We started out this month with some early snow. Is it early? Seemed so, the trees also thought so as almost all of them still have their leaves. We had no damage here other than a few broken branches but there were long stretches of power outages which very likely mean some other trees along the way weren’t so lucky. I felt for the PUD guys out in that weather but they did a good job of getting us powered up again and I appreciate it! Yeah, we have a generator but it’s a noisy contraption so don’t engage it unless the fridge and freezer start to suffer. We can hear all the neighbors machines well enough!

It’s been awhile, as has been pointed out to me, since I posted here. Things have been happening but not interesting stuff to write about.  Gardening and canning, cooking and cleaning, you know that kind of thing. I have been weaving but mostly it’s all for Little Looms magazine which I can’t share here. If they don’t take it I can share but if they do it’ll be sometime next year. I’m not as fast as I used to be, especially at the writing it up part, so that pretty much covers my weaving time.

We’ve gone to three shows this year, Black Sheep Gathering last June, Lambtown in first part of October and OFFF in the last part. He’s looking at accepting the invitation to go to Utah for the Great Basin event. We’ve never been to it. That, of course, set him off looking for other events of this nature that he might want to attend! There’s are a lot of them scattered around but it all involves timing and the size of the event, too. And the distance! But that’s all day dreaming right now.

He’s got the wood shed full, says he thinks he has next years wood already, too. About the only good thing to come out of last years fires, there’s a lot of dead wood. So we get to burn it again. The woodshed below is full but he still has room for his drop cord collection and a few other items of manly interest. And they yard out there still has more. The unsplit pile next to the splitter is madrone. It’s a hard wood for those of you who don’t know it and makes a really hot fire. There’s lots of it after last years event. The best thing about madrone is that even tho the tree was burnt and died of it, it will come back from the root nearly every time so they aren’t really lost. I don’t want a Madrone in the yard, they are a messy tree, but I enjoy them out in the forest. They are also handsome and have white blossoms that make pretty red berries in the winter.

My broken Hyde King apple tree is making a come back after it got smashed by the fallen alder a couple years ago. It had one apple this year, which was not bad as the crop on all the apples this year was negligible. I got one pie and no applesauce.  Got some nice winter squashes off my couple of vines. And the woodbine was once again brightening up the yard.

   First Hyde King!  

  One of many tasty winter squashes.

So now I guess it’s time to settle in for the winter. We have a couple more guests for the cabin and we’ll close that up. It’s already in the Twenties at night and we don’t need any frozen pipes! Thanksgiving will be just the two of us and probably Christmas, too. I have a little turkey and a little ham so we can have our celebrations here properly! I even bought a can of cranberries so we’re all set! ;-D  Hope you are all doing well and getting ready for a cozy winter!