CANADIAN REGION - What are you doing October, November and December 2015

Scorpio, I always feel for the farmers and the market gardeners as they rely on Mother Nature for their living.  Of course, we rely on them so we are subject to the weather just as they are.

What I appreciate about being retired is that I can take advantage of any break in the weather to get something done. But it always gets me at the end of the season as I never get everything completed as planned and it has to be carried over to the following season.

I  have now returned from my walk with my dog, Jazz, and both sets of mountains, near and far, have snow on their tops.  I did get some more bags of leaves shredded, then I decided to mow my main  lawn as the grass is rather long and thick.  It was worth it, as I think that will be the last time this year.  Now for a nice, lazy evening.

Nice, your dog is so cute! My oldest (22) is just out of college and needed some medical maintenance appts today so we had lunch, and he hadn't seen Z (my dog) in a couple months, and commented on how much sturdier he had gotten. He is half Jack Russell and half black Lab, but most definitely a terrier attiude and temperament wise...

And yes, we are at the mercy of the whims of the weather... but it has been super dry here, so even though the guys wanted to finish the harvest, it was really needed (rain).

Wish I had the luxury of time....some day, good Lord willing and the creek don't rise....

For a moment there I thought your oldest dog was 22 and just out of college. . .

My dog is twelve and at the moment he badly needs grooming; appointment made for next Wednesday when he has his winter cut:  lots of hair on top, and his face, legs, feet and belly short so that the snow does not make snowballs on him. Then he gets to try on his now winter coat that a friend gave me.

Did I mention he is No.1 dog in our city?  That is the number on his dog tag.

Kelejan wrote:For a moment there I thought your oldest dog was 22 and just out of college. . .

My dog is twelve and at the moment he badly needs grooming; appointment made for next Wednesday when he has his winter cut:  lots of hair on top, and his face, legs, feet and belly short so that the snow does not make snowballs on him. Then he gets to try on his new winter coat that a friend gave me.

Did I mention he is No.1 dog in our city?  That is the number on his dog tag.

Haha!  Not quite!  Z is 6, my oldest kid is 22, he (kid) hadn't seen Z for a while and was amazed he was filling out!  

Your dog looks like #1 for sure!

Sliding into November now.  My lovely display of nasturtiums has succumbed to the first frost and is now a heap of pathetic shriveled leaves and flowers. No more colour in the garden except for the remaining fall leaves.

Now we have a few days of rather depressing rain where leaf raking and shredding has come to a halt. Snow on the distant mountains and snow in the mountain passes. Time for winter tires on vehicles.

Still one bear around trying to fatten up for the winter.  He will be around until the temperature drops.

Finally reached the point where we have fewer than ten hours of daylight during the day.  It will be another four months until we climb back to where we are now.

I think I will look into to getting a sun lamp so that I won't suffer from SAD. I don't actually suffer from that, but I do like a nice bright light sometimes to cheer me a little.

Hope Hallowe'en went well for everyone, and no accidents with fireworks etc. and all your animals are safe.

Now to cope with this one hour time change.  We have a  petition in B.C. to do away with it.

Here, we are getting a little run of good weather, and despite the fact that we have had a freeze or 2, it has warmed up in the meantime, so I will get out therre and pick some of the remaining Swiss chard, and plant my garlic!

I have a harder time with the Spring Forward than the Fall Back....but it always does mess with my internal clock.

Nothing much happening in my neck of the woods. 

Got my flu shot yesterday for the first time in 15 years.  If I get flu then I am never going to get another flu shot.  The last time I got flu, I had had a flu shot.

My garlic is showing above the soil now. They are covered with several inches of shredded leaves.  I hope they are putting down good root systems.

I been been waiting a few days for the furnace man to come and get my furnace working. He came last night and fixed it.  Luckily it was not the furnace but the Condensate Pump, if anyone else understand what that is.  Had to go out and buy get a new pump; the total cost was affordable, thank goodness.

A funeral service to attend to tomorrow.  Ida, whom I have known all the time I have been in Canada, since 1980.  I am the only one left of our foursome. My husband went to the same school in England as Ida's husband.

I would appreciate a few hugs.

kelejan ... here is a hug coming you way. I pray you will have many fond memories of your friend.

I did not get a flu shot yet.  But last weekend I started to get a really bad sore throat. By Monday I was bed ridden.  I've still got a bit of a sore throat and a cough. I'm hoping the cough does not turn into bronchitis which would stay with me for months.

Today was beautiful here in Ottawa with sunny skies and temperature of 21 C (70F). I managed to get out and chop up leaves with the lawn mower.  I've also covered both my SFG boxes with leaves to protect what is still in them for overwintering.

Like you, we had furnace people in over the past couple of weeks. In fact we got a new furnace and a/c installed. The price has broken my bank account!  Having said that we have another project underway. We have someone replacing the concrete steps and porch at the front entrance.  Not sure if we have made the right decision but we are replacing it with composite decking and making the porch are larger (like a mini deck).

BTW we did not have a condensate pump on our old furnace.  There was a pipe that went into a hole in the basement floor.  That is not allowed anymore so the new furnace has a condensate pump to take water from the furnace and a/c and pump into the sink in our laundry room. Just something else that can break down.

(((((hugs)))) comin' your way, kelejan. So sorry about your loss.

Here, too, unseasonably warm, but this is the last of it for us. Cold and wet on the way. How long did your garlic take to peek out? I just planted mine this past weekend....

Just walked Z, and he barked vigorously at every squirrel on the block! Lots of rodential activity out there!

Heating/cooling things can be so expensive!

Take care!

Thanks, td and scorpio.  Much appreciated.  I will feel happier once this weekend is over. Can't keep me down for too long.

KJ, Hugs from me, also. To lose a long time friend is heart breaking.

Thank you, sanderson,  nearly ready to leave, but first I have a birthday lunch to attend then hanging around for a couple of hours before the memorial service.  Not able to have enough time to go home  before it is time to go out again.  As I have to bus and walk, it is certainly harder than having the convenience of one's own transport.  As my friend died three weeks ago, I think it is easier for the family to have a good memorial service.

In my card I have put an insert  of a conversation we had, when Ida was a nurse in WWII and I was at a school nearby.  I think that will be something the family do not know.  In addition, my husband as at the same school when he was ten and Ids' husband was thirteen.  So that is another connection that the family may not know.

I also remember that my friends were quite elderly and they regretted that they had no grandchildren. then, withing a few years they had ten. and grea-tchildren, so they turned out to be a large family.  Very close knit.

Must go. a bus to catch. xx

All went well at the funeral of my friend and I did a lot of catch-up with her children:  they were most aprreciative of my small note.

Not much doing in my garden except shred more leaves and place them on some more beds.  At least I have tulips, daffodils and garlic to look forward to next spring.  The garlic are showing the tips of their leaves and so therefore putting down roots. they also are covered with extra leaves.

My choice now is, do I clear the old stuff or wait until the spring?  Snow/rain is forecast for Wednesday, and the days following, so I think that will be the last of my outside gardening.

I will bring in the worm bins and place in my laundry room where they will be snug for the winter and I can go and talk to them.   Need to give them one more harvesting and then they can live in peace until spring.  The worms in the compost heap will have to fend for themselves, that have a nice heap of leaves on them so they have plenty of room to move to the warm centre of the pile.

Another five or six weeks and the daylight will lengthen.

Kelejan wrote:All went well at the funeral of my friend and I did a lot of catch-up with her children:  they were most aprreciative of my small note.

I bet they were appreciative. Sometimes, children find out all kinds of little things about their parents from folks who attend the funeral/memorial. I think it helps.

My choice now is, do I clear the old stuff or wait until the spring?

if you mean old veggies, it's nice to pull them in the fall so it's easier to clean the beds in the spring. Sort of a running start.

Another five or six weeks and the daylight will lengthen.

Now that's optimism!

Kelejan ... I'm glad you were able to spend time with your friend's children. I'm sure what you said in person and in the note was an encouragement to them.

My SFG boxes have been put to bed for the winter. Now I'm trying to catch up on other things that I should have done when the weather was better.  I need to check on my garlic to see if there is any sign of growth.

Kelejan, glad you were able to connect with Ida's kids. Only my chard remains, but we had 2 nights of freezing so maybe it too is done for!

Kelejan, I'm sorry I missed this post earlier.  We were out of town...

I'm so sorry for the loss of your friend.  Sending warm hugs your way....

Yesterday I cleaned up our goldfish pond. The roots of the water lilies and other pond plants were massive. I trimmed off the tops and the roots and put the containers back in the bottom of the pond for wintering over. The plant parts that were cut off were distributed evenly between the two compost bins. Each Spring we stock the pond with a few small feeder goldfish which eat the mosquito larvae. I used to take the fish out in the Fall and keep them indoors in a big aquarium. We no longer have the aquarium so the fish stay in the pond. Although the pond is not very deep and probably freezes to or near to the bottom, sometimes a few fish survive over the winter. I keep the filter pump running until the little waterfall begins to freeze up, usually by mid December. Some years in the Spring and Summer we are visited by herons who like to take the fish. It's a strange sight to see one of these big birds in our relatively small backyard.

Sanderso, trolleydriver, Atlanta Marie and Scorpio Rising, thank you for the virtual hugs in the loss of a long-time friend, they are very much appreciated.

Well, winter has arrived here in The Southern Interior of B.C., or should I say, the valley floor where our small town is situated. For several days the TV has been showing the passes through the mountains of our Province, but as I seldom travel out of my neighbourhood, I was able to ignore them.

I was so happy to be able to spend about four hours in my garden on Tuesday, working like mad to spread the rest of the shredded leaves on the remaining beds and also on the slope that faces the road also had several inches laid down, hopefully to decompose and work their way through the wood chips over the winter. Clearing up the empty bags and cleaning the good one and trashing the torn ones. Then piling up the remaining bags containing leaves and putting the contents of many on the four x four wood compost bin and leaving some so that they can stay dry and I can shred them in the spring

I also cleared my three worm bins and collected quite a few pounds of worm castings. I will now sift the castings to get any worms remaining and put them in the one bin that I will have indoors in my utility room until spring.  Most of the worms were place in the centre of my leaf pile, along with a good supply of other food so that they can burrow down in the centre and survive the winter until spring when I turn the pile.  This past spring I was very happy with the result of the previous winter, having a lovely supply of dark compost and a healthy population of worms to add to this years compost.

The hours spent in the garden really rejuvenated my mood as I was feeling a bit low, hence the request for a hug or two.   I also realized that was the last day that I would be able to spend in the gardening like that until next spring.

I still have to clear up my car port as so much gardening stuff has migrated there instead of the garden shed at the back of the house. My tools need to be wire-brushed and oiled so that they do not rust, and a wish list made of tools I would like. I make a list in order of preference, and as time goes by, the list changes according to the desirability of each item. Earlier on, top of my list was a pull trolley for collecting leaves; that will now drop lower in the list as the need passed for it this year. I was waiting for it to go on sale in Canadian Tire but it never turned up in their flyers. I had the money for it all ready, but I am careful in my spending as one never knows what turns up without warning; e.g. my furnace going down. It could have been a huge bill instead was affordable and I was able to pay for that without using my L.O.C. and paying interest.Top of my list at the moment is a two shelf two-foot wide grow light to put in the corner of my living room. The sooner the better for this.  I saw the one I liked in "Veseys" (a Canadian firm) catalog last year and I am hoping it will come on sale again.

The following day I attended the Remembrance Service and was lucky that the fore-casted snow held off for another day, but I did not have time to do any further outside work in the garden.  So that is really it for now, except for indoor AreoGarden stuff, and micro-greens etc. Naturally we have our neighbours to the south of us and hope they will post many pictures of flowers and veggies so that we can admire them.

Then of course, the seed catalogs to look forward to, and the Internet to while away the time.

I calculate that we have forty more days to THE WINTER SOLSTICE, the first day of Winter.  I always find it odd that by the time Winter starts officially, am looking forward to Spring.

KJ, That was a wonderful description of gardening in the north. You have gotten a lot done in putting everything the bed.

Almost finished preparing the one Wiggler Hilton I am keeping indoors during the winter.  I sifted the three bins, then transferred the worms  plus new bedding and food.  I had neglected the poor worms a little as there were quite skinny, but they are very forgiving and I am sure in a little while they will be nice and plump with food and moisture.  This is when I realize that worms will act in accordance with the conditions and will not overfill the bin. Would that humanity would do the same.

I only need to shred some newspaper and place it on the top of the bedding, food and worms and they are all set for a nice cozy winter being pampered while their relatives are having to cope with the outdoor compost pile.  Then the rest of the carport needs tidying up but not in the mood to do it now as I am beginning to feel cold.  Tomorrow will be OK as it is all under cover.

Someone sent me this on Facebook. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/apple-river-trees-forest-breathe-1.3311026

Cool video.

Mrs TD and I lived in Nova Scotia for almost 6 years in the 1970s. In fact both of our children were born there. We bought a house in a new suburban development and in an area that had been a black spruce forest. The builder left the trees in the backyard up to about ten feet from the house.  Every time the wind got up we would lose a tree at the edge of the clump.  So we decided to take them all down before they damaged the house.  The soil was very thin and the tree roots rested on top of a layer of rocks. There was no depth to the roots.  The trees held one another up and those on the outside edges had no neighbor to support them so they were easily blown over.

If I was the guy who took that video I would not have stayed around too long. He could have been badly injured if one of those trees had fallen over.

sanderson:

Some of the comments were rather funny, bordering on the sublime.

After typing the word,  sublime, I looked up the dictionary definition.  After a string of meanings, I came across the one that I wanted: mind-boggling.

The first part of my land is about 100ft x 100ft. It then goes up at about a 40 degree angle for the next 400 feet.  It is covered by weedy looking birch and conifers with few of them more than six inches in diameter. Always, by spring time, there are dozens of them down due to the loose rock and the shallow soil.  I have sometimes wondered what I can do to improve things.  Too big a job for me to terrace it as it would need retaining walls.

Wow, freaky! I almost got killed by a dead ash tree falling in the woods one windy winter day.