down the two huge locust trees on the west side of the house this fall (they are just too sickly to risk leaving for another winter; one has a sumac growing in the crotch 8' up and the other has a bee hive living in a hollow in the trunk) we'll have lots more wood yet.

Over the summer we took many day trips within an hour's drive and I was pleasantly surprised to see several solar panels on houses and farms in the area. In fact there are now 4 arrays within 2kms of our house on our road and another 3 within 5kms. So glad the Green Energy Act is being maintained with the Liberals staying in power.

Got a big pot of squash soup on the wood stove to eat for supper so I'm off.