First Snow

Our first snow was pretty late this year; also very minimal coating. We usually get a pretty good snow by around Halloween. Our last four winters have been pretty intense and I've heard people say last winter was the best powder/ boarding/skiing season ever. So it makes sense we are getting a tame winter. Seems we are starting off winter true to the Farmer's Almanac's prediction of a drier and warmer one. Global warming is a hippie scam. Just pay attention to nature's cycles.

Homegrown Squash Soup

 Very tasty.

Recycling Lumber

Feeding Chickens Out of Dumpsters

This was just one day.

Redesigned Cold Frames

New design is way more passive-solar. Up against the footings of the house the sun's energy is much better utilized.

Look Out Future Generations of Garden Pests!

 This pregnant Praying Mantis had been hanging around our front door for a few days so we relocated her to the 3 Sisters garden area.

Eggs Are Delicious

 We have been eating eggs from our hens. Some days we get one egg and some days four. They are just starting to lay and once we take care of the two roosters things will mellow out a bit. 

More Canning and More Coldframes

 Did four more quarts of some nice yellow and red organic tomatoes. (all free by the way)

First Egg!

 Australorp egg is on the left and Ernie's Jersey Giant egg is on the right.

Canned Tomato Sauce

Strawbale Coldframe and Post-Frost Plant Fotos

 Kale seedlings from our seed growing under glass! We are going to try to grow food all winter!

Uh-Oh, Frost Comes To Town

 A light frost zapped most of the leaves on the squash plants, cucumbers, peppers. Whatever else was a bit sensitive. Not much production going on anyways. We have had some cool nights for a few months now so most of these plants get stunted from that. Plus the intense heat of the day and the dryness don't help much.

All In A Day's Work

This wood was cut, gathered, split (if needed) and stacked all today.

Hunkering Down For The Long Haul

 Our freezers are packed!

Woodshed Full

Five rows deep:

Fresh Hop Ale Bottling

 Hop Monster, fresh hop ale:

Canning Tomatoes

25 pounds of fruit makes roughly 18 pints. (3 - 3 1/2 lbs. per Qt.)

Know Your Farmers, Know Your Food

Wood Heat

 Split 'n' stack.

Hopi Blue Corn Harvest

 Hopi Blue Corn:

Homemade Dill Pickles

Pickling cucumbers chillin'

Thank You Rain

we got a nice, steady inch and a half of rain in the last 24 hours.

Firewood...

...heats  you twice so they say. But I think the guy who coined this one never really cut his/her own.

I say it heats you six times. Cutting, loading, splitting, stacking, bringing it inside and then when you burn it.

Fotos of What's Happening Here Now

current state of the compost bin:


logs with bucking stand:
 
 

Summer is Fading Fast.

some harvesting happening but mostly just busy. Cutting firewood, splitting and stacking. Getting ready for what The Old Farmer's Almanac is calling a dry, mild winter. Still want a pile of wood the size of the house. Making pickles tomorrow and canning tomatoes next week. three batches of homebrew done. Planting kale from our seed in a coldframe soon too. Many exciting things happening down on the Spotty Dog mini-farm. more soon. photos are hard to take when you are busy living life. we will try. this is an especially beautiful time of year in Northern New Mexico. Just feels like winter is creeping up on us and the wood pile needs to multiply. along with our pantry stock.

some recent fotos:

Sunflowers are pretty:

Putting Up Kale

Kale to be harvested:

Growing Food For Ourselves

harvest basket:

Chicken House

Back To Reality

We are back from our week-long Southwest Colorado Micro-Brewery Mini-Tour. We took hundreds of photos, slept right on a river and visited almost ten breweries. (that's an average of more than one a day!) The select photos can be seen here (high desert home garden's picassa web albums.)

Homebrew

two most recent batches of brew in the second stage of fermentation:

Brewed with all homegrown hops. In the past this would have gone up on The Homebrew Blog , but this just makes more sense.

Kale Makes a Comeback

Kale; bounced back from aphid infestation and looked like it was dying from the heat. Rained a bunch and cooled off a bit, and now the kale is looking better than ever.

Bloggity Blog Blog

Hopi Black Dye:

Even Hobby Farmers Need A Vacation

Garden After Some Rain:

Will Work For Food

Went to work up north today. Earned mostly credit for fruit. Spent most of my day getting ladders up trees to get the fruits weighing down the branches and in some cases snapping the branch/ trunk. Lots of pruning to be done, and thinning of fruit was never done so these trees are loaded. The benefit to not thinning is the variety of ripeness and sizes. Most commercial orchard operators will thin fruit in the spring so everything is uniform later for harvest. There is some good stuff going on in this great state agriculturally speaking and after being invited up to many many people's farms I have finally made the time to do so. Brought home 8 Lbs plums and 4 lbs white peaches.

Summer Time

dehydrating mini apricots from a friend's tree downtown:

thank you rain:

New Chicken Tractor

A side:

Garden Growth

3 Sisters:



Winter Squash:

Sunset

A Scrap of Shade...

...is all you need here in the high desert to cool off.



the chickens hang out under their shade structure in the late afternoon:

the australorp breed is black, so naturally they seek out any scrap of shade.

Garlic, Old & New

• Last season's old, dried garlic:

Pumping Rain Water

here is rain water being pumped from a barrel to a squash plant:

The Three Sisters

Monsoons

rained hard last night. the landscape in the desert changes with a single summer monsoon.

more rains to come in a few hours. sleeping in the camper tonight for the first time.

Rain on Chickens and Gardens

Three Sisters in today's rain: ...a nice steady drizzle.

Garlic Harvest

small crop this season, could be for a multitude of reasons...not too worried though. this should take care of our garlic needs for most of the year.